Hidden City covers the recent very large losses of Philadelphia’s urban architecture and the Historical Commission that is supposed to protect our historical treasures.
Philadelphia is a unique place where our rich historical buildings in our urban landscape make the place where we live among the most unique in America. To destroy that for bleak boxes ruins future property value. The jumble of old and new is what makes us Philadelphia and what makes us an interesting place to live and work. A recreation of suburban tract housing and low-rise, soulless office parks–why replicate something that can be found everywhere else in America, and certainly at much cheaper prices and with lower taxes, to boot?
With the loss of St. Bonafice, the Buck Hosiery and a number of other grand buildings outside the tourist zones, deep inside residential communities, these losses are incalculable, and they won’t be realized until revitalization brings more preservationists to those neighborhoods outside the urban core. It certainly is a travesty that a homeowner on Quince Street can get the Historical Commission jumping on their back for replacing window shutters, but nary a peep is made when great buildings in Kensington are murdered.
In Kensington, a low-income housing developer wants to pulverize a very unique bank building in an area where revitalization has just begun to reach Front Street.
I certainly hope nothing bad happens to Kensington Hospital.