Update!!! -- September 19th

                   Hello, this is Robert Stack and you are now reading this in my voice. Since the inception of Philaphilia in April, 2011, quite has bit has changed in our fair city. Play this Youtube clip for the appropriate music:



Update! The Broad Street Shitjungle has been cleared a bit and now sports renderings of the upcoming Southstar Lofts. Build it!!

Update! The newest incarnation of Race Street 205 is getting tons of support despite NIMBY concerns. A new rendering is out there and zoning notices have been posted on the site. Build it!

Update! The crappy new 9/11 Memorial was dedicated on September 11th. Whoda thunk it?

Update! The shitty Bicentennial Bell Tower is one step closer to being destroyed... renderings showing the (crappy) design of the new American Revolution Center have been released.

Its kind of ok I guess.

Update! In case you've been under a rock for the last few months, the new Barnes Foundation museum is now open to the public. Go check out its kitchen countertop facade up close!

Update! Construction is about to begin at 3737 Market Street, eliminating one of the two University  City Science Center lots. Huzzah!

Yawn, but better than an empty lot.

Update! A new proposal has come along for the World Trade Square site, a crappy-looking and unlikely residential complex by the same "developer".

You know how they say "Never say never?" I'm saying "never".

Update! Another addition to the Fisher Translational Research Center/Roberts Proton Therapy Center is currently under construction. That was fast!!

Update! The Shitz Carlton Waldorf Awhoria Fail Lot will soon be no more!! A Philadelphia W Hotel is in the works for this spot and is now fully approved, with funding!!! Construction is to begin in the Spring. Huzzah! Build it!!

Update! The Deadly Disappontment Lot is gone! Construction continues on the disappointing-looking Home2Suites that will replace it. Huzzah!!

Update! The U.S. Customs House's facade is now restored and looking a helluva lot better!

Daaayyyummm

Update! The Great NIMBY Memorial is one step closer to disappearing. Toll Brothers is about to start building a crappy residential development. NIMBYs will probably kill it before it starts.


A bit lame.

Update! The G. Fred Diboner Lot now is the site of a new 20+ story residential building proposal by Brandywine. No renders yet, but at least there's hope for this shitbird of a lot.

There are still many unsolved Mystery Buildings that need your help. For every development, there's someone, somewhere, who knows the truth. Perhaps that someone is reading this. Perhaps... it's you. If you have any new or extra information relating to articles posted at Philaphilia, write to us at rhaandarite@gmail.com. You need not give your name.

Empty Lot of the Week-- September 18th

Jayne Estate Lot of Sorrow

Bounded by Columbus Boulevard, Vine Street, and Water Street

                   What a pathetic pile of shit. This particular piece of land has no excuse to be so empty. This thing was more occupied when it was half river. The past decade and some change marks the ONLY time this lot has been empty. Fucking horrible!!
                 Read more later today at the Philadelphia Citypaper's Naked City Blog!

RDA, you are a bunch of fucking morons.

1138 South 20th Street

                               In case you missed it in the news today or on Naked Philly, the Redevelopment Authority is coming after OCF's Ori Feibush because he cleaned up a shitty empty lot with FORTY TONS of trash on it. They are seriously coming after a dude who spent $20,000 cleaning up 20 years worth of neighborhood trash. Is this the fucking Bizarro World? From this:

RDA preferred configuration.

                       To this:

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!

                   The RDA is actually trying to sue Ori F. about this. At this point, what is he supposed to do? Find 40 tons of similar trash and re-dump it in the lot? Whoever is running things over at the RDA is fucking bananas. In the news article, Ori states that he's attempted to purchase the lot numerous times and has been rebuffed. Fucking corrupt assholes... I guess he was supposed to hand over unmarked envelopes of cash to a certain person or run through a carwash of giant penises in City Hall to get this done. Instead, threats of a lawsuit for cleaning it up.
                   This makes the city look horrible. How the fuck are we supposed to improve this place if the city government itself does everything it can to stand in the way? What a bunch of corrupt shiftless bastards. I guess Ori's not in the Kickback Corruption Superfriends Club that runs this city. Make sure to tell everyone you know about this and remember this shit when in that voting booth.

FUCK THE RDA!!!!

                   

Mystery Thing I Don't Know What to Call-- September 12th

Merion Avenue Thing

4900 Merion Ave

What the fuck is this?

               Since the railroad-related Lost Mystery Building of the Week last week made such a stir (go read the comments), I'm coming back with another mystery for the rail nerds out there... if this is, in fact, a rail-related structure... I really don't know.
                The Merion Avenue Thing looks like it might have been a bridge... but where's the rest of it? It doesn't appear on any old maps that I can find. From the top, the Thing looks like it might have an accidental green roof:

               So what in the fuck is it? Normally I'd have a more than a few sentences to tell you about something like this, but I can't find ANYTHING. Its like this bridge segment once existed in an alternate timeline and was brought here by some kind of Einstein-Rosen Bridge. My best guess, according to old aerial photos, is that a small line that came off one of the 600 freight lines that once ran parallel to Merion Ave leapfrogged over the northern property and terminated at the southern one, using that bridge to get there. The Chalfont Coal Co. had that spot for quite awhile.. maybe they were the ones that built this thing.
             That's just speculation... for all I know, it could be a bridge-shaped memorial in memory of a turkey sandwich. This shit is just fucked up. Whatever it was, no one ever seemed to have any motivation to demolish it.. and it doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Does anyone know? Anyone?

             

Dead-Ass Proposal of the Week-- September 11th

Gateway Center South

1001 South Broad Street

                   Broad and Washington--what a shitty corner. The largest set of empty lots near the city core, this pitiful corner is the subject of more Dead-Ass Proposals than any other. Here, we're gonna talk about the one that came the closest to happening-- a gigantic super-out-of-scale monster of a project that's probably better off dead.
                 Read more at the Philadelphia Citypaper's Naked City Blog!!

          

Old-Ass Building of the Week-- September 10th

Chua Bo De

1114 South 13th Street

             
                This little building sure knows how to survive... from school to club to temple, this everliving piece of shit is still rockin' your socks. Read more at Hidden City Philadelphia!

Butt-Fugly Building of the Week-- September 6th

The Pain Center

501 South 12th Street

                    PAAAAAIIINNNN!!! That's what I feel whenever I see this thing. The fucking PAIN Center is one of the ugliest buildings in Wash West and has been making people feel pain since 1969. This brutalist pile of shit was considered quite the cool building when it was constructed, but now everyone hates it, and rightly so.
                     In the 1960's, what is now Washington West was a fucking shithole. While a 3 decade long gentrification process was in the works, the corner of 12th and Lombard was still somewhere no one wanted to be. Dan Rose's book Black American Street Life, South Philadelphia 1969-1971 paints a pretty sorry picture of the neighborhood, even though Mr. Rose calls this area "South Philly" and calls 12th Street "Fourteenth Street".
                     In 1969, such a corner was considered a perfect location for a psychiatric rehab center for alcoholics, drug addicts, and the mentally ill, called Horizon House (not to be confused with like a million other places with the same name). The design, by the Francis, Cauffman, Wilkinson & Pepper firm, was intended to make the institutional building not seem so much like an institutional building. How did they do that? By making it AS UGLY AS FUCKING POSSIBLE!!!
                    Brown terra cotta bricks, tiny-ass bronze-tinted windows (with bars), and that stupid sloping roof that can't decide which direction it's going. What an insult... its like they're saying that the design of the building should be mentally ill in order to match the people going there. Really, this building is a 20,000 square foot pile of fuck.
                    Eventually, Horizon House got tired of looking at this fucking thing and moved out to superior quarters. The building became crappy medical offices and shit until being sold to new owners in 1997 for $975,000. At about the same time, Wash West residents started noticing this silver Lamborghini driving around that would park itself at this crappy building. The asshouse now took on a new name that described it well... the PAIN Center.
                   The Pain Center would continue on for the next 15 years, until the guy running the place got busted for insurance fraud and the building went up for sale. Though they originally asked for $5 million, the listing eventually dwindled down to $3M. It was purchased by developer Virgil Procaccino with the intention of demolishing the shitpile (hooray!!) and replacing it with some super-fucking-gigantic houses designed by Harman Deutsch.

                 Ok, so they're not the best-looking houses ever, but they're waaaaaaay nicer than the shitty Pain Center. Its a wonderful, wonderful feeling to know that such an ugly building will be eliminated from this area forever. Now to meticulously remove any records of the building from history... I'll do it later.

It looked just as bad twelve years ago.