Philadelphia 2035 (wife, apartments, lease)

[kyb01]

Originally Posted by Pine to Vine

It’s not as though Philly has a boring skyline. I was thinking about this discussion the other day when I crossed the South Street bridge. We have a pretty interesting skyline - one I find more attractive than our peers SF and Boston. Recent additions such as the FMC tower, CHOP and the new Comcast tower make it even more attractive. Additionally, I was a little concerned One Riverside would obscure the skyline but it blends in nicely.

I do agree with cpomp that there are plenty of boring midrise glass boxes, quite a number of which have gone up in the 7 short years I’ve lived here, but that seems to be changing for the better. Market East is pretty interesting and at ground level, the new building in the 1200 block of Walnut struck me as downright Manahattanish at street level when I walked by recently. But I am hoping the city doesn’t become Manahattan South. There’s already a Manahattan up the road. Philly’s strength will be in how it maintains its charm, while continuing to wedge in more interesting infill to replace non-descript/vacant building stock and surface lots scattered here and there.

It will never be Manhattan south. Yeh! And I like NYC. This city built more row houses than just about any other city in country...more than 300,000. And most of the new infill I see is just another set of modern row houses.

Cpomp, I'm afraid, does not appreciate that building individual houses for the working class in Philly was a much better idea than what happened in NY wrt tenements.

[DavePa]

Originally Posted by kyb01

It will never be Manhattan south. Yeh! And I like NYC. This city built more row houses than just about any other city in country...more than 300,000. And most of the new infill I see is just another set of modern row houses.

Cpomp, I'm afraid, does not appreciate that building individual houses for the working class in Philly was a much better idea than what happened in NY wrt tenements.

Urbanity lovers still see NYC as the Urbanity King in anything close to Old European cities like Paris and Barcelona in Urban multi-residential Urbanity.

It was the Philly motto (back in the day) that Philly would be the city to emulate as a Modern city where the masses even workers in the mills. Could own a Philly - Workingmans house. Philly built a sample Row-home at the Chicago Columbian Exhibition of 1893 was to show the Nation the Philly example of the modern city. But not all took Philly's example. Chicago certainly did not. It's common home for the Workingman was the unattached Workers-cottage home. Rows did get built for more higher-end residents a to be more Eastern like vogue as NYC and its Brownstones. But not the common Chicagoan. They also did more apartment buildings (but banned tenements) that added density as separated homes with frontage ands full alleyways took up more land.

https://www.phillyhistory.org/blog/i...eam-revisited/

From this link on the "Philly Rowhouse: American Dream revisited.
- Workingmen’s House,” a machine for living that lined miles of streets and set off a frenzy of envy at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.
- the Philadelphia rowhouse wasn’t presented as an aberration during a massive period of growth at the end of the 19th century. Quite the opposite. Talcott Williams, and others, pitched it as nothing less than a manifestation of the American Dream.
- a city of one million people in Philly can be so arranged that even the day-laborer earning only $8 or $10 a week can own the roof over his head and call no man landlord.”
- Williams goes on: “The result of all this is that Philadelphia is not a city of palaces for the few, but a city of homes for the many—which is better. It is not magnificent, but it is comfortable. In 1890, its 1,046,964 inhabitants were living in 187,052 dwellings. This means that with only two-thirds as many people, it had twice as many houses as New York. With just as many people as Chicago, it had half more houses.
- Street after street of small two-story brick houses looks rather mean and dingy,” admitted Williams. But “if the great mass of voters are men owning small houses and living in a small way, then all the work of the city will be done in a small way, too.”
- It is better to have bath-rooms by the ten thousand in small homes, than to have brilliant fountains playing in beautiful squares.”
- The rowhouse, concluded Williams— 150,000 of them—“owned by the families which live in them, are such a triumph of right living in a great city, as the world never saw before, and can see nowhere else but in Philadelphia, a city of homes.”

So if Philly manages to be a city where it is cheaper to own a home today and perhaps the future? It is continuing the OLD MOTTO. As the Row-home was a concept of affordable housing for the masses built assembly-line fashion out of Bulk-bought materials.

Though History would show the Row-home would become far less the norm in American cities especially as you went west. The Craftsman Bungalow would make its early 20th century appearance in Chicago and LA with their versions that would catch on and other cities doing their versions. Then LA began the Ranch-home and we know ..... how that style became the Suburban standard.

Baltimore came closest to emulating Philly in a Row-home city. But none would match it. Though San Francisco would evolve its unique attached-singles too.

Of course all you locals know Philly's History better then anyone else.

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by DavePa

Urbanity lovers still see NYC as the Urbanity King in anything close to Old European cities like Paris and Barcelona in Urban multi-residential Urbanity.

It was the Philly motto (back in the day) that Philly would be the city to emulate as a Modern city where the masses even workers in the mills. Could own a Philly - Workingmans house. Philly built a sample Row-home at the Chicago Columbian Exhibition of 1893 was to show the Nation the Philly example of the modern city. But not all took Philly's example. [...]
- The rowhouse, concluded Williams— 150,000 of them—“owned by the families which live in them, are such a triumph of right living in a great city, as the world never saw before, and can see nowhere else but in Philadelphia, a city of homes.”

So if Philly manages to be a city where it is cheaper to own a home today and perhaps the future? It is continuing the OLD MOTTO. As the Row-home was a concept of affordable housing for the masses built assembly-line fashion out of Bulk-bought materials.

Though History would show the Row-home would become far less the norm in American cities especially as you went west. The Craftsman Bungalow would make its early 20th century appearance in Chicago and LA with their versions that would catch on and other cities doing their versions. Then LA began the Ranch-home and we know ..... how that style became the Suburban standard.

Baltimore came closest to emulating Philly in a Row-home city. But none would match it. Though San Francisco would evolve its unique attached-singles too.

Of course all you locals know Philly's History better then anyone else.

That was indeed a point of pride for this city's boosters.

I have on the wall of my apartment a lithograph from 1908, produced by some committee commemorating the 225th anniversary of the city's founding (which they got one year off; the actual 225th anniversary was the year before).

The lithograph of "The Philadelphia of To-day - The World's Greatest Workshop"* also states that it is "America's largest Home City with more Home Owners than any other city in the World."

It's been a mantra of the real estate industry in the United States that homeownership is the bedrock on which a stable, prosperous middle class is built. And nowhere did they chant that mantra louder than here.

*Actually, the lithograph of "Philadelphia showing Improved Water Front" is not one of the Philadelphia of 1908, but the Philadelphia of about a decade afterwards, for it shows a broad highway running diagonally from City Hall to the northwest. Construction of the Fairmount (now Benjamin Franklin) Parkway did not begin until 1913.

[cpomp]

Safety improvements prepare South Broad Street for a residential future | Inga Saffron

This looks promising. I ran out of free articles so I couldn't read the details.

[BK_PHL_DEL]

Originally Posted by cpomp

Safety improvements prepare South Broad Street for a residential future | Inga Saffron

This looks promising. I ran out of free articles so I couldn't read the details.

Click on the "Stop" button 2 seconds into the page loading. The full article will load and if you stop in time, it will remain before the paywall comes up. If you don't get it to work, click refresh and try again.

Here is some more info on one of the featured intersections:
A Confusing and Dangerous Passyunk Ave. Intersection Has Gotten Safer - OCF Realty

[Redddog]

Originally Posted by cpomp

Safety improvements prepare South Broad Street for a residential future | Inga Saffron

This looks promising. I ran out of free articles so I couldn't read the details.

Open up an incognito page and you don't get the paywall....

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by cpomp

Safety improvements prepare South Broad Street for a residential future | Inga Saffron

This looks promising. I ran out of free articles so I couldn't read the details.

Definitely promising, and as I said in my Facebook share, Inga was also right about the waste-of-money light sabers on North Broad Street, a true "What were they thinking?" project.

Inga and I were cluck-clucking about our unexciting architecture over beer and wine last night.

[kyb01]

Originally Posted by MarketStEl

Definitely promising, and as I said in my Facebook share, Inga was also right about the waste-of-money light sabers on North Broad Street, a true "What were they thinking?" project.

Inga and I were cluck-clucking about our unexciting architecture over beer and wine last night.

It's beyond me why you would make a friend out of such a pretentious busy-body.

And like all "critics" she just talks, writes and whines about what OTHERS create since she has zero inclination to take the risks involved or the ability to line up financing for anything even approaching the scale of something like what Carl Dranoff does routinely. Can she grasp at all the courage, fortitude, and sometimes, pure whimsy that's involved in a project like reviving the Divine Lorraine, for instance, which took over a decade to do? But, hell, she's free to bash any project or any developer just because she can without any repercussions.

Thank goodness she really does not have anything close to real power.

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by kyb01

It's beyond me why you would make a friend out of such a pretentious busy-body.

And like all "critics" she just talks, writes and whines about what OTHERS create since she has zero inclination to take the risks involved or the ability to line up financing for anything even approaching the scale of something like what Carl Dranoff does routinely. Can she grasp at all the courage, fortitude, and sometimes, pure whimsy that's involved in a project like reviving the Divine Lorraine, for instance, which took over a decade to do? But, hell, she's free to bash any project or any developer just because she can without any repercussions.

Thank goodness she really does not have anything close to real power.

I don't know anyone hereabouts who's not ecstatic about the Divine Lorraine restoration. Including her.

Wait until Blumenfeld's done with the Met Opera House.

And it's not just (or even) architecture critics who don't quite understand the risks involved in development: we both wrote critical essays about the mixed-income housing bill, which the affordable-housing advocates have lined up in favor of (though I know some who privately agree with us that the bill isn't really the best way to achieve what its backers want).

[kyb01]

Originally Posted by MarketStEl

I don't know anyone hereabouts who's not ecstatic about the Divine Lorraine restoration. Including her.

Wait until Blumenfeld's done with the Met Opera House.

And it's not just (or even) architecture critics who don't quite understand the risks involved in development: we both wrote critical essays about the mixed-income housing bill, which the affordable-housing advocates have lined up in favor of (though I know some who privately agree with us that the bill isn't really the best way to achieve what its backers want).

I think you know my point was that she could not tackle anything like that project(Divine Lorraine) if her very life depended on it. Big effing "whoop" that she likes it. Talking is not doing! But, gee, she gets to judge and attack others who actually "do" stuff for a living. Well, I don't particularly like film critics either for the same reasons.