Lost Bridge of the Week-- February 29th

Chestnut Street Bridge

Spanning the Schuylkill River at Chestnut Street

Could have called it Spiderman Bridge

                         And now... time to present a Wonder of the Motherfucking World, the Chestnut Street Bridge. This cast iron motherfucker was a point of pride for Philadelphians, Pennsylvanians, Americans... actually it was a point of pride for all humans. This Triumphant Truss of Terror was one of Phillly's greatest treasures that we'll NEVER get back.
                         This beast was so cool-looking that it gave reason for people to walk down the Schuylkill Banks before they ever had a trail or a highway running along them. The motherfucker took nine years of preparation and five years to build.
                         It all started in 1852. The only bridges across the Schuykill that were any damn good were at Market Street and Spring Garden Street. Every other one was either a shitbag pontoon bridge or some crappy covered bridge that would get washed away in any bad storm. The two real bridges were getting to be over-run with traffic. On March 27th of that year, and act passed stating that there should be bridges built at Callowhill and Chestnut Streets, the streets next to the current bridges, to alleviate some of that shitty traffic.
                        Enter all-around badass Strickland Kneass, the city's chief engineer. He came up with an idea for a bridge at Chestnut Street that would blow the fucking socks off any other in the WORLD. While people once loved the high-tech offerings of the Wire Bridge at Fairmount, its day was over. A new bridge would be needed to impress engineering ninjas everywhere. Once Kneass presented his plan in 1857 (after at least two more Acts demanding it were passed), people went apeshit over everything about it.. except for the cost. Half a million bones.
                         In the 1850's, half a million dollars was like saying a billion bajillion dollars today. After three years, some money was thrown in by local railroad interests so the thing could just get built already. Construction began in 1860.
                         Then, right as preparations for the construction began, the city's Master Warden, Charles S. Wayne, said "Fuck you, Kneass! This is my river!! You're not putting coffer dams in the middle of it, you dirty bastard!!", and sued the fuck out of the city. His case was dismissed the day it went to trial. Ends up that the Master Warden's jurisdiction ends at the shoreline. The dumbass Chief Warden almost stopped this project from ever happening. After five long years of construction, the bridge finally opened on June 23rd, 1866... and it wasn't even really done yet.
                

                    The huge arch-shaped ribs spanning halfway across the bridge came in sets of eight and were 185 feet long each. It was figured that the heaviest load that could ever cross the bridge would only have 1/28th the weight to break an individual rib. The cast iron flexed a whole 2 and 5/16th inches. You could roll a fucking tank over this thing! Also, this beautiful bridge (briefly) had a deck of square granite blocks that must have looked pretty fucking cool.
                    Once open, this became THE way across the Schuylkill.  Philadelphia's newest bridge became the envy of the world and was referred to as a great specimen of design and engineering. As the decades passed, the bridge stayed in continuous use with very little maintenance. In 1911, the approaches to be bridge were widened to support the shitload of people that were all about crossing this bridge, despite the fact that newer alternate bridges had been built up and down the river by this point.
                    In 1956, ninety years after the bridge opened, a proposal to take it down and replace it with a  FUCKING HIGHWAY OVERPASS-looking piece of dogshit was floated around. Ends up the western abutment was standing in the way of progress.

From this...

to THIS. What a travesty.

                 Kneass' beautiful Chestnut Street Bridge got its ass destroyed in 1958, replaced with the piece of shit that's still crumbling there today. The next time you cross the Chestnut Street Bridge and notice how boring it is and how shitty the condition its in, just remember that the same piers once held up a magnificent crossing that was hailed by the motherfucking world.

Look at that shit... and you can see this week's Mystery Building on the left!

Here's the bridge at age 89. Just a reminder of when shit looked good.

                      On another note, I must announce that this will be the last Lost Bridge article. Get set to see a new category coming to every other Wednesday here on Philaphilia! 

                                                          -GroJLart, King of Philadelphia and France

Dead-Ass Proposal of the Week-- February 28th

Kimpton-Monaco Hotel & Boyd Restoration

1910 Chestnut Street

This could have been cool.

                   Its a shame this one never got built. This cool-looking hotel tower wasn't just going to be a fancy hotel in a neighborhood sorely in need of new some new shit... this was also going to be a restoration of Center City's last surviving old time theater palace, the Boyd. Despite the appearance of being a go, circumstances got in the way and this proposal is now as dead as a dead dog's dick.
                   Read more  on the Philadelphia City Paper's Naked City Blog!!!

-GroJLart, King of Philadelphia and France

Mystery Building of the Week-- February 27th

Marketplace Design Center (aka Guaranty Industrial Building, a.k.a the Loft Building)

2400 Market Street

Here it is.

                         Known to most people as the Long Building with the Whales, the Marketplace Design Center appears to have popped up mysteriously in the early 20th Century and kept on truckin' despite numerous plans to take it down. Though most of its history is known, how it got to be there is still a mystery.
                         In 1915, the space along the Schuylkill River between Market and Chestnut Streets was an empty lot that was itching for development. At one point in time, a plan was floated for a Convention Hall that would not only fill the space but cover the Baltimore and Ohio railroad tracks that ran through. The old Furness-designed B & O station was just across the street on Chestnut.

Empty Lot of the Year, 1915. The old B & O Station is in the background.

If this was built, the Schuylkill River Trail would be much different today.

                   Needless to say, it never happened. The Convention Hall was built over by the UPenn Museum and was demolished in 2005 to make way for some HUP Shit. This is where the mystery begins. Some time between 1915 and 1922, the Marketplace Design Center building was built. The owners were J. E. Gomery and J. C. Schwartz, founders of the Gomery-Schwartz car company. The building's architect, name, and purpose are unknown, but it must be assumed that the building was used for the car company, since it was built with two-way ramps that went up to each super-reinforced floor.
                 In 1922, Gomery-Schwartz's corporation became known as the Guaranty Corporation, and the building finally got a verifiable name: The Guaranty Industrial Building. The Hudson-Essex car company did truck service and repair on the first, fourth, and fifth floors. They also got their name emblazoned on the building where the whales are now. The second floor was used as a showroom rental space, much the same purpose it has now, and the remaining floors were used by Gomery-Schwartz.
                Strangely enough, when the structure became the Guaranty Industrial Building, the articles that announce it make a point of saying that the architect and construction cost was unknown. So it was even a mystery back then!!! That shit's fucked up, yo.

Here it is in 1930.

                     Only eight years later, the Guaranty Industrial Building was being eyed up by the then Pennsylvania Railroad-owned B & O Railroad to be demolished to make way for their new Philly station. One fucking hell of a station.

A lot of people think that this is an alternate design for 30th Street Station. They are WRONG. However, B & O was owned by Pennsylvania Railroad at this point, so it was probably a non-starter.

                   Geez, talk about a Dead-Ass Proposal. That's one hell of a building. Obviously, it never happened. The building languished on for decades as crappy industrial space (called the Loft Building) until becoming the Marketplace Design Center, a rather unique use for this kind of building. Check out their website to see all the shit they do... to write it all here would make this article reach Sirius C.
                   The mystery remains... what year was it built? Who was the architect? and What the fuck!?!?!?!

Butt-Fugly Building of the Week-- February 23rd

1500 Locust

1500 Locust Street

This is the nicest angle of it, without the massive parking garage, and it still looks like fucktography. Image by legendary Philaphile Brad Maule.

                        Here's one of those buildings that reminds you how horrible the 1970's were to architecture. In almost any other decade (except the 50's or 60's), a luxury apartment highrise such as this one would have SOME measure of design to it... this motherfucker has none. It looks like a crappy factory building with smaller windows and less interesting details.
                       Not only that, but it probably has the most conspicuously shitty parking garage pedestal I've ever seen. An exposed concrete box that runs 13 stories up. That's farbage ba-garbage. The shittyness of this structure began in the early 70's. At the time, an attempt to bring more residents back to the city was in full effect.
                        The vast majority of the city's workforce lived in the burbs and feared the city. This shitbox was created to house that segment of the workforce who was sick of driving or taking the train to work everyday. The residential buildings that already existed at the time were outdated and obsolete. This place would be new and modern with amenities galore, serving the former burb-dwellers' every need.
                       An empty lot existed at the Southwest corner of 15th and Locust with one crappy small building on it. This would be the perfect spot for a new luxury apartment highrise, the tallest residential building ever constructed in the city at the time... 360 feet of fuck.

The lot and building 1500 Locust replaced as seen from 15th and Latimer in 1961.

                 The new building would be called 1500 Locust, after its address. Goddammit!! I hate buildings with huge parking garage pedestals and I REALLY hate when buildings are named their address. They couldn't figure out a fucking name for it? Is it really that hard? They could have called it the Boxitecture House or the Brick Bastard Apartments. How about Parking Garage Tower? The Locust Shitbird? Construction began in 1972 and was finished in 1973.

Under Confucktion. "Parking Garage is done, now let's start the building!" -Confucktion Worker.

                    The apartment was a huge success. Though shitty-looking, it enlivened a previously declining neighborhood and spawned a less butt-fugly little brother, Academy House. At least that one has a name. The two buildings together, along with the presence of the kick-ass Lewis Tower (now Aria), make 15th and Locust the most delightfully shady corner in the city. All those NIMBYs that whine about shadows all the time need to go to 15th and Locust on a hot summer day and feel how nice and cool it is. That'll learn 'em.
                 

When it was nearly complete in 1972. So boring.

Lost Building of the Week-- February 22nd

Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company

921 Chestnut Street

1899, when buildings were buildings. Pic from the PAB.

                         Now that's a cool office building. Its so fucking tough that it has a big-ass bell tower like its a cathedral. Its like they assumed that people would instantly start worshiping the structure, so it might as well have one. This is how you design a facade, modern motherfuckers.
                       It all began in June of 1888. At this point in time, Penn Mutual Life Insurance was kicking ass and taking names all over the place. They were smoking their many many competitors due to the fact that they provided equal life insurance coverage for women as men for the same price. A special committee was formed to plan a new headquarters building for the company.
                       Arguments went on for months over whether the new building should be exclusively for the company or be a larger building that could rent office space to other companies. Eventually, the latter plan was chosen and Supermegitect Theophilius P. Chandler was commissioned to design it. The building they were already occupying was in a great location for the time, so instead of buying a new plot of land, they would just demolished the fuck out of their old building and started constructing the new one. They moved out of the old building on February 22, 1889 and stayed in some temporary offices at 1008 Walnut Street.
                      A year and a half later, on Thanksgiving Day, 1890, the brand-new 10-story Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company building opened. It was such a kick-ass design that people barely noticed the awesome Willis G. Hale building next door. The 900 block of Chestnut became one of the most beautiful stretches of road in the whole city.
                     The building was considered high tech as fuck because it had a goddamn circuit breaker. It also claimed to have more electrical wiring than any other building in the city at the time. Penn Mutual rented out the offices that faced Chestnut Street and occupied a little five-story box in the back that faced Chant Street (now Ludlow).

The interior of the first floor. This Chandler guy didn't fuck around.

                    Other architects of the period didn't think this building was all that special. They thought the cool-ass tower was too thin and tall. They thought the upper floors of the facade didn't match the lower floors. They made a point of saying that the awesome marble facade did not look as good as the old building. What a bunch of jerks. Look at that fucking building! Its a booooomb!
                      Penn Mutual would only stay for 23 years until moving to a much larger building on Washington Square. From there on out, they wouldn't move again, just keep adding on to their 1913 structure until it was ultimately butt-fuglified in the 1970's. After Penn Mutual, Chandler's Kick-ass Cathedral of Roundhouse Taintpunches lived on with various tenants for another 19 years. Then, at only 42 years old, the building, along with the entire block of other kick-ass buildings, was unceremoniously demolished to make way for some nice-looking but unnecessary federal pork projects that still stand there today.

Kick-ass row of buildings, including the Penn Mutual, about to be demolished in 1932.

                   Demolishing this block was a fucking crime. Though the buildings that replaced it are neat, they pale in comparison to the shitfucktastic super-structures that once graced this stretch of Chestnut Street. We'll never get a bunch of nice buildings like these again. What a shame.

Empty Lot of the Week-- February 21st

Penn's Landing Lot of Doom

On the Delaware Waterfront between Market and Chestnut Streets

Philadelphia's mighty waterfront surface lot.

                 This shitbird empty lot is even more useless than everyone thinks. This piece of land isn't even supposed to be here, and, as if the fake land knows this, has the unlimited power to stop any project that gets proposed for it. Its a disaster of the triple-P variety, Piss Poor Planning.
                Read more later today at the Philadelphia City Paper's Naked City Blog!

Old-Ass Building of the Week-- February 20th

The St. James Apartment House (aka St. James Hotel, aka St. James House, aka Walnut Square Apartments)

201 South 13th Street

                  
                     They sure don't make 'em like this anymore. Look how beautiful this little building is, even after being mangled up by countless alterations and tarnished by neglect. This is the building that launched Horace Trumbauer into the highrise world. Once one of the most prominent buildings in the city, this masterpiece has fallen into obscurity.
                      Read more at Hidden City Philadelphia!!

GroJLart, King of Philadelphia and France