PlanPhilly: Planning Philadelphia's Future

As this statue, located on Kelly Drive north of Boathouse Row, declares, the laborer "wrought miracles." A little less miraculous but still pretty nice is a three-day weekend. Have a great one!

The Rodin Museum is undergoing extensive exterior repair and restoration work, including structural fixes for its roof and facade as well as a good scrubbing. With the Barnes going up the next block over, this section of the Parkway now looks like one big construction site. The Thinker must be a little dismayed. GMAP

The attractive, long-empty building on Manayunk's Main Street that once housed a Banana Republic is finally getting a new tenant, Greene Street Consignment Shop. The store already has five other locations in not-too-shabby places such as Bryn Mawr, Princeton and Lambertville. This is a good start for reducing the number of empty storefronts on Main. GMAP

It might be a good idea to buy that SEPTA pass. PhillyInc reports that Philadelphia is in the bottom 10 of Allstate's list of the cities with the safest drivers. They studied 193 cities, and we came in 187. That's right, people. You've gotta start watching the road and keeping both hands on the wheel, okay?
Philadelphia Remains Low on Allstate's List of Safe-Driving Cities [Philly Inc.]
Photo by deepthirteen

See that little note at the bottom of the receipt? It announces that Garces Trading Company will start taking reservations beginning Sept. 10. Better pick up the phone right now! GMAP

Loud bar. Angry neighbor. Rounding out the scenario: community meetings, police interventions, empty beer bottles, decibel readings. This familiar story, as reported by the Philadelphia Weekly, pretty much writes itself. But in this case, there are a few noteworthy elements. First, it takes place in Francisville — well, the edge of Francisville, on Broad north of Brown. While there's been plenty of housing-construction activity lately in the area, the continuing lament there is the need for more commercial activity. Which is probably why, in the PW story, the president of the Francisville Neighborhood Development Corporation defends the loud bar/restaurant, an establishment called Cobre. Second, the angry neighbor, Jim Stix, is particularly good in his role. He has video cameras trained on his apartment building's steps! And it's worth going to the PW article and scrolling down because Stix himself has written a half-dozen comments, where you can find him explaining that he's taken the high road: "I have not thrown water out of my window next to people who refuse to move from the stairs for 8 months now, after promising my landlord that it would stop." GMAP
Pissing Match [Philadelphia Weekly]

Two More Women Say PHA Director Carl Greene Harassed Them [Inquirer]
SugarHouse Adds Finishing Touches Before Opening Sept. 23 [Inquirer]
Family Court Development Issue Going to Mediator [Inquirer]
Philly's 2nd Annual Naked Bike Ride Set for Sunday [Inquirer]
CHOP to Build Karabots Pediatric Center in West Philadelphia [Business Journal]
Phila. Live Arts, Philly Fringe Fest Begins [KYW]
Photo by PreOne Philly.

It is not faint praise to say that the most striking aspect of the interior of the soon-to-open SugarHouse Casino is the spectacularly inventive use of the exceedingly tight 45,000 square feet.

It is not faint praise to say that the most striking aspect of the interior of the soon-to-open SugarHouse Casino is the spectacularly inventive use of the exceedingly tight 45,000 square feet.

Porn films are everywhere these days. On the Internet. On television screens. In hotel rooms. At bachelor parties. (And probably at bachelorette events, too.) The one place you don't expect to find hard-core flicks anymore is at a movie theater, especially one in a blossoming Center City residential district.

This is the building that marked a turning point in 20th-century architecture? Its walls are made from concrete block the color of wet cardboard, and the mortar that holds them together seems to have been squeezed straight from a tube. You won't see a single window when you arrive at the Trenton Bath House, never mind a conventional front door.

Everyone knows that falling in love with real estate is dangerous. So keep your fingers crossed: Gov. Rendell remains committed to acquiring a parking lot at 15th and Arch Streets for a new Family Court, despite the bad smells that continue to waft from the property.

The 1976 Bicentennial is generally regarded as a big bust for Philadelphia. The hoped-for crowds never arrived, scared off by an outbreak of Legionnaires' disease early in the summer. Having invested heavily in architectural attractions, the city found itself stuck with a collection of history-themed white elephants.

Just when it seemed that the cliff wall of the fast-rising Convention Center addition would define North Broad Street's new image, along comes the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts with a plan for a cozy, yet ambitious, plaza that promises to serve as the escape route from that overbearing government enterprise.

In a narrow alley, just steps from Market Street's luxurious Loews Hotel, stands a nearly windowless building that is Philadelphia's own house of misery. The official name is Domestic Relations Court, and it is the broken heart of the city's Family Court system.

West Philadelphia's big institutions worked for decades to cleanse their streets of any trace of indigenous urban life - and they very nearly succeeded. Along Market, Chestnut, and Walnut Streets, block after block fell to a generic, corporate style of architecture that favored block-long facades, daunting setbacks, and inscrutable, windowless walls. It was a scary place, indeed.

The Benjamin Franklin Parkway was run through Philadelphia's immutable grid a century ago, yet it often feels as if the city is only beginning to reap the benefits of that bold civic project. But clearly the pace of change has quickened since the Barnes Foundation broke ground on the boulevard this spring.

Philadelphia architects will have an outsize presence this year at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Awards, having taken the top prizes in both the architecture and landscape design categories.