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Saturday
February 16, 2019 |
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penn's plan for philadelphia might not look like much by today's CAD standards but it was remarkable for 1682 because it was a comprehensive plan at a time when city streets often arose haphazardly. until 1987, no building in philly was taller than penn's hat—the statue that stands atop city hall, 548 feet above the ground. that tradition may have ended—and some say it wrought the retribution of a curse—but penn's penchant for grids and straight edges persists with a vengeance, as this cold concrete canyon of capital attests. we walked in shadow, funneled wind biting, but i have to admit there's a grace and grandeur to the rigid lines and repetition of this monumental phalanx of skyscrapers. what a contrast to the mütter museum's soft, wet, swollen, twisted, and distended displays of human fragility and multifarious failings of fickle flesh. |
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