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"The Comcast Center, I think … represents the first of a next generation of high-rise in the city, as does the Comcast Technology Center. That Philadelphia's skyline sprouted later than some of its peer cities makes it unique, Hankowsky said.
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The Vernick Coffee bar in the new tower is open to the public, and the Four Seasons hotel and bar are scheduled to open next year on the top floors. William Hankowsky, president of Liberty Property Trust, which was previously Rouse's company, noted how Liberty Place and both Comcast towers have ground-level lobbies, restaurants, and stores to bring in the public. Most architects and urban planners agree that a skyscraper's connection to the sidewalk and the people who pass by it every day is just as important as how it looks in the sky. "I think it is only because of our attitude that someone would say it looks a little bit like a middle finger," he said. But he gets how a city that rallied around a "no one likes us, we don't care" mantra might. Some Philadelphians have said it resembles a middle finger.Ĭohen doesn't see that. The Comcast Technology Center is 147 feet taller than its neighbor, due mostly to its narrow spire of three long rectangles, the middle one the highest. "The curse," Cohen said, "remains lifted." Three months later, the Eagles won their first Super Bowl. "I think I said simply, 'Anyone in here want to take responsibility for building a building over Billy Penn and re-instituting the curse, when we know we can take care of this in 15 minutes?'" Cohen said.Ī figurine was attached to a beam last November. Not one to tempt fate, Cohen suggested a second figurine be attached to the Comcast Technology Building in November 2017. The next October, the Phillies won the World Series.
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Construction workers affixed a small figurine to a beam on the city's highest building. Cohen, senior executive vice president of the company, suggested putting a statuette of Penn at the top. When the Comcast Center was nearly finished in the summer of 2007, David L.
#PHILADELPHIA CITY SKYLINE SERIES#
(The curse received national attention in 2004 when ESPN aired a segment on it after the Boston Red Sox won the Word Series and broke their own Curse of the Bambino.) With every devastating loss, fans shook their fists at the skyline. Then Philadelphia went 25 years without a championship. That is, until our sports fans got involved. "In just a few years, Philadelphia went from having no skyline to this skyline," Kaplan said. Liberty Place prompted a new zoning plan for Center City and paved the way for a dozen other skyscrapers like the BNY Mellon Center, Commerce Square, and Three Logan Square. What you should be worried about is the squalor below.'" "Some of the reaction was … 'I don't know why you're so worried about what happens in the skyline. She thought Rouse's skyscraper could be a boon for Center City, then dotted with empty lots. Kaplan's staff would visit dozens of locations (including some backyards) to evaluate and protect some sight lines of City Hall.
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"There was a guy who said, 'Well, if I climb a tree, I can see City Hall from my backyard in Fishtown.' " "People said crazy things, like, if we build this building, there won't be enough water for the rest of Center City, the water pressure will be drawn off," said Kaplan, the former city planner. When Rouse presented his plans to build One Liberty Place nearly a century later, public reaction ranged from wary to panicked. The statue of Penn, by Alexander Milne Calder, was installed in 1894 and stands 37 feet high, facing Northeast, toward Penn Treaty Park. The building remains the world's tallest masonry structure (made of brick, marble and granite - no steel or iron). About a mile west and 147 years later, City Hall was finished in 1901 after 30 years of construction.