Butt-Fugly Building of the Week-- February 9th

Sofitel Philadelphia (aka Philadelphia Stock Exchange)

1701 Sansom Street

Ugh.

                     You know a building is a piece of trash when the people it was built for give up on it in less than 20 years. That's what happened to this craptonious pile of puke at the NW Corner of 17th and Sansom Streets. This rectangular box of concrete condom wrappers is a goddamn embarrassment that never should have happened. When you see a concrete box, the most likely thing to pop into your head is "goddamn 1960's!!". This building exemplifies 1960's fuckitecture like no other.
                    The conception of this building started in the 1950's. The Philadelphia Stock Exchange was in such dire straits that it moved out of its building at 1411 Walnut Street because the rent in the building next door (the Manufacturer's Club) was cheaper. That's pretty fucked up. They moved next door to the building that still has their name on it. FUCKED UP. Business was so slow that the traders on the floor were literally making more money playing backgammon with each other than trading stocks.

Trading floor of the Philadelphia Stock Exchange, Manufacturer's Club, 9th Floor, 1955.

                      In 1957, things started to look up. The Stock Exchange convinced the Pennsylvania State Legislature to remove the transfer taxes on stock trades from outside the Commonwealth. Business grew at leaps and bounds. Removals on similar taxes for international trades boosted it as well. By the beginning of the 1960's, the Stock Exchange was ready to move out of their 9th floor condo at the Manufacturer's Club and move into a fucking building with their name on it.
                       Instead of the cool-ass old building that already had its name sculpted on it in motherfucking stone, they chose to move into a new, modern building that would show off how high tech the Exchange would become. The recently-built jumble of glass-and-concrete rectangles known as Penn Center were a big hit, and the Central Business District of the city was successfully moving West.

Yes, so modern. This is from Broad and JFK, looking West, early 1960's. Pic from Cardcow.com

Oh, the boxes. Believe it or not, this view is from 18th and JFK, looking East. BTW, the Comcast Center is now to the left, the BNY Mellon Bank Center is to the right. Pic from Cardcow.com

                         Meanwhile, Provident Bank, no strangers to taking risks with buildings, started plans on a new and modern office building that would be built at 17th and Sansom, close to Penn Center. It was a knock-off Penn Centerish-looking building that was also designed by the same Grandmaster of Shitbag Boxitecture, Vincent Kling. The Stock Exchange liked the idea so much that they wanted in, along with naming rights. They even got the city to rename Ionic Street "Stock Exchange Place".

Rendering of the new Stock Exchange.

                          The ugly motherfucker got built in 1965 and the Stock Exchange was moved in on May 2nd, 1966. They signed a 15-year lease and decked it out with all kinds of high-tech shit, like copy machines! The lease was signed with the proviso that they could move out if that transfer tax shit started again. In 1969, they got that opportunity. The city this time, not the state, started their own transfer tax, and the Stock Exchange said, "Fuck this shit!!" and moved to an even uglier building in Bala Cynwyd. The tax was repealed a month later and the Exchange moved back in.
                           As their 15 year lease was coming to a close, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange had grown and merged and associated itself all over the place. It was ready to get out of that shitbird of a building and build a goddamn skyscraper at 18th and Market. The NIMBYs at the William Penn House next door squashed the idea down to a crappy 8-storey building that's cool on the inside but looks like assinthrope from the outside. The Philadelphia Stock Exchange moved out of 17th and Sansom in 1981.
                           The building stood as crappy ZZZZ-level offices for almost 2 decades. In 1998, the city tried to bolster some shit up in the neighborhood by naming the area "the French Quarter". The French theme attracted attention from the French company Accor, who announced that they purchased the old Stock Exchange building and would be turning a luxury hotel under their Sofitel brand. They would get New York architects Brennan Beer Gorman to un-Klingify the tower and make it a little less Butt-Fugly.

I believe this is the rendering.

                         They failed. After an $80 million renovation, the Sofitel opened in 2000. They put an addition on the back of the building that looks like my nutsack. It really does look as boring as ever. Only 12 years later, the concrete is getting all browned up and tarnished again. What a crappy building.

The 2000 addition on the building. Sacre Blarf!!

Lost Building of the Week-- February 8th

Denckla Building

1101 Market Street

1911 at 11th and Market. Pic from the PAB.

                           Was this building named by a Klingon? This cool-ass building was built as part of the 1100 Super-block of Market Street in the early 20th Century. While cool as shit when it was built, the building fell into obscurity and stood as a ruin into the 1970's.
                           In the early 20th Century, the 1100 block of Market Street was the SHIT. The South side had the super-massive Snellenburg's Department Store and the North side had the Reading Terminal Market, Philadelphia Inquirer Building, Market Street National Bank, and this, The Denckla Building.

The Superblock in its prime. The Denckla Building is on the right.

                      The weird-ass name Denckla Building most likely comes from the Denckla family, one of Philadelphia's old families that never got rich enough to be considered for the list of "Old Philadelphians". The family came to the primordial city/village of Philadelphia in the 1700's, kicking trustafarian asses until they pushed their way into being associates, but not really members, of Philadelphia High Society a century later. Descendents of the Dencklas live on to this day, probably having no clue that a building bearing their name stood at a prominent corner in Philadelphia for seven decades.
                       This Masterpiece of Market Street Cornering was designed by the Postmaster General of Specialized Badasses, John Torrey Windrim, and was built in 1906... it was the final piece of the puzzle needed to complete the Superblock. The offices of such famous Philadelphians as bankergineerchitect Otto C. Wolf and famous theater architect John D. Allen were located there, along with the downtown offices of the Crane Company.
                      In the mid-20th Century, Market East went to absolute shit, sort of like it is now. The cool-ass buildings on the Superblock got altered beyond recognition and fell into dirtiness and disrepair.

The Superblock in the late 50's. Denckla is second to the right.

                        At this point, the Denckla Building was still in use but looking like shit.

In 1960 with mangled ground floor. The Inquirer and Market Street National Bank buildings were replaced with a 20th Century Butt-Fugly by this point. The Empty Lot next door was the remains of a cool building that was replaced by a super-massive parking garage that got replaced by the Gallery.

                            The Denckla Building lasted up into the 1970's, when it was unceremoniously ripped down when Market East Station and the CCCC Tunnel were being built. You can see the hole that was the result in this scene from the 1981 movie Blow Out:

Reading Terminal Pilings on the right. Hole that used to be the Denckla Building on the extreme left.

                        After Market East Station and the CCCC Tunnel were complete, the corner stood as an empty lot until the federally-funded pork project known as One Reading Center was built in its place in 1984. Nowadays, we call it the Aramark Tower-- not a bad-looking building considering the year.
                        One day, if and when Market East and the Girard Estate block gets its fucking act together, the Superblock may one day rise again. The North side is most of the way there but the South side is a horrendous pile of crap. They should have just left the buildings that were there the fuck alone. Fuckers.

Empty Lot of the Week-- February 7th

Corduroy Building Lot

Bounded by Arch, Appletree, 8th Street and the African American Museum of Philadelphia

Pictured: Emptiness.

                       What a crappy lot.  Not only is this ocean of asphalt in an unfortunate location, its also surrounded by a multitude of ugly buildings. This lot is part of the barrier between Chinatown and the Historic District. When you stand on the block where this pile of tarmac sits, you can't even tell that Chinatown is only a block away.
                     Read more on the Philadelphia City Paper's Naked City Blog!

Old-ass Building of the Week-- February 6th

Adelphi School aka The Wager Street School

1223 Spring Street

                          This little building, tucked away in a forgotten corner of Center City that I call Season City, is one of the last surviving Black Schoolhouses in America. It has survived development after re-development, street name change after street name change, of all its surroundings. It is a true ruin from Philadelphia's ancient past and America's cultural heritage.
                         Read the rest on Hidden City Philadelphia!!

Butt-Fugly Public Art of the Week-- February 2nd

Milord La Chamere by Jean DuBuffet

1530 Market Street

Drawing or sculpture. Make up your fucking mind!!! Pic from philart.net.

                         You know, there's actually some really good DuBuffet sculptures out there, but for some reason, we're stuck with this nasty pile of steel shit-turds. This throw-away sculpture by Jean Dubuffet is so nasty that it lives in an unnoticeable and forgotten corner of the 1500 block of Market Street. Most people walk right by this thing without even seeing it.
                          Centre Square gets the Percent-for-Art Triple Crown for Shitty Public Artwork. All three pieces created for this set of butt-fugly buildings are trash. Developer Jack Wolgin, who must have a PhD in Dumbassian Studies from Simpleton University, wanted this particular sculpture because he thought it looked like a Mummer. Ok, so it does SORT OF look like a Mummer. You know what would've been even better, Jack? A STATUE OF AN ACTUAL MUMMER!! Dicktree!!
                        DuBuffet created this 24-foot-tall, 5,000 pound monstrosity in 1972 to 1973. It sat in front of the Seagram Building in New York City in 1974 and 1975. Wolgin pooped his pants upon seeing it and shoehorned it into his shitbag Centre Square complex in 1976. Originally, it stood indoors, in the middle of the atrium between the buildings. When new owners took hold of the building in 1990, they hated it so much that they moved it outside to the little alcove it sits in now, hoping that all the birdshit stains would tarnish the stainless steel enough to make it look a bit more interesting.
                   Milord La Chamere means "My Lord of the Fancy Vest". Its more like My Lord of the Stainless Steel Assfruit. What you can't see in the picture above is how the figure is standing on granite base supported by a ten foot tall steel column. What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Are we supposed to worship this scribble scrabble of nonsense? Fuck that shit. Actually, its on that base because when it was on display in the atrium, it rose up from the lower levels up to ground level.
                  In 2003, Centre Square's new owners said that they would move Milord La Merde to a more prominent location than the shitty alcove it sits in. Nine years later, it still hasn't moved. Good. Fuck it.

Lost Bridge of the Week-- February 1st

Callowhill Street Bridge (aka Fairmount Bridge, aka Spring Garden Street Bridge)

Spanning the Schuylkill River at Callowhill and Spring Garden Streets

1890. That's a nice looking bridge right there.

                     This bridge was built to make all previous Schuylkill River bridges look like dead racoon's ass. This beast was designed to be the most badass bridge that people had ever seen, and for awhile, lived up to that requirement.          
                     With the super-awesome Centennial Exhibition approaching, Philadelphia needed cool new shit to show off for the multitude of guests from around the world that would be visiting the city. The iconic Wire Bridge at Fairmount was getting old at this point and the retro look was definitely not in. The Centennial Exhibition was about innovation and the future. Let the shitty-ass Sesquicentennial Exhibition be about the past.
               They took down the kick-ass Wire Bridge at Fairmount and contracted famous bridge engineer J. H. Linville and the Keystone Bridge Company to design a super kickasstastic mega bridge that would stand out as the finest and most high-tech in the union. Linville pulled out all the stops and designed a double-decked rail and pedestrian bridge that connected Callowhill Street AND Spring Garden Street on either side of the river. It would be 48 feet wide, running 1,254 feet, (350 over the river) with 2,730 foot approaches on either side.
                The approaches were designed by Strickland Kneass and pissed Linville the fuck off. Linville didn't want the bridge to have decorated arches because then it would look way too cool, but Kneass went ahead and made the approaches all arched, so Linville was forced to continue the arches through the bridge structure. Just to be an asshole, he created a Whipple Truss wrought iron superstructure and tacked some non-weightbearing cast iron arches along the sides.
                    Construction began in 1874 and the bridge opened in 1875. The pricetag? 1.2 million dollars... a ridiculously high amount for the time.

Under construction.

                       Once complete, people loved this fucking thing. The railroad ran on the upper deck and carriages/pedestrians ran on the lower. Tourist guides from the era actually encouraged visitors to get off their trains, walk across the lower deck, and reboard the train on the other side.

Approach to the lower level. They sure don't make 'em like this anymore.

                The wrought iron framework and the cast iron arches were extremely vulnerable to rust. The bridge rusted right up shortly after it was built. The motherfucker was turning orange and by 1885, big-ass chunks of rust were falling from the upper deck to the lower deck. It got so bad that they had to employ motherfuckers who would clean off the fallen chunks.
                By 1900, people had enough of this shit. The cast iron arches on the bridge were removed and a new metal framework was built for the approaches. For the rest of its existence, the bridge would expose its less-exciting wrought iron Whipple Trusses.

1904 view of De-Arched Callowhill Street Bridge

           By 1917, everyone forgot about the grandeur of the original bridge. They even forgot its name... they started calling it the Spring Garden Bridge instead. Talk of widening or rebuilding the bridge began at about this time, but never happened.

The Lower Deck in 1954.

                  The span stayed in continuous use until Interstate 76 was built and started to get in the way of the lower deck. In the mid 60's, a plan to add a Spring Garden Street exit from the highway was created, and the old girl wasn't up to the task of having that kind of connection. In 1964, the 89 year old bridge was lowered onto a barge and hauled away. A plaque commemorating this bridge is present on the new one, but the illustration on it shows the crappy Whipple Truss version.
                   This bridge shows how something that was cool as fuck in 1875 could be considered a piece of shit only 20-some years later. The next time you go over the modern highway-ramp style version of this bridge, make sure to piss out the window in honor of its great predecessor.

1960 skyline view from the last years of the Callowhill Street Bridge.

               

Dead-Ass Proposal of the Week-- January 31st

Philadelphia River City

Not really a whole city, just a buttload of ugly buildings.

                       Now here's a project that would have definitely changed things in good ol' Philadelphia, but was pretty much doomed from the get-go. This Dead-Ass Proposal was for a 8-acre, 15 million square foot, 15-year-long, 3.5 billion dollar master plan for at least 10 tall buildings that would cover the the Schuylkill Sea and the CSX and Septa rail tracks. Back in the early days of Philaphilia, I blamed NIMBYs for this huge development not going forward, but it ends up that corrupt-ass city officials and developers were just as responsible. Don't think that means NIMBYs didn't go balls-out apeshit over it.
                       Read more at the Philadelphia City Paper's Naked City Blog later today! Here it is!!


---GroJLart, King of Philadelphia and France