Dead-Ass Proposal of the Week-- October 27th

Curtis Temple of Learning

1800 North Broad Street

That's a big temple.

                            Holy shit, this motherfucker would have been really cool to have around. North Philly would be a totally different place with this 350-foot beast looming over it. Really, this building would go unrivaled in North Philly to this day. It would be a well-known landmark.
                            In 1927, Temple University was expanding its enrollment very rapidly. The school's new president, Charles Beury, was intent on building up Temple into a super-massive mega-school. Under Beury's direction, the campus expanded and built a number of new buildings. Beury's ultimate goal was to build a super-massive collegiate tower that could compete with the University of Pittsburgh's then-new 535-foot Cathedral of Learning. To make sure everyone knew that it would be a complete knock-off, he named his tower the Temple of Learning.
                          The Temple of Learning would be a five-building complex that would come to fruition into a 34-storey beacon of education that would kick the shit out of any college building, anywhere (except for the Cathedral of Learning). Beury wanted to name it after Shogun of Printing Cyrus H. K. Curtis, who had been donating endless amounts of his scrilla to the school ever since Beury took office. This beast wasn't just tall, it was wide. 400 feet wide North-to-South and 150 feet East-to-West. 
                          The building would be built in five phases...Phase One was a one-storey addition to the pre-existing Conwell Hall. Phase Two was started in 1928 and was open for learning on February 15, 1929. I assume Phases 3, 4, and 5 would be the tower and the other two pieces, but the Great Depression reared its ugly head after that and the rest never happened.
                          Too bad this bitch-bastard never got built. It's over 220 feet taller than any current building on the University's Main Campus. Wachman Hall, the current tallest at Temple, is only 131 feet. Luckily, it won't be the tallest much longer. Temple's newest residence hall is currently under construction, set to be the tallest building in North Philadelphia. Even so, its still slated to be slightly shorter than the Temple of Learning would have been. Bummer.

New Temple highrise "Gateway South". What a goofy name. Call it Assinthrope Hall or something cool like that.