Photos of Convention Hall at Philadelphia Civic Center

See separate thread with news of planned demolition of remaining two Civic Center buildings by UPenn Health Systems. I'm putting photos in this thread to avoid slowing down the load time of the discussion thread.

http://phillyblog.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6804




This Art Deco trim above interior entry doors has already been stripped away for salvage. Most of the recovered decorative pieces will be shipped out of Philly.

__________________
Cheers,
Jayfar
--
“I am indeed well aware of the history of Conventional (sic) Hall, both globally and locally, and can assure you that we are carefully exploring avenues for its future.” -- Penn President Amy Gutmann 5 days before demolition began.

__________________
Cheers,
Jayfar
--
“I am indeed well aware of the history of Conventional (sic) Hall, both globally and locally, and can assure you that we are carefully exploring avenues for its future.” -- Penn President Amy Gutmann 5 days before demolition began.

The Commercial Museum, one of a number of buildings contructed for the National Export Exposition of 1899, the others were demolished within a few years of the exposition.

__________________
Cheers,
Jayfar
--
“I am indeed well aware of the history of Conventional (sic) Hall, both globally and locally, and can assure you that we are carefully exploring avenues for its future.” -- Penn President Amy Gutmann 5 days before demolition began.

Bumping this up with another shameless plug for the Save Convention Hall Fax Bank:

http://www.hallwatch.org/faxbank/conventionhall/

I hope a few more PhillyBloggers will take a few minutes to write (and kudos to those who already have).

The Committee to Save Convention Hall has established a fax bank at
Hallwatch.org to make it easier to write to your elected representatives
and urge them to intervene with Penn to spare Convention Hall and the
Commercial Museum from a looming date with the wrecking ball. Each letter
submitted online to the Save Convention Hall fax bank will be faxed
directly to Mayor John Street, all members of City Council, Governor Ed
Rendell, Congressman Chaka Fattah, State Senators Vince Fumo and Anthony
Hardy Williams, and State Representatives James Roebuck and Speaker of the
House John Perzel.

http://www.hallwatch.org/faxbank/conventionhall/

Calling or writing to elected officials individually is also strongly
encouraged, but the fax bank provides another channel of communications
and makes it possible to reach out to many at once.

Widespread public involvement is critical and the clock is ticking even
through the busy holiday season. All we know for sure is that Penn intends
to commence exterior demolition (and resume it in the case of the
Commercial Museum) as soon as asbestos removal has been completed.

Penn, home to one of the nation's preeminent design and architecture
schools, seems to lack the vision and creativity to adaptively reuse these
buildings and fails to respect Philadelphia's more than 300 years of
history, as embodied in the rich diversity of our built environment. Penn
has a civic duty to step back and plan anew, this time in substantive,
open collaboration with the citizens of Philadelphia.

Please join with us in standing up for Philadelphia's history as writ
large in our Convention Hall and Commercial Museum at the former
Philadelphia Civic Center.

__________________
Cheers,
Jayfar
--
“I am indeed well aware of the history of Conventional (sic) Hall, both globally and locally, and can assure you that we are carefully exploring avenues for its future.” -- Penn President Amy Gutmann 5 days before demolition began.

Below we see Penn preparing its case for Tuesday, March 1st hearing on injunction sought by demolition opponents. They only began ripping into the south side of the building the day after being served with court papers.

__________________
Cheers,
Jayfar
--
“I am indeed well aware of the history of Conventional (sic) Hall, both globally and locally, and can assure you that we are carefully exploring avenues for its future.” -- Penn President Amy Gutmann 5 days before demolition began.