Mystery Building of the Week-- November 7th

Medical Towers

251 S. 17th Street

One tall and thin fucking mystery. Pic by well-known Philaphile Brad Maule.

                      This is a nice looking building that is quite well known in the city, especially because at 364 feet, it has stuck out way taller than any other building in the immediate area until 1706 Rittenhouse was built across the street. The problem is, the history of this cool-ass building is somewhat of a mystery.
                     One of the weirder things about it is that its original name was "Medical Towers", plural. At first, I figured that more than one was planned to be built, so the name of the complex would be called "Towers", but then I found one of the original descriptions of it from when it was first proposed. It literally says "the building (singular) will be called Medical Towers (plural)". WHY THE FUCK would you call one building two buildings?!?!? Did they mean Medical Tower's, like a possessive? Is it a contraction for Medical Tower is? Did the person naming the building want to call it "Medical Tower's Gonna Kick Your Ass" but died before they could finish saying it? That's just fucking weird.
                   Here's another mystery for ya: the architect!!! There is seriously no architect associated with this project. All the little internet records and profile pages for this thing will tell you its height, build date, all kinds of other shit, but when you try to find who the architect was, NOTHING. Apparently the contractors found the plans for it drawn on a napkin at a bar or something.

Medical Towers under construction based on the plans of the famous architect Mystery Von Shitstery.

                   Medical Towers was built in 1931, during a huge building boom for this city, and has been in continuous use ever since for a medical clinic and a shitload of individual medicine-related offices. Some consider it one of the more ugly Art Deco buildings in America, but the ugliest Art Deco building in the world is better looking than 90% of the buildings built after that time.
                 That's pretty much it. I'd like to tell you about some kind of cool history that has happened here, but really, some buildings are just buildings. Some guy killed himself by jumping out of a high window in 1941, but that's that.
                So what's the deal? How could a building that was one of the tallest in the city for decades have no known architect? Why was it known as "Medical Towers" for so long? This shit is making my crazzzyyY!!! Uh oh, too late. Anyone out there have a clue where the fuck this building came from?

AND THE ANSWAH IS...

                            Hello again, this is John McLaughlin and you aah now reading this in my voice. The building was designed by the fiiihm of McIlvain and Roberts. GroJLaaaht is a moron and didn't look up the building by all of its altaahtanate names. BYE BYE!!!

                                                                     *Special Thanks to Bruce Laverty and Mike Seneca from the Philadelphia Architects and Buildings Project!

Empty Lot of the Week-- November 3rd

Lucky Garden Trash Lot

Bounded by Ridge Ave, 12th Street, Spring Garden Street, and Buttonwood Street

That's crap.

                         Now this is one sorry-ass piece of land. The area around it on Spring Garden is finding ways to improve, but this shitty lot is stuck in development limbo, probably forever. Hopefully, as progress continues in the Loft District and other parts of the neighborhood, this shit-lot will finally give way to some construction. The only thing that's historically cool about this lot is that it once had a building that had a giant cast iron statue of Henry Clay on it.

From the Ridge Ave. side in 1858. It makes for one eerie looking picture.

                      In more recent history, the lot has held a brass works and a lumber yard. Someone tried to build a fast food restaurant here awhile back but the Chinatown Neighborhood Association kicked the shit out of 'em. In the mid '00s, the lot was purchased by a developer called Lucky Garden. Lucky Garden built a large mixed-use development on the block to the south, but left this 2 million dollar 30,698 square foot parcel bare as fuck.
                    This lot is a locational goldmine. The confluence of three well-trafficked roads: Ridge Ave, 12th Street, and Spring Garden Street. The lot is zoned heavy industrial and probably needs environmental clean-up, which might be what has held back development here. Though this area actually counts as Chinatown North, I say fuck that and build something here that could be the gateway to the Loft District.
                   There's not much else to say other than BUILD NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!
                   

Lost Building of the Week-- November 2nd

Aldine Hotel

1910 Chestnut Street

The one on the left. Image from the Philadelphia Architects and Buildings Project.

                This thing was cool. The one on the right still stands, but the one on the left is gone. Just check that shit out. It would be great if the building was still complete. I guess this article counts as an Old-Ass Building of the week as well, since the addition to the original building still stands.
                Dr. James Rush, crazy-ass creator of the Ridgeway Library building at Broad and Christian, Treasurer of the U.S. Mint, and medical doctor, designed his own gigantic damn house in 1847. So on top of all that other shit he did, he's also an architect. It was so gigantic that it took three years to build, 1848-1851. Once complete, it was capable of holding 800 guests for the huge balls-out keggers the Rush/Ridgeway rich-ass family would have there. After Rush died (in the house) in 1869, Philadelphians wondered what the fuck would be done with it.
                In 1875, the massive house/monster was put up for sale. Those trustafarian Lippencotts purchased it for $110,000 and opened it as the Aldine Hotel in 1877. They eventually got the design firm of Yarnell and Cooper to alter and expanded the building in 1887. They ripped off the facade, applied a new one, and added floors to the building.
                The hotel was one of the most luxurious in the city, and partially served as an extended-stay location as well. In 1893, a fire consumed part of the structure. The weight-bearing walls of the place became damaged, and Mega-architect of Doom Addison Hutton was brought in to renovate the whole building and also design a huge (still standing) addition in 1895. When the hotel re-opened, it was the most badass motherfucker in town.
            

When the addition was new. Even the side of it is cool. 

                      In 1909, the hotel became the object of what we've been calling a Flash Mob here in Philadelphia. Ty Cobb was staying at the hotel at the same time that Connie Mack was campaigning to have him banned from baseball. Thousands of people swarmed the 1900 block of Chestnut Street to kick his ass. A 12-man police escort was needed to get him out of there.
                    Less than 20 years later, the original part of the hotel was gone. No one seems to know the actual demolition date. I know it lasted until at least 1923, since there's a picture of it from that year:

You can see it there way in the background.

                        I also found one account from 1927 describing the building as "recently demolished". Once deleted, the original Aldine was replaced by the Boyd Theatre and a bunch of crappy one-storey storefronts. Nowadays, that stretch of Chestnut is improving but still isn't as nice as it was in the 1890's. The question remains... what happened to the Aldine? Fire? Sold and demolished? What the fuck? How did the addition survive but not the original building? I guess this article counts as a Mystery Building of the Week as well!

Butt-Fugly Building(s) of the Week-- November 1st

Centre Square Towers

1500 Market Street

Asser Square.

                     These two buildings prove that the 1970's plus architecture multiplied by Vincent Kling = Shit! These two concrete Boredom Boxes are what you get when Kling is trying to be creative. No matter how many times they redesign or renovate the plaza between them, these two buildings sit there looking like shit.
                  It started in the late 50's and early 60's. Ed Bacon was looking for an architect that was dumb enough to commit to a huge redevelopment plan that had no backers and no budget. Louis Kahn was asked but he was like "FUCK no!", so they went with Vincent Kling. By 1967, Bacon and Kahn managed to take down some of the city's most beautiful buildings and replace them with flat-ass boxes. One of the only relics left was the former site of the Harrison Building, a perfectly preserved 19th Century awesomecastle which had been demolished in 1969 for these pieces of shit.
                  Developer Jack Wolgin jumped on the opportunity and wanted something more than a box from Vincent Kling. Kling came up with two slightly different boxes with the corners cut off connected by a lobby/plaza thing. That was as far as his creativity could go.

Early rendering for the Centre Square Towers.

                             Now, I must say that the original plan for these things was for them to be covered in a facade of stainless steel... this would have given the buildings a little more style... but when the project started running over budget, Wolgin said "Fuck it, we'll do it live! Make it out of concrete! WE'LLDOITLIVE!!!! Fuckin' thing SUCKS!" Construction began in 1972.

Under confucktion.

                     Wolgin loved shitty art so he commissioned the crappiest garbage he could think of for the percent-for-art requirement. The most infamous of these was the big-ass clothespin by Claes Oldenburg, while the others, a DuBuffet and a Calder are so unmemorable that no one even cares to think about them. Once complete, the building complex was considered super-asstastic awesome. Companies moved right in, the largest being Towers Perrin, a "consulting" firm that is still there. The buildings are credited with bringing big business to west Market. Whoop-de-shit.
                    In 2002, the complex was sold to a new owner and they eventually got Daroff Design to create a new lobby and plaza for the building a few years later in order to make it less butt-fugly. The new plaza works a lot better than the old one, but the towers remain brown stained pieces of shit. Wolgin should have plunked down the extra cash for some stainless steel instead of that shitbag sidewalk they built them out of. Dumbass.

Old-Ass Building of the Week-- October 31st

Jefferson Medical College and Curtis Clinic Building

1015 and 1035 Walnut Street

                      Shitbag modern architects, take some fucking notes. This thing is from eighty years ago but will never go out of style. In 500 years this beast will still be standing at 1015 Walnut Street, kicking new buildings' asses. I wish Horace Trumbauer was like Freddy Kruger, appearing in modern architects' nightmares and making them design cool-ass buildings.

"This is how you do it, dickheeeeeeeeead!!!" -Horace Trumbauer

                      This buildings has it all... architectural ceramics, little sculptures of shit all over it, and even GARGOYLES. Take some time to go over at look at this thing closely to see it all. A pic of the whole building almost does it no justice. The best part? Its not one, but actually TWO buildings. They come together so seamlessly that they appear to be and are always regarded as one building.
                      Back in 1928, Jefferson Medical College wasn't on the 13 acres of Center City it takes up today... it was relegated to the block bounded by Sansom, 10th, 11th, and Walnut Streets. That meant that if the college wanted to expand, it would have to take out its kick-ass 1898-built campus buildings and build new ones.
                   They went up to Horace Trumbauer, who was shitting out awesome buildings every few months in this time period, and said, "Look, dickface. We need you to design such an awesome building that no one will mind us knocking down our beautiful-ass buildings that we put up only 30 years ago. Are you up to it motherfucker?" Trumbauer let out a bellowing evil laugh of the "Muhahah" sort. He scribbled this design on a napkin and handed it over to them:

Holy shit!

                         Jefferson College shit themselves and went ahead with the project, but it was so much awesome that they were only able to build half of it.

Jefferson Medical College, part ONE!

                            Part one looked so fucking cool that almost immediately after it was complete, Jefferson Medical College initiated phase two. Since Cyrus H. K. Curtis had just put up some scrilla for the building, they name the second building Curtis Clinic. Later they would rename it the Curtis Building, confusing the fuck out of everyone considering there's like five other building with the same name. The Curtis Clinic was completed in 1931 and everyone forgot the 1898 buildings in like five minutes. The whole project came in at three times the original budget.

The building wasn't even completed yet in this photo and the people walking by are so excited about it their vibrating at an impossible speed.

                         The building(s) have managed to stay in continuous use ever since, and Jefferson's 1950's, 60's, and 70's expansions have (for the most part) used its color scheme. It was designed to take a four storey addition on top, but no modern architect or builder has the ability to design or build one, so don't bother.  Its still Jefferson's best looking building, even when you include the still-surviving 1898 "Main" building on 10th Street and the Edison Building at 9th and Sansom. Good job, Trummyballs.

View from 1970 with its crappy-ass noisy motherfucking Foerderor Pavilion.

             

Dead-Ass Proposal of the Week-- October 27th

Curtis Temple of Learning

1800 North Broad Street

That's a big temple.

                            Holy shit, this motherfucker would have been really cool to have around. North Philly would be a totally different place with this 350-foot beast looming over it. Really, this building would go unrivaled in North Philly to this day. It would be a well-known landmark.
                            In 1927, Temple University was expanding its enrollment very rapidly. The school's new president, Charles Beury, was intent on building up Temple into a super-massive mega-school. Under Beury's direction, the campus expanded and built a number of new buildings. Beury's ultimate goal was to build a super-massive collegiate tower that could compete with the University of Pittsburgh's then-new 535-foot Cathedral of Learning. To make sure everyone knew that it would be a complete knock-off, he named his tower the Temple of Learning.
                          The Temple of Learning would be a five-building complex that would come to fruition into a 34-storey beacon of education that would kick the shit out of any college building, anywhere (except for the Cathedral of Learning). Beury wanted to name it after Shogun of Printing Cyrus H. K. Curtis, who had been donating endless amounts of his scrilla to the school ever since Beury took office. This beast wasn't just tall, it was wide. 400 feet wide North-to-South and 150 feet East-to-West. 
                          The building would be built in five phases...Phase One was a one-storey addition to the pre-existing Conwell Hall. Phase Two was started in 1928 and was open for learning on February 15, 1929. I assume Phases 3, 4, and 5 would be the tower and the other two pieces, but the Great Depression reared its ugly head after that and the rest never happened.
                          Too bad this bitch-bastard never got built. It's over 220 feet taller than any current building on the University's Main Campus. Wachman Hall, the current tallest at Temple, is only 131 feet. Luckily, it won't be the tallest much longer. Temple's newest residence hall is currently under construction, set to be the tallest building in North Philadelphia. Even so, its still slated to be slightly shorter than the Temple of Learning would have been. Bummer.

New Temple highrise "Gateway South". What a goofy name. Call it Assinthrope Hall or something cool like that.

Lost Bridge of the Week-- October 26th

Chestnut Street Bridge I

Crossing Dock Creek at Chestnut Street near Hudson's Alley

VERY lost bridge of the week. This engraving is somewhat inaccurate, but the house in the picture was the main focus of the original drawing, which was done by William Strickland 119 years after the bridge was built.

                           Now it's time to talk about Old Philadelphia, like village-sized primordial Philadelphia from the early early days. Dock Creek, that once ran through what is now Old City, was spanned by many little crappy bridges all around Penn's Green Country Towne of old. This was one of them. This bridge is so ancient that when it was installed, Chestnut beyond third street was the fucking edge of town.
                            It started in an unknown year in the late 1600's. Chestnut Street had a dip in it that would get filled with the water from Dock Creek for some parts of the year and be an impassable muddy hole the rest of the year. A rudimentary wooden bridge was built that did not last very long. In 1699, the city (village) of Philadelphia commissioned a stone arch bridge that would span the trench.
                            Money ran out before the protective sides of the stone bridge could be built, so the span was just a stone arch with a flat top that proved to be extremely dangerous. A man named John Reynalls lost his daughter to drowning after falling off the span. The Governor of Barbados, who rented the house in that engraving, wouldn't even use the bridge.
                          The first written account of the ancient Chestnut Street Bridge was from February 7th, 1719 and is all about how it was precarious as fuck to cross and how it needed to be repaired. Folks who lived nearby would build makeshift wooden railings for the bridge, but these would often end up falling down. Later in 1719, another account talks about how it had partially collapsed.
                         The bridge went through repair after repair until 1750. In that year, the Chestnut Street Bridge had deteriorated to the point of impassibility. The arch had completely collapsed at this point and the creek would overrun the bridge/pile of rocks in certain parts of the year. Only seven years later, the creek was filled and the bridge was forgotten.
                         Very forgotten. By the early 1800's, the existence of this bridge was completely unknown, save the ravings of the few people that managed to live long enough to remember it. A 75-year-old man named Arthur Howell told tales in 1822 about how his father told him that the family home was built over the site of the old Dock Creek that was next to the old Chestnut Street Bridge. It wasn't until one year later, when the first water pipes were being laid under Chestnut Street, that the oak pilings of the old bridge were discovered to the surprise of the entire city. It was like finding Bigfoot!
                         This bridge seems so simple to us now.. a pile of rocks in the form of an arch spanning only a small gap... but in 1699 protoamerica, this was THE SHIT. No matter how many crossings that would later be called the Chestnut Street Bridge, this was the first.

You can see the Chestnut Street Bridge in the upper middle of this conjectural engraving.