What is your opinion of these four hideous atrocities sitting on what is probably Philadlephias most valuable acreage of land? These shabby buildings are so ugly Mayor Street should be able to include them in his Neighberhood Transformation Initiative.

Its a great spot for developers to put up several brand new stylish midrises.

I don't think they are AWFUL, not great but not that bad.

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They definitely are not very good examples of urban friendly design.

Are you going to pay a few hundred million dollars to demo and rebuild that site? Are you going to buy everyone out of their leases as well? Get real ;-)

Honestly, the people who live INSIDE these places are probably happy with their location, and amenities. They have a good view too.

In an ideal world, were financial and human barriers did not exist...mebbe.

Where do you live Mick?

I'm not crazy about them architecturally either, but I do know some people who live there & they seem pretty happy with the place in general. They were renovated not so long ago and had new windows put in, which look a bit better. That style is just not very attractive.

The idea of high rise towers in that location with that view is fine, really, surprisingly decent considering the era in shich they were built, in fact. Its just the sype of the architecture which isn't so hot and what are you going to do - very little architecture of that period has a lot going for it in retrospect.

From an urban planning point of view, my only wish for them would be that they figured out a way to put their parking not at street level and if they had saved more of the ground floors for shops and such so that from a walking persepctive, they came accross as more integrated in to the surrounding city. Imagine if all along the Parkway those buildings had decent outdoor restaurants and cafe's facing the Parkway.

I agree with seand on this one---and I thought there was a plan to upgrade them, redesign the land and parking and maybe even add a few floors to a couple of them....I've never been a fan of multiple buildings all the same height---reminds me of old East german architecture!

And I think some of the redesign is to welcome potential new neighbor Calder museum

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I don't know much about these apts, so I did a quick google and found an apartment review website. It has a bunch of reviews from tenents of this building, including this gem:

http://www.apartmentratings.com/rate...e2/195614.html

__Jason

Sure makes me want to move in.

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“Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.” - Jane Jacobs

[quote="guzzijason"]I don't know much about these apts, so I did a quick google and found an apartment review website. It has a bunch of reviews from tenents of this building, including this gem:

http://www.apartmentratings.com/rate...e2/195614.html

Exactly these boxes have outlived their usefullness. Everytime I ride by these buildings I get the sensation I am traveling through Vladistock, Siberia. The present developer would make an instant fortune by doing the right thing and selling this property.