Proposed Plans for Dilworth Plaza

[JaneClaire]

Transforming Dilworth Plaza :: KieranTimberlake ISO

[desolate]

Homeless Man Shot and Killed By Cops | NBC Philadelphia


A waste of money if you're going to let 180+ homeless sleep in the concourse every night.

[MarketStEl]

All the plans assume that City Hall subway station will be rebuilt.

It's on SEPTA's list of capital projects, so the assumptions are valid.

But I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it to happen. Here's why.

[RayZ]

Homeless Man Shot and Killed By Cops | NBC Philadelphia


A waste of money if you're going to let 180+ homeless sleep in the concourse every night.

Exactly. Regardless of what you do, if the homeless remain and the area is not kept clean, there will be no real return on the expenditure. If the area was properly maintaind and policed, shops/kiosks could be integrated into the plaza - without gutting what is currently there.

[desolate]

All the plans assume that City Hall subway station will be rebuilt.

It's on SEPTA's list of capital projects, so the assumptions are valid.

But I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it to happen. Here's why.

The ADA rears it's ugly expensive unfunded head again.

[eldondre]

All the plans assume that City Hall subway station will be rebuilt.

It's on SEPTA's list of capital projects, so the assumptions are valid.

But I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it to happen. Here's why.

In some ways, we'd have been better off had they built the distributor loop, there'd be no city hall mess. I sometimes wonder if we're not better off building a west market spur to alleviate the pressure on city hall and just leaving city hall as is (not to say we can't clean it or paint the floors now and again).
ADA, just another in a long line of unfunded mandates, like clean water. the feds take all the tax money and don't give it back When cities were building transit systems, bridges, and innovative water systems the feds took a lot less tax money.

[Titus]

I just think the whole plan is a waste. I like what's there, at least how it looks, and think it needs serious tweaking, not demolition.

[marbugkid]

Who's going to clean all the bird crap off all of that glass on a daily basis?

Ever see that place around 5am?....it's a bird sanctuary. I think there are more birds on those trees than leaves that time of the morning, year round.

[SkinnyArbuckle]

Exactly. Regardless of what you do, if the homeless remain and the area is not kept clean, there will be no real return on the expenditure. If the area was properly maintaind and policed, shops/kiosks could be integrated into the plaza - without gutting what is currently there.

It's okay - Bon Jovi is going to rid the city of homeless people. Bon Jovi Helps With Homeless Housing Project | NBC Philadelphia

Oh, nevermind - to move into the new facility, the homeless have to agree to go to addiction programs and get a job. Somehow, I think the new building will remain empty.

[PhillyKev]

The ADA rears it's ugly expensive unfunded head again.

Are you an anti-dentite?

[eldondre]

But the meat is the ideas implicit in the design and demolition of all these structures. Take, for example, the Arcade Building, built by Frank Furness to mimic Milan’s Galleria Vittorio Emanuele. Keels tells us the spatial problem the owner of the building, Alexander Cassatt, needed to address, the design compromise that resulted in a “monumental portal,” and the building’s ultimate aging, falling out of taste, and demolition, in 1969. “Modern Philadelphians,” Keels says in the introduction, “wonder how their forefathers could have been so shortsighted or self-centered as to permit the loss of such relics.” Keels tells us why: the Arcade Building was demolished to create Dilworth Plaza, the vast public space just west of City Hall. While Dilworth Plaza has never been properly used and in its turn is glaringly ready for demolition, can you argue with the instinct to give City Hall a foreground?

Nathaniel Popkin Review of Forgotten Philadelphia

[Titus]

Nathaniel Popkin Review of Forgotten Philadelphia

In fact I miss the Arcade Building, but it was well removed to make way for Dilworth Plaza, which despite its shortcomings gives City Hall it's due.

[eldondre]

I'm not sure how to take that, whether it's a compliment or whether it's due is a giant toilet. Surely it was a mistake unless it was tone a testament to the giant toilet that is I side cityhall

[Titus]

I'm not sure how to take that, whether it's a compliment or whether it's due is a giant toilet. Surely it was a mistake unless it was tone a testament to the giant toilet that is I side cityhall

Not quite sure what you're saying here.

City Hall is not at all to my personal taste but it's a magnificent building and deserves to be seen - something not really possible until the Arcade Bldg and Broad St Station came down. Further, as it filled the once open central square, it's good to have some open space there anyway. What complicate the problems with Dilworth is the MSB plaza and Raeburn Plaza (they still call that little piece on Broad - Raeburn - don't they?) which are really rather useless and ungainly.

[hammersklavier]

I've always thought that you could plug one level of an elevator in between City Hall's pylons, MSE. Put all the electrical work under the elevator (that is, gouge a hole out of the platform) like a pneumatic-y sort of thing and that can help a bit. Of course, the major problem with accessibility is de-mazing the labyrinth down there. If a lobby is built under the new Dilworth plaza as part of its reconstruction that also alleviates quite a lot of the expense of a total City Hall rebuild.

Also--posting your own Examiner article? Isn't that a little biased?

Titus, I think that the Arcade Building was an incredibly beautiful lost building that should have been made historical. City Hall's best sight lines IMO go up and down Broad along which the tower is centered. Don't forget that that plaza the Municipal Services building sits in has always been a plaza and it's the combination of both it and Dilworth that makes City Hall really feel separated from the city to its N and W. I would like to see one of those plazas or the other gotten rid of permanently and and leave the other as City Hall's grand photogenic entrance.

Recycle the granite in the new plaza, though, there's no sense throwing away perfectly good expensive stonework.

EDIT: I like the plan. I think that their reuse of the already-present features both slashes costs and provides a link with the Kling design.

[cewillm]

I still think the easiest solution is to re-route the trains wider around City Hall, either to the east or west, one or two blocks. Build a new tunnel and station, plug up the old one, and call it done.

City Hall's platforms are just not wide enough to support the load. When I get off a car and walk to the stairs I am fearful that someone will knock me off into the tracks.

[hammersklavier]

Easiest, but not cheapest. It costs like 10 grand an sf to build a new tunnel, and I think there are more important service needs to address before we go completely rebuild the tunnel. Also remember that City Hall happens to be the most crowded part of the city, infrastructurally-speaking: the MFL and the trolley loop and CCCC along with the BSL and the pedestrian access tunnels, along with water mains and sewers, etc., means that you've got a situation where there's practically no dirt left anywhere within a whole acre of the NW corner of Dilworth Plaza.

[eldondre]

I agree with hammer that dilworth added modest sightline improvements
Or what was
Considered the city second most impressive building. Too high a price, like demolishing the trevi fountain so visitors remember the Spanish steps. There's enough open space there as it was. As for a new
Tunnel, if you were going to build it I think it would
Make more sense just to tunnel under the north tower and put thebetation under the courtyard. You'd be straightening out the trip and reducing maintenance costs. Perhaps tunneling tech has improved such that the tower is a less formidable challenge

[ArcticSplash]

You cannot use Chestnut Street.

The tunnel that runs under most of Chestnut is now the major electrical, cable TV, fiber/data, gas and steam conduit for most of Center City. A similar smaller tunnel with a couple-block beginnings of a transit tunnel also run under Arch.

This was once going to be opened up a long time ago for a second E/W transit tunnel and the sewer mains there were supposed to be relocated. Never did happen.

Easiest, but not cheapest. It costs like 10 grand an sf to build a new tunnel, and I think there are more important service needs to address before we go completely rebuild the tunnel. Also remember that City Hall happens to be the most crowded part of the city, infrastructurally-speaking: the MFL and the trolley loop and CCCC along with the BSL and the pedestrian access tunnels, along with water mains and sewers, etc., means that you've got a situation where there's practically no dirt left anywhere within a whole acre of the NW corner of Dilworth Plaza.

[cewillm]

Easiest, but not cheapest. It costs like 10 grand an sf to build a new tunnel, and I think there are more important service needs to address before we go completely rebuild the tunnel. Also remember that City Hall happens to be the most crowded part of the city, infrastructurally-speaking: the MFL and the trolley loop and CCCC along with the BSL and the pedestrian access tunnels, along with water mains and sewers, etc., means that you've got a situation where there's practically no dirt left anywhere within a whole acre of the NW corner of Dilworth Plaza.

I certainly agree that it's not the cheapest.

One of the bigger issues that might offset a rebuild of the current station completely is that it simply can't close down. I can't imagine the ****storm that will occur if people are forced to walk to either Race-Vine or Walnut/Locust for at least a year.

And, as I said before, the platform simply isn't wide enough, especially when you get ADA into the mix. There's no way they'll approve the current squeeze between a stairwell and the platform edge for a wheelchair. The platforms need to be at least 1.5x to 2x their width as of current, so the tunnel needs to be dug wider and track needs to be moved anyhow.