Butt Fugly Building of the Week-- October 18th

Penn Mutual Tower Addition II

530 Walnut Street

Ugh.

                      Ah jeez, another building made of sidewalk. So they took not one, but TWO cool-looking old buildings and fucked them over with this glass-walled concrete monstrosity. What's worse is that this fuckbucket is across the street from Independence Hall, so this is some of the first Philadelphia architecture seen by people all over the world. That's a shame, right there.
                    The Penn Mutual complex is actually an interesting melange of architectural styles from different periods. There's a 1913-built section, 1931-built section, and then this 1976 cemento-castle with an 1835 facadectomied John Haviland Egyptian Revival. It started in the late 1960's. Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company wanted to throw yet another addition on to their multi-building, but wanted to save the ancient 1835 Pennsylvania Fire Insurance Company building that still survived on the same block.
                   In 1970 they found the Great Satans of Philadelphia, Mitchell and Giurgola, and asked them to complete the physical challenge. These two dumbshits came up with a building that would connect the old John Haviland building's facade with the other Penn Mutual Tower using a humongous mishmash of window and sidewalk, looking like a giant Monolith of Turd-Colored Asscheese.

They made the rendering look sleek so the Penn Mutual guys would be fooled.

They did the same thing with the model. Made it look like it wasn't made of sidewalk.

                    People lost their shit when they saw those renders. They thought this thing was going to be some kind of futuristic Tron-type building design with the Haviland facade incorporated. As the building started to be constructed in the early 70's, it became obvious that this piece of shit was just gonna be another Mitchell Giurgola concrete jumble of garbage.

Under confucktion.

                       Once it was complete, it was hailed as an amazing piece of modern architecture. People thought the retention of the old Pennsylvania Fire Insurance facade was ingenious...the place even had an observation deck from which the Independence Historical Grass Lot Collection could be viewed! Little did they know that the concrete would quickly brown-up and crumble.

Penn Mutual Observation deck. It and its accompanying exhibit hall closed in 1983.

Check this shit out.

                     Of course, like most butt-fugly buildings, this piece of shit got a shitload of design awards. Despite that, Penn Mutual said "fuck it" to this building and moved over to Horsham, PA. The building now just houses offices from a shitload of different companies along with a whole lot of air... much of the building is vacant.
                     What a shame. There was a chance to put a cool-looking building here that would fit in with the older additions and blend with the Haviland design. Too bad they handed the project over to the Great Satans. What a bummer.

Watch the 1911 World Series at Shibe Park!

                    Johnny Goodtimes over at Philly Sports History is reporting on the 1911 World Series this week, exactly one century after the fact! Like most of us, he's disappointed in the Chokies' cruddy playoff appearance and is giving us the World Series we were supposed to have, but between the Philadelphia A's and the New York Giants! Go check it the fuck out!

Old-Ass Building of the Week-- October 17th

The Philadelphia History Museum at the Atwater Kent (a.k.a. Atwater Kent Museum a.k.a. Franklin Institute I)

15 South 7th Street

It's a lot older than it looks.

                    This little grey motherfucker has managed to continue kicking ass and taking names for 186 years without a single complaint. This lil beast makes the rest of 7th street look like the hairiest part of my ass. It makes it easy to believe that Philadelphia was once known as the "Athens of America".
                    In the early 1820's, Philadelphia was well into its mission to be the most badass city in the world. One thing the city (and country) was missing was an official science/invention/research/education organization. London had one going since 1799, and Philadelphians weren't gonna let some tea-sipping shitbirds be more advanced. On February 5th, 1824, chemist/geologist William Keating and ironmonger Samuel V. Merrick founded the The Franklin Institute of the State of Pennsylvania for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts and ran it out of Carpenter's Hall.
                   The early Franklin Institute held classes in various fields and held a collection of books. The place became so popular that they couldn't handle the demand with such a small space, so they moved to some building that was at 4th and Arch. Megacommander of Architectural Ass-kick John Haviland taught architectural drawing at the institute, and the founders hit him up for a design for a grand new building from which to conduct higher order levels of badassery.
                   John Haviland was obsessed with Ancient Greece and was convinced that Greek Revival was the ultimate form of architecture. Literally. He thought Greek Revival was as far as architecture should ever and would ever go. This man also believed that Greek Revival should have an urban twist, not be literal rebuilds of ancient shit. He designed a squared-up Greek temple that could never go out of style. And it hasn't.

The Franklin Institute in 1895, 70 years after construction.

                    The cornerstone was laid with a full-dress Masonic ritual on June 8th, 1825. The Institute moved in around 1827 and liked it so much that they stuck around for 107 years. As awesome as his design was, Haviland wasn't too happy with it. He wanted to embellish it with more decoration that included a big-ass statue of Ben Franklin that would stand on top of the building like a Greek god, but the Institute told him to tone it the fuck down.
                   The Franklin Institute only used a portion of the building and became the most prestigious science and technology center in the United States. Inventors from all over the world would visit to present their new shit. After only three years, the Institute got large enough to kick out the federal court that was using the second floor. Once fully occupied, the place featured a 300-seat lecture room, multiple laboratories, a humongous library, and a School of Mechanic Arts.
                   The building stayed in continuous use for generations. In 1897 an addition was tacked on, but was removed so quickly that no source seems to know when it happened. In 1934, the Franklin Institute ditched this awesome building and moved into their new Science Museum on the then-new Parkway. This Imperial Fortress of Facefucks sat empty for years and, due to being 110+ years old, was falling apart.

This photo is labeled 1960 but I have reason to believe it's from the 1910's.

                     In the mid 1930's, a shitload of Philaphiles wanted to turn the Old Franklin, as it came to be known, into a Philadelphia History Museum, but none of them could afford to buy and rehab the building. They all went to the wealthiest Philaphile they could find, Shogun of Radio Atwater Kent, and begged him to get this thing going. Kent had just paid for the rehab of the Betsy Ross House and was like, "Ok motherfuckers, I'll throw down the dough... on three conditions: 1) It will always be a Philadelphia history museum, 2) It will have free admission, and 3) Name it after me, forever!".
                  Kent bought the place in 1938, donated it to the city, and after three years of Works Progress Administration renovations plus $171,000, the completed museum opened in 1941. Philaphiles from far and wide donated artifacts for display. The museum's collection grew to be gigantic and had to be stored off-site. Unfortunately, financial and administrative turmoil gripped the place for its entire history.

As the Atwater Kent Museum in 1956.

                  Even more unfortunately, in recent decades, the place became kind of lame. Despite having a super-gigantic collection of 80,000 Philadelphia-related artifacts, the museum displayed like three things plus some goofy shit like a huge map of the city and a room full of reprints of Saturday Evening Post covers as their main attractions. In 1994, the museum broke one of Kent's rules and started charging admission.
                Finally, in 2009, the museum closed for renovations and stated that it would reopen as the Philadelphia History Museum at the Atwater Kent, since many modern Philaphiles have no idea who the fuck Atwater Kent was. The original grand reopening was set for March 2011, but has been pushed back to Spring 2012. This means it will probably be ready in June 2015. The museum paid a shitload of money to some bullshit re-branding consultant firm to re-imagine the museum and make it more popular. This was the best logo they could come up with:

Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame.

                  It's supposed to represent the street grid. I hope Thomas Holme's ghost finds whoever designed this shit and fucks him/her in the ear with his big swinging ghost-dick. I conceived and rendered a superior logo with a Sharpie in four minutes:

See?

                       I hope that when it reopens, the Philadelphia History Museum actually starts displaying all the cool shit they've been hanging onto for decades. Since most modern museums seem to be targeted toward preschoolers, I'm highly doubtful that they will.
                     If I were in charge, I'd go balls to the walls with this thing. I would display every beer can and bottle from every brewery Philly has ever had, a set of artifacts from every neighborhood, a product from every old factory, models of all the coolest lost buildings, an exhibit of all the different urban revitalization plans over the years, a diagram of showing the growth of the street grid, shit about the different indian tribes from the region, models of all the different kinds of rowhouses, a timeline of city government corruption, an exhibit of all the Philadelphia Firsts, the actual paintings that were Saturday Evening Post covers instead of reprints, a Mummers section that's better than the Mummers Museum, Moses King's books/photos, Frank G. Taylor's books/drawings/photos, to name a few. You don't need some garbage brand consulting firm con-artists to tell you that. You need a Philaphile.

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.

Lost Bridge of the Week-- October 12th

South Street Bridge I

Crossing the Schuylkill at South Street

 

                This was the first South Street Bridge. A wrought iron cage with a rotating draw-section in the middle, all supported by iron cylinders filled with masonry. Though it doesn't look like much today,  the scandal and saga associated with this bridge being built makes the controversy over the new South Street Bridge seem like child's play. All the bitching and moaning people did about the new one is nothing compared to the crap that went on about this beast.

                    In the late 1860's, the need for yet another bridge over the Schuylkill arose. Say you wanted to go to the Blockley Almshouse from Center City. You would have to haul your ass up to Walnut Street, wait in a long line of horse carriages and shit, cross over, then trudge your ass down some unsidewalked mud and horseshit filled road over to the almshouse. A bridge at South Street would make that trip a lot quicker.

                 A bridge in this spot presented some challenges. Not only do you need to cross a river, you also need to cross over a shitload of train tracks that were laid on either side of it. The full length of the bridge would have to be 1,934 feet and seven inches. Back then, that might as well be 5,000 miles. On top of that, an assload of huge ships would come down the Schuylkill all the time... you either had to make the bridge really tall or put a draw-section into it.

                 Mega-badass engineer John W. Murphy took on the physical challenge. He had already made a career of designing all kinds of bridges over seemingly impossible areas, and conveniently, he lived in Philadelphia. This guy worshiped iron and knew everything about it. He was commissioned by the city on March 30th, 1870 and construction began in 1872. 

                 His design was the shit. For the piers, he stacked a bunch of 10 foot long and eight foot wide cylinders on top of each other. Each small section weighed 14,600 pounds. Then he filled them all with a shitload of rocks and brick. This would have no problem holding up the comparatively light bridge deck. Then he put a gigantic pier in the middle that was capable of rotating while holding up to 400 tons. This was how ships would get by. The pivoting pier bumped the budget up to $865,000. Series of stone arches held the bridge up over the train tracks on either side.

                  Having a an experienced engineer on the job had advantages and disadvantages. The advantage was that this guy was able to design this complicated-ass iron monstrosity and pivoting draw bridge with his eyes closed. The disadvantage was that this guy was old as fuck. He ended up dying while the bridge was being built in 1874. This is when all the drama began. 

                The Phoenix Iron Company, the contractor supplying all the iron (actually they were just melting down old army cannons and reforming them), had made an agreement with Murphy to be paid for their iron as it was delivered, instead of taking a lump sum of cash from the beginning. Murphy had even gotten a letter from the City Controller authorizing the deal. After Murphy died, the city government, in their traditional corruptness, denied any such deal took place and refused to pay for any more iron. Phoenix therefore stopped delivering iron and the bridge sat half-built for years. 

                The lawsuit filed against the city by Phoenix ended up going all the way to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court basically laughed at our corrupt-ass city government and awarded Phoenix their damn money, which the city had been conveniently hiding in a secret account. The Bridge's construction continued and was finally completed in 1876.

                  Shortly after construction, other problems arose. The iron piers started to crack up and had to be repaired with iron band-aids. On February 10th, 1878, the stone arches of the western approach, the section that went over train tracks, came crashing down. It was replaced by a wooden approach until an iron skeleton-built approach was constructed in December 1885. The crappily-constructed bridge lasted until 1921, only staying in operation for 45 years. 

The bridge in the last year of its life, with iron western approach replacement.

                This bridge, despite its many setbacks, is a lot better looking than the crappy highway overpass that is the new South Street Bridge. Not that this bridge would have been very useful today... it wasn't very wide... but at least someone was thinking about some style points for small bridges back then. A few bridges from this one's era still survive and are full of modern vehicular traffic... the Calhoun Street Bridge in Trenton is even built of iron from the same iron company.

Butt-Fugly Public Art of the Week-- October 11th

cirque, CIRQUE by Judy Pfaff

Inside the old Reading Terminal train shed

Piss Christ, what the fuck were they thinking? Pic by fermicat.

                       This giant intestinal tapeworm really chafes my anus. It's called Percent for Art, not Percent for Shit. You're gonna take a great work of art like the Reading Terminal train shed, the last surviving one of its kind, and muddle it up with this mess? This $400,000 mess?
                       Back in 1992, the Great Wall of Pennsylvania a.k.a. the Pennsylvania Convention Center was still being planned. To satisfy its Percent for Art requirement, a search went out for artists that would enhance the super-massive interior space with public art. Instead of hitting up the 5 vigintillion great artists that already work and reside in Philadelphia, a call was put out to artists from everywhere but here, especially New York.
                      The lady in charge of finding artists liked the work of Judy Pfaff, so she specifically invited a submission from her for the largest piece of art of all, a work that would fill the 70,000 square foot Reading Terminal train shed. Pfaff was the only artist that was specifically targeted, and what a coincidence, they picked her proposal. Though it's not the first piece of art to have a stupid name, she gave it an especially disastrous one... cirque, CIRQUE. It's like someone's saying "cirque" and then yelling it at you.
                     This monstrosity was built over seven months in a barn in Putnam County, New York by Pfaff and six assistants, May-December 1994. They used/wasted 7 miles of steel and aluminum tubing, 150 gallons of auto paint, and 120 glass orbs bringing this thing to life.

Materials being wasted for the piece in 1994.

                    It was trucked in hundreds of pieces to Philadelphia just to wait in storage while the train shed was used for the movie Twelve Monkeys to stand in for the Philadelphia International Airport. Once installed in July of 1995, nobody noticed or gave a shit. The Convention Center had already been open for awhile and visitors just walked under it without a care in the world ever since.
                     A New York Times article written shortly after laments that Pfaff made "only" $40,000 on the piece and how the so-called Art World doesn't care about public art, therefore making the work was a waste of time. Elite snobs. I don't think that public art is ever a waste of time or money... many great pieces can be found in this city... I just lament this thing because it sucks.
                  Albert Paley also submitted an idea for the train shed. Anyone out there have a pic of it? I've always liked his shit... I bet it would have turned out better than this mess. Oh, and would it kill whoever plans shit like this to use a Philadelphia artist once in awhile? It's not like there's a shortage of 'em.

Mystery Building of the Week-- October 10th

Charles P. Mills & Son Photography

699 Ranstead Street

There it is.

                    Ok, so a lot of people have been complaining about how I shit on mid-century modern architecture... however, I don't hate all of it. Here's a building from the mid-20th that I actually like. It fits well on the street and does this cool shit where on one side you see none of the 7th Street-facing windows, then on the other side, bam! There they are!

Whoa!

                     The problem is, information about this building is lacking, and I mean information in the most basic sense. The architect... the construction date... the EVERYTHING! Its like this thing doesn't exist. I'll just have to tell you what I know about it.
                Charles P. Mills and Son Photography was a commercial photo processing company. They would develop and enhance pics that would be used in magazines, catalogs, advertisements, all kinds of shit. The business started in May of 1957 and was well-known in the industry until digital cameras came along and kicked the shit out of 'em. The company ended up folding on December 30th, 2004.
                 It's unknown if this building was constructed for this company or if they just moved into it. They operated out of a couple of different buildings until they moved into this one in 1966. All I know is that this building was part of one of the many redevelopment plans that have happened in this neighborhood.
                 The building has been for sale ever since the company moved out. The price was 3.2 Million dollars for the 15,024 sq. ft of space. The real estate listing brags about removing the height restriction for the space and even sneaks in a rendering of a building that you could build on the spot if you demolished this beast.

Just a suggestion, I guess.

                 This mystery has a silver lining. After 8 years sitting empty(save the Atwater Kent/Philadelphia History Museum's offices on the 4th floor), this cool-ass building finally has a new occupant. PhillyCAM, Philadelphia Community Access Media (Philly's Public Access Television Station), is opening a brand new media center inside the Mills Building on October 12th, two days from now.
                I'm glad that this building is going to be in use, but the mystery still remains... who's the architect, when was it built, and what the fuck?