Chestnut Beast!

899 to 1399 Chestnut Street

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             Goddammit, I love Chestnut East. All at once the most depressing and exciting part of Center City. This little stretch has been on a downward spiral for many years, but is just now starting to bounce back into its former glory. I always knew this day would come and now it has.. but there's still plenty of work to do.
             This corridor spent well over 100 years as one of the most important, busiest, and bustling parts of the city-- retailers, businesses, schools, warehouses, libraries, and even parking structures used to step on each others' nutsacks just to get one small little bit of this short part of a long street. The middle piece, the 1100 and 1200 blocks, changed so quickly over the decades that its hard to quantify it all. Over 150 years, those two blocks went from stately country villas to residential rowmansions to rowmansions-turned-businesses to warehouse-factories-on-storefronts to the Piano-selling district/business offices to retail clothing nexus to shithole to its current state of rebirth.
             Though some are out of date, I'd like to list and revisit all the Chestnut East-related writings I've done over the last few years:

             I began at the beginning with the second-ever Philaphilia blog post, when I had like 2 readers and never intended to write this shit for more than a month or two. This was where I first explained why Willis G. Hale Ain't Nuthin' to Fuck With.

 After that, I trashed the perpetually ass-kissed Mercantile Library in all its Mid-Century Modern glory. Its up for sale again, by the way, and supposedly Brickstone Realty, the latest heroes of Chestnut East, are interested.

 Then I examined the mystery of the ancient Union Republican Club building at 1039 Chestnut (which I know a lot more about now) 

Of course I followed with the sad story of the big-ass garage on 900 block of Chestnut, then added even more two years later

I couldn't resist talking about this mysterious structure of ancient origin: the Hamilton and Diesinger Building at 1208 Chestnut. Not only do I know a lot more it about now, but was given a full picture of by a Philaphile by the name of Kevin McMahon.

Oh my Gooooooooooood

Soon after I told the zany story of the Zane Building at 1207 Chestnut, right across the street 

But even more interesting is the double-world-record-breaking Cunningham Piano Building at 1312 Chestnut

          Not a month later I lamented the Mid-Century shitfacade that combined two awesome buildings from the mid 1800s, now being destroyed in favor of Chestnut East's latest miracle

                  I then managed not to write about anything on Chestnut East for nearly two whole years. However, when it came time to bring out the new Philaphilia subject Fill This Front, four of them ended up being on this stretch (including the second Jefferson garage one listed above):

The parking garage Horn and Hardart-turned 1980s Rite Aid turned NOTHING

The empty corner storefront in one of my favorite buildings

The crappy west side of a tall building that was shortened to two stories

                Had enough? Well... I'm not done. Despite writing all that shit about Chestnut East over the years, there's even more shit I know about the buildings/lots/properties along this street... including a whole lot of content about Chestnut Beast's past, present, and future. Instead of writing it all down (laced in profanity, of course), I will be giving a tour in collaboration with Hidden City, just like I did for Broad Street. Therefore, if you want to know even more about my favorite part of the city, come on down to the Forgotten Chestnut Street Tour on September 13th. Space is limited so sign up now!!

              Oh... if you missed the Forgotten Broad Street Tour, I'm doing another one on September 20th!