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3 April 08: Chopper over '88
 On a sunny September day in 1988, some employees of a Philadelphia engineering firm set out in a helicopter for some aerial photographs of possible new sites for a city heliport. Forgotten for nearly two decades, the pictures have now resurfaced and date the progress of the Philly Skyline from the dawn of the skyscraper boom of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Prior to the completion of Helmut Jahn's One Liberty Place in 1987, city buildings were famously limited, per the gentleman's agreement (which is to say not forbidden by law), to a height no higher than the brim of William Penn's hat atop City Hall, or 548'. Once this taboo was shattered by Willard Rouse's ambition, Philadelphia ushered in a new era of breathtakingly tall office buildings. Gone were the days of highrises that resembled air conditioning units. One Liberty Place is shown as the dominant king of the sky, minus its shorter sibling. Little did it know it would be surpassed just 20 years later by the 975' Comcast Center. Speaking of missing siblings, One Commerce Square is seen here without its identical counterpart. The G. Fred DiBona Jr. Building (built as the Blue Cross Building) is shown under construction and was itself to be paired with a twin which never happened. Other obvious omissions are from the current building craze that has given the city the aforementioned Comcast Center, the crystalline Cira Centre, the St. James, and others. So take a step back into a skyline past courtesy of Joanne Reider, and the crew at McCormick Taylor in Philadelphia, with these 11 aerials circa-1988. LAUNCH PHOTOS. –Joe Minardi |
