The PHA is imploding Mantua Hall at 8:30AM on Sunday, March 30th.

I grew up with this tower literally in my back yard. For weird geographic reasons, you can't see it from Powelton, so we tended to forget about it until it caught fire, which it did every year for the last twenty-fire.

I will be glad to see it go.

I ride often enough on SEPTA's Paoli trains that I consider Mantua Hall a prominent background fixture. It'll look strange when it's gone, but I agree 110% that it's time for it to go. The real question is what will happen to the immediate neighborhood afterwards? If the community is still wracked by violence, then the demolition of the tower is a hollow victory.

They're going to build 100 low-rise townhouses on the site.

From what I've seen from other areas where they've done this, there should be a vast improvement in the neighborhood, long-term. I lived for a could years near the site of the old Southwark Towers and even in the short time I was there, the area around the old project improved greatly.

There is a great (as always) write up on Mantua Hall over on phillyskyline.com:

http://phillyskyline.com/

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"I been a prisoner to a white Mr. Coffee
Down here on Christian Street" - Marah

See also the discussion in this somewhat unrelated thread.

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Your representatives on Philadelphia's City Council are at odds with our new mayor over whether many reforms he has proposed should become law. Please write to them and tell them what your priorities are.

Indict State Senator Vince Fumo into The Crooked Pol Hall of Fame.

I did find that thread before I posted, but I decided it would make more sense to start a new thread on the topic rather than bumping an old one that did not relate directly.

I agree. Just wanted to point the other discussion out.

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Your representatives on Philadelphia's City Council are at odds with our new mayor over whether many reforms he has proposed should become law. Please write to them and tell them what your priorities are.

Indict State Senator Vince Fumo into The Crooked Pol Hall of Fame.

Here you go, with super duper slo-mo reversal.

Higher resolution version coming soon.

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www.malcolmxpark.org

Cool - thanks! How long did it take for the car alarms to quieten down?

Here's another:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WyvhTPuonU

__________________
"I been a prisoner to a white Mr. Coffee
Down here on Christian Street" - Marah