The New South Street Bridge, 13 Years In The Making

Hallelujah! Mayor Nutter held a press conference today to announce the South Street Bridge is finally coming down in December!

In true Philadelphia fashion, an exact date hasn’t been released yet. But here’s the best part of the mayor’s release:

The design phase for the new bridge began in 1995.

Good to see they got right on fixing it. It’ll take about 24 months to complete the bridge, and the city has a whole webpage full of detour maps and other .pdf files. Let’s hope they figure out a day in December to close the bridge sometime soon.

Great Moments In Passive-Aggressive Notes

I spotted this note at the waffle place at 10th and Walnut the other night. This is just kind of dumb: Clearly, you’re supposed to make fun of the people who post on Domelights, and not police officers on the job. The former leads to hilarious response threads; absolutely nothing good can come of the latter.

Hell, the cops can probably arrest you for the above note. I really didn’t think we needed to be told to not put up passive-aggressive notes to police officers, but consider this a public service announcement.

The Unisys Sign Dilemma

A hearing about the proposed Unisys sign on Liberty Two last night was so full of Philadelphians acting like the world would end if the sign was/was not put up it isn’t even over yet. The Zoning Board held a two-hour hearing and then called it quits, for now.

Unisys has essentially said the company will not move downtown without a sign, for some reason, and some historian even testified in favor of it.

The head of SCRUB also chimed in: “Do we prostitute our visual space in order to lure them here?” The residents of the new condos at Liberty Two have filed a federal lawsuit against Unisys in an attempt to block the sign. All of this should be settled in time for the tricentennial.

June 6: Unisys Wants Sign On Liberty Two

Fake Tallest US Building Too Tall For CC

A bunch of news stations covered the zoning proposal for the super tall American Commerce Center (slightly edited rendering, above), which would soar to a height of 1500 feet. Brad Maule notes that — in a shocker! — the news stations actually got it wrong, since there are towers in New York and Chicago currently being built that would be taller.

Anyway: Let’s get to the big quote from everyone’s favorite state senator, Vince Fumo.

State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo, the Philadelphia Democrat in whose district the tower would be built, called yesterday for an “end to spot zoning.”

“This is totally out of scale with the rest of Center City,” he said.

An end to spot zoning, indeed. Skyscrapers aren’t meant for Center City, silly! (Don’t worry, Comcast, there is no tenant lined up yet. Your tower is probably safe.)

Zoning proposal introduced for “tallest building” [Inquirer]

OMG Did You Hear That Just Now?

Center City offices are on alert right now after that loud fighter jet noise that went overhead just a few minutes ago. Seriously, what the hell was that?

A breaking report from Philadelphia Will Do breaking news correspondent RJ White (whoop whoop sirens must credit Philadelphia Will Do whoop whoop!):

RJ: You hear that just now?

D-Mac: I did!
RJ: Like some kind of fighter jet
D-Mac: Yeah.
RJ: The place is abuzz!
D-Mac: WHAT COULD IT BE???
RJ: Man, seriously — it was creepy.
D-Mac: PWD will get to the bottom of this!
D-Mac: “Perhaps a UFO,” I’ll write.
RJ: MUST CREDIT PHILADELPHIA WILL DO
RJ: …DEVELOPING…
D-Mac: Or maybe knocking down some of those buildings for the Convention Center expansion?
RJ: Nah — it was overhead and moved from east to west
D-Mac: definitely a UFO then
RJ: IT WAS THE FLASH, RUNNING TO JLA HEADQUARTERS

Turns out Air Force Week in Philadelphia began yesterday, and it’s probably just the annual Scare the Hell out of the Office Workers on Their Day Back to Work Flyover. (Air Force Day at Independence Hall started at 11 a.m., so there’s your culprit.)

Exciting Center City Activity!

Yes, Center City is abuzz today with tons of activity. At Broad and Walnut, you have Marley & Me filming at one corner and, uh, a McDonald’s-sponsored “Chicken Dance Down South” at the other corner. Apparently, McDonald’s thinks you’re going to stop what you’re doing and dance with corporate tools and, uhm, some Mummers, of course. Or maybe this is the part of Marley & Me where the dog mauls Ronald McDonald to death.

Man Beaten To Death In Concourse

PHILADELPHIA — Police said a man was beaten to death during a fight on a SEPTA concourse in Center City Philadelphia.

The fight occurred Wednesday afternoon on the concourse, before the turnstiles, at 13th and Market streets, police said. One adult male was taken to Jefferson University Hospital but has been pronounced dead.

Police said homicide investigators have been summoned to the scene.

Cue the outcry and anger and people saying things need to change. I’ll be over here.

Police: Man Dies After Fight On SEPTA Concourse [NBC 10]

Knocking At Death’s Door (In Center City, At Least)

Today’s Inquirer has a story about empty nester couples moving back to Center City, because they’re sick of living in suburbia and have enough money to afford to live in Center City, unlike you.

And, as such, the Inquirer profiles a couple who has moved from Elkins Park to an unnamed ritzy Center City condo. Oh, and the paper predicts the date of their deaths.

But three of their four children are in Center City. So is the theater. Ballet. Opera. Restaurants. So in the spring of 2005, they moved to Center City. One of the glam condos that are shooting up in Philadelphia like gold-leafed sunflowers. Just the right perch for a couple with another good 10 or 15 years left to get their urban groove on.

Well, at least the paper gave them a range. “You’re going to die by the time you’re 90, but you will live until at least 85!”

Second life as urban hipsters [Inquirer]

Actually Eating Good In The Neighborhood

The Illadelph points to a Philadelphia Business Journal story last week that should let all Philadelphians breathe a sigh of relief: Chain restaurants are largely avoiding Center City.

While Center City does have some chain restaurants, particularly steak houses, most of the big casual dining chains have swarmed to the suburbs. To the point, the nation’s two largest owners of casual dining restaurants — Darden Restaurants Inc. of Orlando and OSI Restaurant Partners LLC of Tampa, Fla. — have a combined 48 restaurants in the eight-county Philadelphia market, but only three are in Center City.

Yeah, there are some chains, but there is a difference between, say, Morton’s and the Olive Garden. Even Fado and Fox & Hound are on a different level than the Big Four (Applebee’s, the Olive Garden, T.G.I. Friday’s and Chili’s — did I miss anything?).

Anyway, apparently we have old people (who have enough money to eat at nice places or are grizzled enough to hate chain restaurants) and young people (who would rather drink at McGlinchey’s on the cheap) but not enough suburbanites. Imagine that, not enough suburbanites in the city! (But who’s living in all these condos?)

“Center City has a strong residential population,” some consulting firm president told the PBJ. “It’s mostly young and old, but not the middle, which is the market for casual dining.”

Somebody remind me when I’m 40 if I want to go to Applebee’s all the time that I’m a big sellout or whatever.

Tastes of Center City denizens prove, thankfully, to be far too refined for the likes of artless national chain restaurants [The Illadelph]
Chain restaurants expand in the suburbs, not in city [PBJ]

Businesses Want You To Pay More To Park

Those of you with cars know the perils of parking in Center City. In short: It’s impossible! Either you drive around for 45 minutes looking for a spot or you end up parking at like 21st and Christian and walking to Rittenhouse or wherever.

Well, it’s about to get a little … uh, more annoying to park, since soon you’ll have to feed the meter ’til 10 p.m. across all of Center City. The reason for this change is not the complaints of economists that on-street parking is too cheap — economists will complain about anything being too inexpensive, including sunshine and rainbows and butterflies — but because businesses want you to pay more to park:

“Because they’re finding that as their hours are extending, and people are staying out longer, they (the businesses) want to have a way (for customers) to park. And if your regulations end at a certain time, that turnover is not taking place.”

Uh, yeahhhh… okay. Fortunately for us, once they install new parking kiosks nobody will have any idea how to use them and the city won’t get any money.

New Rules For On-Street Parking in Center City [KYW 1060]
June 27: How Many Philadelphians Does It Take To Use A Parking Meter?