A Trip into Philly (Part 1)
Hello friends! Sorry about not posting at all last week, I had a really busy weekend. I had a ton of photos from this set so I'm splitting it up between two posts, the other will come tomorrow.
Paoli Station, Paoli, PA
This station was originally built in 1893 and rebuilt in 1953 by the Pennsylvania Railroad. The staircase and upper wooden awning were the only surviving part of the 1893 station. After PRR dissolved, Amtrak took most major stations (including this one). SEPTA took the other stations in the region. After years of planning, Amtrak began a massive 3-phase rebuilding project in early 2017. Everything seen here was torn down a few months after this so the tracks could be moved over to make room for a new idle platform.
Fritz Lumber, Berwyn, PA
The old Fritz Lumber Yard, which closed in 2016 after almost 160 years in business, is still sitting vacant for now. Demolition began in 2017, but came to a halt before they did too much. The new property owner's plans were rejected by the planning commission, and they decided to stop work until they could revise and get plans approved.
The buildings in back front the highway on the other side of the property. They still get decorated for Christmas despite being condemned. I'm guessing the decorator wants to use them to promote his business.
Clorox Factory/Marketplace Design Center/Aramark Building, Philadelphia (Rittenhouse)
This was originally built in the 1920's as a Clorox factory. As the area became less industrial, the building was converted into the Marketplace Design Center in the 90's, which was basically a mall for interior designers. They moved to East Market in 2016 and food services company Aramark bought the building for their new headquarters. I believe they were originally planning on adding over 20 stories to the top of the existing structure, but ultimately decided on adding 5 instead. The extra floors would have been apartments. The new headquarters finally opened in early 2019. The iconic whale mural unfortunately didn't survive the renovation.
East Market, Philadelphia (Market East)
This site was formerly home to Snellenburg's Department store, which was built in 1889. The chain sold out to Lit Bros. in 1962, but since Lit's already had a store across the street, this one was closed. The upper floors were removed shortly afterwards, and it was divided up into smaller storefronts. In 2015, a developer bought out the whole block to make way for the ambitious Market East complex. Phase 1 involved demolishing the remainder of Snellenburg's main store, replacing it with 2 high-rise apartment towers, then reskinning the former Snellenburg's Menswear Annex (visible behind this) for a Mom's Organic Market and a new home for the Marketplace Design Center. This phase finished late last year, and now work is beginning on Phase 2. This will involve turning a historic office tower (the only building on the block not related to Sburg's) into a luxury hotel and demolishing the former Sburg's Parking Garage (which had another annex in the bottom) and putting up 2 more towers on its site.
Gallery Progress, Philly (Market East)
Across the street, the former Gallery at Market East is still being ripped apart. I feel like the demolition phase of this project actually took longer than redoing it. As of now, the mall concourse itself is complete, and work is starting outfitting the spaces for stores. They're looking at a late September reopening date, and you bet I'll be there as soon as the doors open. :)
I believe this was the former Kmart entrance. It has since been boxed in, getting rid of the former entrance alcove. I guess in a place like this your options for expansion are pretty limited.
The former Walgreen's, which is not home to part of Burlington. The rest of the store goes down into Strawbridge's basement next door, which had been vacant since the store closed in 2006.
The former mall entrance has been torn down. The one that replaced it is a tower at ground level as opposed to a below-grade glass box. The old one looked cooler IMO but the new one's much more practical.
Former Strawbridge's store, which is now mostly offices for the Philadelphia Inquirer. While this predated the Gallery by a few decades, it's still basically part of the mall. It closed when Macy's bought May Co, since there was a larger Hecht's only a couple blocks away. The basement and bottom two floors sat vacant for a long time. Century 21 took the second level and the 1/3 closest to the mall in 2014. The basement, as mentioned above, stayed empty until late 2017. Most of the first floor is still vacant, although I have a feeling something will be done with it as part of the mall's redevelopment.
Lit Brothers, Philadelphia (Market East)
This part of the store was built in 1893, although parts of the building are older. This was Lit's flagship location which closed with the chain in 1977. Afterwards, the upper levels were turned into offices and the bottom level split up between smaller tenants. This part has been a Ross since the 90's, prior to that it was something called Conran's.
Independence Hall Café, Philadelphia (Old City)
Philly's added built a few cafes like this in their parks recently. This is one of the older ones, which opened in 2009. I'm not quite sure how the concession for this works, since Independence Hall is actually a national park as opposed to a city one.
Dilworth Plaza/Park, Philadelphia (City Hall)
This park was first opened in 1972 as Dilworth Plaza (this site obviously would have been something else originally, but nothing's coming up. My guess is just an open public space.) It was rebuilt in 2014 and renamed from Plaza to Park, even though if anything it's less of a park now. It's a good-looking park now and much more useful for large gatherings than it was before, but I still like the old plaza better. I do really like the fountains though. After this project wrapped up, Love Park across the street was redone and flattened out just like this. It's an alright look but I think one flat stone-clad park is enough. Now they're also talking about redoing Paine Plaza in between these two, and I can only imagine what to expect. :P
In late 2018, construction started on a new Starbucks at the other end of the park here.
One City Plaza, Philadelphia (City Hall)
I can't find much history on this building other than that it was built in 1898, and that the first Girl Scout Cookies were sold outside of it in 1932. It was mostly filled with city or state offices up until recently, although I believe everybody except for the McDonald's on the bottom were evicted so the building could be restored. It is currently being gutted out and I'd assume is going to be re-outfitted for somebody else. I'd expect McDonald's to get remodeled too, it still has the 90's cursive logo.
Market Street National Bank Building, Philadelphia (City Hall)
I felt like it should have been easy to find the history of this place. It wasn't. It was built in 1929 as the Market Street National Bank, and currently operates as a Marriott Residence Inn with some small retail on the bottom.
This truck was bringing in some pieces of precast concrete façade for East Market.
Woolworth/Grayson-Robinson, Philadelphia (East Market)
I've written about this building before, but I'll jog your memory here. This building's current façade was put on when Robinson's opened in 1947, and was designed by "father of the shopping mall" Victor Gruen. It's been a range of low-end tenants since Robinson's closed in the 60's. PREIT bought out these buildings before starting the Gallery project with plans to tear them down and build more mall over here (which is ironic given the building's architect). They at first met a lot of resistance since this building is sort of a landmark, but people are starting to be a little more accepting of the demolition since the building's already in rough shape and it is standing in the way of some major gentrification. Prior to Robinson's, the building was a Woolworth, but it probably dates back to before them as well.
GameStop, Philadelphia (East Market)
I've also written about this place before. It was originally the Princess Theater, which turned into a shoe store in the 50's. It operated as a variety of tenants before PREIT bought this building as well. They relocated GameStop here from the Gallery while the mall's being redone.
Gimbel's, Philadelphia (East Market)
The building on the left is what's left of Gimbel's flagship store. The remaining part was actually a 1920's addition to the original building, which was demolished after the store closed in 1987. Sears was planning on building a store on the site in the early 2000's, but the plans fell through as the company fell onto hard times. The site's still a parking lot for now, but I doubt it will be long before it's redeveloped.
And as I've been talking about for weeks now but never actually doing, I'm going to start putting some music at the end of each post. What better way to start than with something about Philly?
This station was originally built in 1893 and rebuilt in 1953 by the Pennsylvania Railroad. The staircase and upper wooden awning were the only surviving part of the 1893 station. After PRR dissolved, Amtrak took most major stations (including this one). SEPTA took the other stations in the region. After years of planning, Amtrak began a massive 3-phase rebuilding project in early 2017. Everything seen here was torn down a few months after this so the tracks could be moved over to make room for a new idle platform.
The old Fritz Lumber Yard, which closed in 2016 after almost 160 years in business, is still sitting vacant for now. Demolition began in 2017, but came to a halt before they did too much. The new property owner's plans were rejected by the planning commission, and they decided to stop work until they could revise and get plans approved.
This was originally built in the 1920's as a Clorox factory. As the area became less industrial, the building was converted into the Marketplace Design Center in the 90's, which was basically a mall for interior designers. They moved to East Market in 2016 and food services company Aramark bought the building for their new headquarters. I believe they were originally planning on adding over 20 stories to the top of the existing structure, but ultimately decided on adding 5 instead. The extra floors would have been apartments. The new headquarters finally opened in early 2019. The iconic whale mural unfortunately didn't survive the renovation.
This site was formerly home to Snellenburg's Department store, which was built in 1889. The chain sold out to Lit Bros. in 1962, but since Lit's already had a store across the street, this one was closed. The upper floors were removed shortly afterwards, and it was divided up into smaller storefronts. In 2015, a developer bought out the whole block to make way for the ambitious Market East complex. Phase 1 involved demolishing the remainder of Snellenburg's main store, replacing it with 2 high-rise apartment towers, then reskinning the former Snellenburg's Menswear Annex (visible behind this) for a Mom's Organic Market and a new home for the Marketplace Design Center. This phase finished late last year, and now work is beginning on Phase 2. This will involve turning a historic office tower (the only building on the block not related to Sburg's) into a luxury hotel and demolishing the former Sburg's Parking Garage (which had another annex in the bottom) and putting up 2 more towers on its site.
Across the street, the former Gallery at Market East is still being ripped apart. I feel like the demolition phase of this project actually took longer than redoing it. As of now, the mall concourse itself is complete, and work is starting outfitting the spaces for stores. They're looking at a late September reopening date, and you bet I'll be there as soon as the doors open. :)
The former mall entrance has been torn down. The one that replaced it is a tower at ground level as opposed to a below-grade glass box. The old one looked cooler IMO but the new one's much more practical.
This part of the store was built in 1893, although parts of the building are older. This was Lit's flagship location which closed with the chain in 1977. Afterwards, the upper levels were turned into offices and the bottom level split up between smaller tenants. This part has been a Ross since the 90's, prior to that it was something called Conran's.
Rohm & Haas, Philadelphia (Old City)
This was built as the headquarters for chemical company Rohm & Haas in 1964. The company was best known for creating Plexiglas, which this building features quite a bit of. The building's become a sort of local icon. When they renovated the offices in 2008, they were also planning on redoing the façade, but were forced to change their plans when the building was put on a historic register. More recently, the lobby was also listed on the register, which is now one of less than 10 registered interiors in the city. In 2009, Dow Chemical bought Rohm & Haas. Since they already had a headquarters elsewhere, these offices were downsized. A few of the floors here are leased out to other businesses now, including a La Colombe coffee shop and a bar on the first floor.
Ritz-Carlton, Philadelphia (City Hall)
This hotel was built in 2009 on the infamous former site of One Meridian Plaza, which at the time of its demolition was the third tallest building to ever be taken down and the tallest to be destroyed by fire. The Ritz is ten stories taller than Meridian, and is the highest residential building in the city (for now- the one you see under construction behind this will surpass it when it opens later this year).
Philly's added built a few cafes like this in their parks recently. This is one of the older ones, which opened in 2009. I'm not quite sure how the concession for this works, since Independence Hall is actually a national park as opposed to a city one.
This park was first opened in 1972 as Dilworth Plaza (this site obviously would have been something else originally, but nothing's coming up. My guess is just an open public space.) It was rebuilt in 2014 and renamed from Plaza to Park, even though if anything it's less of a park now. It's a good-looking park now and much more useful for large gatherings than it was before, but I still like the old plaza better. I do really like the fountains though. After this project wrapped up, Love Park across the street was redone and flattened out just like this. It's an alright look but I think one flat stone-clad park is enough. Now they're also talking about redoing Paine Plaza in between these two, and I can only imagine what to expect. :P
In late 2018, construction started on a new Starbucks at the other end of the park here.
I can't find much history on this building other than that it was built in 1898, and that the first Girl Scout Cookies were sold outside of it in 1932. It was mostly filled with city or state offices up until recently, although I believe everybody except for the McDonald's on the bottom were evicted so the building could be restored. It is currently being gutted out and I'd assume is going to be re-outfitted for somebody else. I'd expect McDonald's to get remodeled too, it still has the 90's cursive logo.
I felt like it should have been easy to find the history of this place. It wasn't. It was built in 1929 as the Market Street National Bank, and currently operates as a Marriott Residence Inn with some small retail on the bottom.
I've written about this building before, but I'll jog your memory here. This building's current façade was put on when Robinson's opened in 1947, and was designed by "father of the shopping mall" Victor Gruen. It's been a range of low-end tenants since Robinson's closed in the 60's. PREIT bought out these buildings before starting the Gallery project with plans to tear them down and build more mall over here (which is ironic given the building's architect). They at first met a lot of resistance since this building is sort of a landmark, but people are starting to be a little more accepting of the demolition since the building's already in rough shape and it is standing in the way of some major gentrification. Prior to Robinson's, the building was a Woolworth, but it probably dates back to before them as well.
I've also written about this place before. It was originally the Princess Theater, which turned into a shoe store in the 50's. It operated as a variety of tenants before PREIT bought this building as well. They relocated GameStop here from the Gallery while the mall's being redone.
The building on the left is what's left of Gimbel's flagship store. The remaining part was actually a 1920's addition to the original building, which was demolished after the store closed in 1987. Sears was planning on building a store on the site in the early 2000's, but the plans fell through as the company fell onto hard times. The site's still a parking lot for now, but I doubt it will be long before it's redeveloped.
And as I've been talking about for weeks now but never actually doing, I'm going to start putting some music at the end of each post. What better way to start than with something about Philly?
Wow, so much construction! Philly must be a hopping place :)
ReplyDeleteAlso, looks like you copied the Independence Hall Café description twice. I really like the first photo it's under, even though that's the incorrect one :P
It's a really neat place to be right now! I love watching construction, so I'm basically in heaven right now.
DeleteThank you! I fixed it. :)
Also I went in and added a song recommendation too. You've inspired me. :P
DeleteYou're welcome! And yeah, that sounds like a perfect match! :)
DeleteHa, glad to be of inspiration! Good song, too!