Dead-Ass Proposal of the Week-- October 13th

The Unknot Tower

1122 Chestnut Street

Well its different, I'll give it that.

                     This is a proposal that probably had almost no chance at the get-go but would have been somewhat cool if it actually managed to happen. This is the Unknot Tower, a silly-looking but kind of interesting thingamajig that was proposed for a location that could use such a building... the 1100 block of Chestnut. I can't argue with the placement. That stretch has had some really bad luck for the past few decades.
                    This was proposed by Gagandeep Lakhma's CREI, the sorry-ass developer that went out of business when their crappily built American Lofts project went into the shitter. Funny, I grew up with a kid named Gagandeep... I used to call him Golden Shit (hey, I was 8). Anyway, this proposal came along in March of 2008, when like 9000 proposals for cool-ass highrises and skyscrapers were flooding the Philly interwebz community.
                    I admit, I was one of the suckers that got excited about this thing. A 23-storey triangular building stuffed into this little double-lot on the crappiest part of Chestnut? Score!! Part of my excitement was that I would be able to watch this beast be constructed from my house, a pleasure I did not get until the top of the Residences at the Ritz was built.
                   I nearly creamed myself the day I saw Zoning Notices on the shitty buildings that needed to be demolished for this thing to happen. I actually became convinced that I would see this crazy motherfucker go up! It was like a dream! Ends up it WAS just a dream. I'll give some props to the architect, Winka Dubbeldam (?!?!??), for coming up with an idea that isn't another bunch of colored boxes with asymmetrical uneven windows like every other proposal that seems to be coming down the line.
                Right now, the rear of the two buildings that would have been demolished for the Unknot is covered with scaffolding... anyone know what's going on there? Hopefully some millionaire developer with kryptonite balls will find Winka's design and make it happen.

It wasn't just crazy from the outside.