{"id":5320,"date":"2013-06-30T23:52:08","date_gmt":"2013-07-01T03:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/phillyhistory.wpengine.com\/?p=5320"},"modified":"2014-05-13T10:11:41","modified_gmt":"2014-05-13T14:11:41","slug":"breaking-away-from-the-gentlemans-agreement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/2013\/06\/breaking-away-from-the-gentlemans-agreement\/","title":{"rendered":"Breaking Away from the “Gentleman’s Agreement”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
The statue of William Penn on City Hall tower. (PhillyHistory,org)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What kind of a city should<\/em> Philadelphia be? Ponderous, historical and homey, stuck in its quaint ways, admiring of its own image in the review mirror? Or should Philadelphia throw in its hat and become lively, contemporary and international, willing to join the what\u2019s what of World Cities?<\/p>\n

Developer Williard Rouse didn\u2019t think it was a real choice as he put the make-it-or-break-it question to the people of Philadelphia in the Spring of 1984. Rouse proposed breaking the city\u2019s \u201cgentleman\u2019s agreement<\/a>,\u201d that quirky, decades-old a pact more ephemeral than legal. It had never been on the books but had been kept alive in the boardrooms as a ready-made, self-deprecating put down. Anyone suggesting a project over 500 feet would be brought up short by city planner Edmund N. Bacon with the same line:\u00a0 \u2018It\u2019s only a gentleman\u2019s agreement. The question is, are you a gentleman?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

There were a lot of places in the city where you couldn\u2019t even see<\/em> City Hall tower or the statue of the founder. \u201cIf you stood at Rittenhouse Square right now and looked for William Penn,\u201d Rouse pointed out, \u201cyou would not find him.\u201d\u00a0 According Benjamin M. Gerber’s chronicle of the gentleman’s agreement’s demise,<\/a> the Inquirer editorial board agreed: \u201cmuch of the symbolism of Penn’s supremacy was already lost amidst \u2018a stubby tide of undistinguished office buildings already [lapping] just shy of Penn’s pantaloons.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Inquirer<\/em> architecture writer Thomas Hine had seen it coming. \u201cThe breakthrough might come in private office building, or as a public monument,” he wrote in 1983, “but it seems that sooner or later, the city will rise over William Penn’s head.\u201d When, the following April, Rouse presented two projects, a short one and a tall one (he only intended to develop latter). The debate that ensued became \u201cThe Battle of Billy Penn\u201d as Gregory L. Heller tells it in his new biography of Bacon<\/a>. It played out everywhere: in the streets, in the media, and in the public mind as Philadelphia redefined itself at the end of the century that began with the installation of the 37-foot bronze founder above the a humble skyline.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way people talked about One Liberty Place when plans for this skyscraper were announced,\u201d wrote Paul Goldberger<\/a> in the New York Times<\/em>, \u201cyou would have thought that this was not a new building but some sort of nuclear weapon. One Liberty Place would be the ruination of Philadelphia, cried the project’s opponents, the sign that this somewhat genteel city had sold out to real-estate developers and become just like anyplace else.\u201d The crier-in-chief, of course, was the retired Bacon, whose energy, style and way with words fueled the debate. The height limitation \u201csets Philadelphia apart from all other\u201d cities. And Bacon warned: \u201conce smashed it is gone forever.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
One Liberty Place in Philadelphia’s skyline, December 5, 1987. (PhillyHistory.org)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Liberty Place was built, of course.<\/p>\n

In 1987, when it opened, some couldn\u2019t forget that architect Helmut Jahn adapted it from a much taller, unbuilt tower<\/a> proposed for Houston. They couldn\u2019t forgive that it looked like a bulked-up version of New York\u2019s Chrysler Building. Hine wrote that Liberty Place \u201cloomed,\u201d but appreciated how, amidst the “stubble\u201d of existing office buildings, it turned \u201cthe uninspiring commercial agglomeration into a complete visual composition.\u201d Liberty Place stood \u201clike a mountain among the foothills.\u201d<\/p>\n

Philadelphia’s height limitation had been \u201can empty gesture, hollow and pretentious,\u201d wrote Goldlberger in the New York Times.<\/em> \u201cThe urban order that Philadelphians had for so long cherished was a myth\u2026 it was a fallacy to pretend that City Hall still commanded the skyline\u2026William Penn barely stuck his head above his grim surroundings.\u201d With Liberty Place, \u201cCity Hall\u2026is still there, still great, and still at the critical center of the city. The only thing that has been lost is the illusion that William Penn was lording over it all.\u201d Goldberger glowed that Liberty Place \u201ctranscends the old order, and establishes a new one, at a level of quality good enough to justify throwing away the old.\u201d<\/p>\n

Liberty Place would \u201cdislodge this historical center which\u2026 informed our city from the beginning,\u201d predicted Bacon. \u201cIn our arrogance, we replace it with a floating center up for sale to the highest bidder.\u201d In that sense, Liberty Place and the still taller Comcast Center<\/a> confirmed his worst fears.<\/p>\n

But in the end, what was sacrificed? Sure, the skyline would never be the same. It would never again take on the same kind meaning. In the debates of the 1980s, Philadelphians were forced to think long and hard about where<\/em> they found substance and where they found meaning. “We may be giving up something insubstantial, but not meaningless,” observed one architect.<\/p>\n

In the 21st century, Philadelphians would search for substance and meaning in places other than the skyline. And maybe that’s not such a bad thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What kind of a city should Philadelphia be? Ponderous, historical and homey, stuck in its quaint ways, admiring of its own image in the review mirror? Or should Philadelphia throw in its hat and become lively, contemporary and international, willing to join the what\u2019s what of World Cities? Developer Williard Rouse didn\u2019t think it was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5320\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}