Quote:
Originally Posted by BostonBornMassMade
Bostons city hall is more unique by a wide margin and I also don’t think the Philadelphia City Hall is in the skyline. Like I don’t see it when I approach. If a building exists does that mean it’s a part of the collective skyline?
|
Yes, Philadelphia City Hall is now dwarfed by much taller structures in any skyline view, including the
very iconic shot down the Ben Franklin Parkway from the Art Museum posted upthread. And indeed it's hidden in any skyline view from the northwest or southwest. But it is visible in all the other views, including the one motorists driving into Center City from the north on I-95 see.
More about the building itself below.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BostonBornMassMade
Truly all bs aside I’ve never seen an angle where Philadelphia skyline is anywhere close to as long as Bostons skyline-which you usually can’t fit in a shot without ultra wide lenses.
It seem like a more “regular” skyline.
The point of city hall is why are we including city hall when it’s not really a part of the skyline. And Boston city hall is definitely the only upside down brutalist city hall I’ve ever seen in North America. Often called the nations ugliest city hall. So can’t see how Phillys is more unique in any way.
If I ranked skylines it’s be like NYC CHI LA SEA MIA BOS ATL PHI. It doesn’t do much for me.idk this makes me feel crazy because I don’t see it at all… but everyone else does.
|
First, I need to inform you that you are talking to one of the five people on the planet who like New Boston City Hall. It's one of the few government buildings I've ever run across that telegraphs its contents on its facade: the main entrance to the building is located under the huge "brow" that contains the mayor's office, and the City Councilmembers' offices are in the row of large windows to the left of the brow. The municipal bureaucracy occupies the inverted ziggurat that tops the building. How cool is that? (Not cool enough, it seems, to most observers.)
But now, having said that, what makes Philadelphia City Hall as distinctive, if not more so, than New Boston City Hall? For starters, compare it to its Second Empire stablemate, Old Boston City Hall. Philadelphia City Hall was designed to Make A Statement (both by design and by location on Thomas Holme's center public square, where the city's two axes cross) when it was designed in the early 1870s, with a 548-foot-tall tower that was intended to be the tallest tower in the world. (Between the time its cornerstone was laid in 1874 and the time it was finished in 1902, however, the 555-foot-tall Washington Monument was finally completed and Gustave Eiffel built his 1,083-foot-tall wrought-iron lattice in Paris. Philadelphia City Hall's tower, however, makes it the tallest occupied masonry building in the world.) Old Boston City Hall, by comparison, sort of fades into the noise of the buildings surrounding it. (In terms of Statement Buildings, New Boston City Hall is the more appropriate building to compare to Philadelphia City Hall, both by design and by the decision to wipe out what had been Boston's red-light district to create a windswept plaza in front of it.)
Philadelphia City Hall is also the largest municipal building in the country. When the American Institute of Architects released its survey/poll of the 150 most popular buildings in America on its 150th anniversary in 2007, it finished just out of the top 20 and was the highest-ranked municipal building on the list; among government buildings as a whole, only the U.S. Capitol, White House and Supreme Court ranked above it.
That original and distinctive enough for you?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Boston Shudra
Really? I'll admit that it's hard to get all of it in one photo because it's vaguely built in a straight line, but the angles that get it show that it's pretty darn expansive:
https://flic.kr/p/2n9DVq2
^Vaguely 3-3.5miles from the tower all the way on the right to the one far in the back on the left. |
IMO the more iconic view is the one from the Harvard Bridge, the next Charles River crossing to the east of the Boston University Bridge, from which that shot was taken; that shot captures the three sore-thumb towers of the Back Bay but diminishes the actual Downtown Boston portion of the skyline. The more panoramic view you got of the skyline from Arlington (that was yours, wasn't it?) may be one of the few that captures the entirety of the skyline, but I suspect even those commuting into the city via Route 2 wouldn't know which hill in Arlington Heights to go to to get that shot. By contrast, most Philadelphians know where to go to get the similar panoramic view of the city skyline:
Belmont Plateau in West Fairmount Park. The view from there also catches the "extended skyline" in University City that has sprung up in the past decade.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BostonBornMassMade
Not only is Boston skyline way way longer it also has significantly more "skyscrapers"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...listed%20below.
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/List_of_...ings_in_Boston
^Boston has 22 buildings over 500 feet, whereas Philly has 14.
Philadelphia has 32 buildings over 400 feet. Boston has 37.
In a city with 1/3rd the land area of Philly.
To me, this is all pretty evident when I drive into both cities. So combined with the Gap, the Citgo sign, and the fact that Boston's tallest building has been around 45 years longer. this poll is interesting. Boston to me looks significantly more built up in its skyline. But shorter at its peak so Philly has more of a "crown" |
Quote:
Originally Posted by BostonBornMassMade
Again… there are not more tall buildings in Philadelphia…this is not true and easily proven incorrect. I actually gave link up thread. It’s visible to the naked eye, at least mine.
I don’t know how buildings could possibly stand out any more than the three tallest buildings in the city being a mile away from the rest of the skyline…. and all being totally totally different architectural styles. It’s like people have never seen the Boston Skyline or at least not the entirety of it. Because this argument actually makes sense if you just look at FiDi.
Otherwise it just doesn’t add up.
EDIT: a quick google search confirmed. When you type in Boston skyline you won’t get the whole skyline.. just bits and pieces. I assume people are going to google before they post. Can’t find one image that gets the whole thing like the one I personally took.
|
I think that both the height and the breadth of the two skylines are why Philadelphia is far outpolling Boston in this poll.*
First, height. The height limits imposed by the Logan Airport approaches mean that the only really tall buildings on the Boston skyline are those three sore thumbs in the Back Bay; Downtown Boston sits too close for the airport for buildings that tall to be built. No such restriction applies to Philadelphia. Meanwhile, on the other side, Center City is itself a constrained and well-defined space — everyone who comes here soon learns about Thomas Holme's original plan for the town (1682) / city (1701)** of Philadelphia and immediately understands the boundaries of Center City. Even with the addition of Cira Centre, Cira South and Evo on the west bank of the Schuylkill, the fact that all the other tall buildings fall within the boundaries of Holme's original town plan gives Philly's skyline more definition and makes it easier to grasp in toto. That it has emerged only within the last 35 years is an additional distinction.
*
Edited to add: I just thought of a parallel: one almost never sees a single photograph that takes in the entire Manhattan skyline. There is a place where you can take one:
Eagle Rock Reservation in West Orange, Essex County, N.J. What you see from there is the single largest collection of tall buildings anywhere in the world, but the collection as a whole isn't as well-sculpted as the Boston, Philadelphia or Chicago skylines are, and those last two are both more photogenic than the first two.
**I note with some — interest? bemusement? that while the town of Boston predates the town of Philadelphia by 52 years, the city of Philadelphia is 121 years older than the city of Boston.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 5-all
There's also very little variety. Rectangle after rectangle after rectangle. And a dome.
|
Dome? Where? Just as you can't pick out Philadelphia City Hall from many skyline views, I think you have to get really close to Beacon Hill for the Massachusetts State House dome to become identifiable in the Boston skyline. I sure can't find it in the photo you were commenting about; the closest thing to one is the shallow ziggurat topping the old John Hancock Insurance Company building just to the left of the John Hancock Tower in the Back Bay.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
