BSWAM (Bartender’s skills with a Manhatten) sent a wonderful series from Philadelphia. Here’s a couple. A wonderful public artwork celebrating looking up kids’. Apparently they were roped off, so he couldn’t get the traditional closeups.
And one of their celebrated Gentlemen’s clubs.
BSWAM says, “People are still ambivalent about Philadelphia’s terrifying City Hall, one of the world’s largest public buildings and, somehow, evidently the inspiration for Sydney’s Town Hall (how or why this was the case I have no idea). In fact, no sooner was this behemoth finished (around 1902 after a period of over forty years) than a petition was circulated to demolish it. This idea was dropped when it was realized that the thing was so enormous the cost of its demolition would have bankrupted the city. To give you an idea of its scale the statue of William Penn on the top of the tower is 40 ft tall.”
“Here’s a non-worst, the previous picture was taken from the steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum (a building so enormous it’s nearly impossible to photograph the entire thing – this is the central portion). Now considered one of the masterpieces by the architect Julian Abele, one of the US’s first black architects, it was widely criticized at the time of its construction for what was considered an out-of-date style and for the use of colored terra cotta. It is seen here emblazoned with the name of the architect who will be renovating the staircase. So yes. Probably a worst after all.”
The Worst of Perth 
Philadelphia Town hall : a nice Gothic building , but I couldn’t find any catalogue of its gargoyles or grotesques.
http://www.philart.net/exhibit.php?id=10
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So we can expect the Philadelphia Art Museum to be converted into a shambolic aluminium caravan affair? Gehry. What a cunt.
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Actually it turns out that Gehry’s additions will be almost entirely underground, and allow a greater percentage of the collection to be on display. Which, while reassuring, makes you wonder why they hired Gehry and not some person who had a backhoe.
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I’m sure he has a titanium backhoe.
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The central icon of elite, 21st-century living.
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An under-appreciated, awesome fact: the statue of William Penn (along with all the other sculptures on the City Hall building) was the world of Alexander Milne Calder, the grandfather of another Alexander Calder, the sculptor who invented the mobile, the largest of which hangs inside the Philadelphia Art Museum (pretty much behind the ‘A’ in the photo). From inside the Museum, you can look back along Benjamin Franklin Boulevard to City Hall, and about halfway along is a fountain, called the ‘Swann Memorial Fountain,’ which is the work of Alexander Stirling Calder – son of the dude who sculpted William Penn, and father of the guy who invented mobiles. So, in one awesome, sweeping view you can see the evolution of American art from static to dynamic through the work of a single family.
What a great city Philadelphia is.
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If you look the otherway you see the trainyards.
So.
Six of one, half a dozen of the other.
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I wonder how the City of Brotherl;y Love would cope with this
http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/rubbish-blunder-litters-landsdale-roadway-near-new-industrial-site-20140918-10iohl.html
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That’s entertainment!
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Much needed Landsdale vibrancy
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I like City Hall. I hope they bathe it in pink and purple, as they do in Teh Pert.
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Vibe rant
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2014/09/08/history_of_prostitution_1849_guide_to_brothels_in_the_city_of_phliadelphia.html
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I enjoyed this too, and it almost got a guernsey in tomorrow’s Missing Links. I particularly like the entry for Dutch Sal’s perfect loafer hole.
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This was amazing.
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I quite like the idea of a Brothel “Scene”. So very 60s.
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What no picture of the Rocky Statue or Rocky boot imprints (pretty much where the last shot is taken from memory.)? No Philadelphia Museum of Art worst experience is complete without them..
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