Philadelphia 2035 (Erie, Scranton, Harrisburg: taxable, garbage, cash)

[kyb01]

Originally Posted by cpomp

The difference between Philadelphia compared to New York, DC and Boston is that people here still capitalize off of our poverty problems as if we are inferior, (New York and DC poverty rates are not far off of Phillys) while those cities market their glamour. Center City, U City and surrounding are beginning to live off of that, but the provincial grit attitude is still there and going strong.

This is all true.

If you go to Delancey or E. Houston...1st or 2nd Ave., in the lower East Side in NYC, there's plenty of grit, dirt and trash for example. But no one sees it in any way negatively(?)

[kyb01]

Originally Posted by AJNEOA

I thought her article on the Creed film failing to show progress in Philly was off-base. Although I think her perspective on this one is fair. And I think something as big as this development probably needs applause or criticism from a support perspective.

She shouldn't even be talking about Creed. She's trying to stay relevant at a dying newspaper by foisting additional "stuff" on the public.

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by kyb01

She shouldn't even be talking about Creed. She's trying to stay relevant at a dying newspaper by foisting additional "stuff" on the public.

Well, Philadelphia is very much a character in this film, much as it was in the original "Rocky," which "Creed" reprises in a way with roles reversed: Rocky Balboa is the wise elder who takes Adonis Creed, the son of the guy who beat him in the first film, under his wing.

And as the neighborhoods that made Rocky figured prominently - not to mention that run he took far afield from them (you've seen the articles attempting to replicate the run and figuring out it couldn't have been done in the time it takes in the film?) - I think it fair game for someone whose chosen beat is the built environment to comment on the appearance of that built environment where it factors into something, as it does in this film.

I haven't seen "Creed" yet, so don't know enough about where Adonis Creed actually lives; it seems, though, that he's done better for himself by the time he decides to enter the ring than Rocky had at the time we meet him in the first film. Would he still be living in Kensington?

And which Kensington? Parts of it do remain deindustrialized, but others are being gentrified at a good clip.

It is true, as Jake Blumgart points out, that the impoverished precincts of this city don't look that much different or better than they did when Rocky was coming up in the world. But we all know that this place is two cities now, and that's been pretty common knowledge ever since the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Center used the nonce word "Bostroit" to describe this place.

Inga's beef is that we get the "troit" but not the "Bos" in this. Granted, "Creed" has no obligation to show both sides of the city, and the world of boxing remains part of the gritty side, not the sparkling one. But given that Adonis Creed is himself now a man of two worlds - a successful lawyer who decided he needed to do something to get back in touch with his soul - why not give that other world a nod?

[cpomp]

Dranoff Presents Early Plans for Hyde Hotel on South Broad Street

SLS is officially delayed until state budget crisis is worked out. But now Carl has plans for another building a block away!

Also, an update on the Hale Building revitalization.

Revitalized Hale Building to Feature Office Space, Retail and a Roof Deck - Property

[rotodome]

Originally Posted by kyb01

This is all true.

If you go to Delancey or E. Houston...1st or 2nd Ave., in the lower East Side in NYC, there's plenty of grit, dirt and trash for example. But no one sees it in any way negatively(?)

Actually there's a whole foods on East Houston at 1st ave now, and that area is getting as gentrified as everywhere else - for better or for worse, to be sure.
But before recent years in our new 'gilded age', the gritty "concrete jungle" where anything could happen was a romantic draw for NYC too. New York is always a bad comparison.

[kyb01]

Originally Posted by cpomp

Dranoff Presents Early Plans for Hyde Hotel on South Broad Street

SLS is officially delayed until state budget crisis is worked out. But now Carl has plans for another building a block away!

Also, an update on the Hale Building revitalization.

Revitalized Hale Building to Feature Office Space, Retail and a Roof Deck - Property

Is the state budget mess affecting his other projects? Specifically the one by Schuykill ?

This new project concerns another one of Sam Rappaport's old delinquent properties. Good riddance to that building. I remember an awful accident wrt it. It had been neglected so long that part of the roof fell off an killed someone walking on the sidewalk.

[Sammy215267]

Creed , wonderful movie. Adonis is well off before he decides to go boxing pro. I think they represented the city well, the same hard streets that Rocky learned on was the same way Adonis Creed learned to have that grit. He had to understand it ,and Rocky showed him that. It really represented the city as "Gritty" and all of those things. People who was expecting it to be a silver spoon type of image will be disappointed.

[rainrock]

Originally Posted by Sammy215267

. People who was expecting it to be a silver spoon type of image will be disappointed.

Philadelphia isnt a Silver Spoon kind of town. The sooner people realize and accept that the better off they will be.

Coming over the Airport Bridges it takes you about 2 seconds to realize this isnt a destination,this is no resort, this is no paradise. It is what it is. An industrial, post-industrial blue collar , social depository city with pockets of corporate/educational presence( Center City/Navy Yard) and some really nice hidden neighborhoods in the NW that most people never see or care to see.

Look when they designed SW Philly and decided to mutilate the Schuylkill River making it into thousands of acres of toxic oil refineries and wasteland it was a death blow to Philadelphia. They could have designed the Lower Schuylkill after say New Hope. Canals, artsy , woodsy , high end but they didnt. They decided to make it a cesspool instead.

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by rainrock

Look when they designed SW Philly and decided to mutilate the Schuylkill River making it into thousands of acres of toxic oil refineries and wasteland it was a death blow to Philadelphia. They could have designed the Lower Schuylkill after say New Hope. Canals, artsy , woodsy , high end but they didnt. They decided to make it a cesspool instead.

A "death blow to Philadelphia" as what?

It never was a small artists' colony. Rivers in the 18th and 19th centuries were, and many today remain, arteries of commerce and industry. Even where some rivers were turned into linear parks - as the Schuylkill was here above the dam that fed the Water Works, or the Charles in Boston was behind a similar dam erected as its fetid back bay was being filled in - others (the lower Schuylkill, the Delaware, the Arthur Kill between Staten Island and New Jersey,the Mystic in Boston, most of the Patapsco in Baltimore) remained industrial and commercial, with piers, warehouses and other facilities (even tank farms) that kept residents employed. Without all that, Philadelphia would have been a small village like New Hope. Instead, it became "The Workshop of the World" - the nation's ship builder, tool maker, metal fabricator, oil refiner, and so on. Blue collar? Definitely, but not without its own elegance - which was found away from the rivers (save the Schuylkill, whose upper reaches became a park in order to protect the city's water supply).

The departure of most of that industry nearly dealt the city a death blow. But, just as Boston recovered from the loss of New England's textile mills, but only after a 30-year slump, we are recovering now.

[kyb01]

Originally Posted by MarketStEl

A "death blow to Philadelphia" as what?

It never was a small artists' colony. Rivers in the 18th and 19th centuries were, and many today remain, arteries of commerce and industry. Even where some rivers were turned into linear parks - as the Schuylkill was here above the dam that fed the Water Works, or the Charles in Boston was behind a similar dam erected as its fetid back bay was being filled in - others (the lower Schuylkill, the Delaware, the Arthur Kill between Staten Island and New Jersey,the Mystic in Boston, most of the Patapsco in Baltimore) remained industrial and commercial, with piers, warehouses and other facilities (even tank farms) that kept residents employed. Without all that, Philadelphia would have been a small village like New Hope. Instead, it became "The Workshop of the World" - the nation's ship builder, tool maker, metal fabricator, oil refiner, and so on. Blue collar? Definitely, but not without its own elegance - which was found away from the rivers (save the Schuylkill, whose upper reaches became a park in order to protect the city's water supply).

The departure of most of that industry nearly dealt the city a death blow. But, just as Boston recovered from the loss of New England's textile mills, but only after a 30-year slump, we are recovering now.

Addtionally, if Rainrock had ever set foot in Bartram's Garden, he/she might have a different view of the lower Schuykill.