By Ashley Hahn Over tea, at her kitchen table, Adrienne Andrews Harris cracks open a thick binder containing the story of St. Peter Claver Roman Catholic Church. It’s a blend of…
By Ashley Hahn After a couple of false starts, Toll Bros. is advancing a scaled-back proposal for a condo building, replacing five buildings at the edge of Jewelers’ Row. Toll unveiled…
Around 100 cyclists and traffic safety activists formed a human bike lane this morning near the site where a 24-year-old cyclist was struck and killed by a privately operated garbage truck…
*This story has been updated with responses from Toll Brothers and the City of Philadelphia. On Tuesday, the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia faced another defeat in its months-long campaign to…
Once again, Philadelphia’s Historical Commission decided to punt on the contentious Jewelers’ Row case. On Friday, the commission tabled their decision on the historic significance of 704 and 706-08 Sansom Street…
On Tuesday Toll Brothers released renderings of the condo tower it has planned for Jewelers’ Row. The 29-story, 115-unit building will tower over the surrounding storefronts, which comprise one of the…
In 1999 the City of Philadelphia commissioned artist Pablo Tauler to adapt 11 bus shelters on Chestnut Street in Center City with site-specific designs. Tauler transformed the drab little pods with…
On Tuesday night, less than one percent of the residents in Washington West showed up to a neighborhood association meeting, nominally to hear a presentation about protected bike lanes. In actuality,…
On Thursday morning, the Philadelphia Historical Commission decided to wait on the nomination for two Jewelers’ Row buildings to become historic because of demolition permits were issued for the properties the…
On Wednesday afternoon the Department of Licenses & Inspections (L&I) issued the demolition permits to raze buildings on Jewelers Row. The move comes in advance of a Thursday morning Historical Commission…
On Friday morning the Philadelphia Historical Commission’s Committee on Historic Designation voted unanimously to recommend the nominations of 706 and 704 Sansom Street to the local historic register. The full Philadelphia…
On Friday the Philadelphia Historical Commission’s designation committee will consider an extraordinary nomination for the Rohm & Haas Building on Independence Mall. It is a three-part nomination, “like a Russian nesting…
On Wednesday afternoon the Zoning Board of Adjustment quickly, and unanimously, ruled to deny an appeal that sought to stymie Toll Brothers’ proposed development on Jewelers’ Row. The proposed condo tower…
A Zoning Board of Adjustment (ZBA) meeting ended in acrimony on Wednesday afternoon, as the body decided to continue hearing the case about whether the Toll Brothers adequately posted signage about…
It’s hard to imagine there is an RCO in Philadelphia with more architects among its membership than the Washington Square West Civic Association. At Tuesday night’s meeting of the community group’s…
It’s been about six weeks since news broke that the Toll Brothers wanted to build a 16-story story condo tower on Jewelers’ Row. Since then a few storeowners have been thrust…
The controversies surrounding the Philadelphia Housing Authority’s (PHA) ambitious plans for the Sharswood neighborhood repeatedly interrupted Tuesday afternoon’s Civic Design Review Committee review of the agency’s plans to build itself a…
On a good day, the Washington Square West Civic Association’s zoning meetings attract a crowd that just barely breaks into the double digits. Sometimes the zoning committee outnumbers the attendees.…
A developer’s proposal to replace five properties on Jewelers Row with a 16-story, 80-unit luxury condominium has Philadelphia’s small preservation community up in arms. While preservation advocates aren’t ready to concede…
What kind of city do we want to be? That’s the question ringing in my ears reflecting on the news that Toll Brothers has plans to raze five adjacent properties on…