{"id":9718,"date":"2016-01-20T00:13:31","date_gmt":"2016-01-20T05:13:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/phillyhistory.wpengine.com\/?p=9718"},"modified":"2016-01-20T09:46:02","modified_gmt":"2016-01-20T14:46:02","slug":"the-audacious-cantilevered-disappearing-cornice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/2016\/01\/the-audacious-cantilevered-disappearing-cornice\/","title":{"rendered":"The Audacious, Cantilevered, Disappearing Cornice"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Manufacturers'<\/a>
Manufacturers’ Club, N.W. corner of Broad and Walnut Sts., December 28, 1916 (PhillyHistory.org)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Going back a century or so, the well-dressed edifice would carry itself with proud bearing. Such buildings lined public avenues instilling character through style and substance. At the Manufacturers Club, for instance, a grand entrance framed by pairs of freestanding columns finished in the Corinthian classical order welcomed (or intimidated) visitors. Rising above, entablatures and colonnades gave way to corbels, pediments, tasteful arches and courses of dentils\u2014all in Green River Limestone. Bas-relief carvings of winged creatures and heraldry marked the corners. Stretching skyward, the entire towering eyeful culminated with an architectural \u201cTA-DA” at the uppermost heights. Before the admirer\u2019s gaze was finally relinquished, a final, rooftop finesse\u2014a\u00a0bold cornice\u2014captivated the eye.<\/p>\n

More than shade or protection from the elements, such overhangs provided a powerful visual terminus confirming stature. Projecting over the sidewalks, they reached outwards as declarations of potency, demonstrations of consequence transforming buildings into destinations and citizens into spectators. And here, at the heart of Center City at Broad and Walnut, the group proclaiming its grand arrival was the city\u2019s\u2019 nouveau riche<\/em>: the manufacturers.<\/p>\n

Throughout the second half of the 19th<\/sup> century, Philadelphians had come to expect architectural statements along the rooftops of South Broad Street. La Pierre House<\/a> and the Academy of Music<\/a> claimed a more modest skyline in the 1850s. Horticultural Hall<\/a>\u00a0and the Art Club updated it in the 1890s. Philadelphia\u2019s earliest skyscrapers on Broad Street offered their own kind of \u201cvisual liveliness.\u201d Architectural historian David Brownlee observed that\u00a0the \u201cchateau-esque pinnacles of the Bellevue Hotel<\/a>, the boldly massed modern classicism of the Fidelity (now Wells Fargo) Building, the strong cornices of the two Land Title towers<\/a>, and the Art Deco belfry of the PNB (built as the Lincoln Liberty) Building rise together with City Hall\u2019s tower to create one of the world\u2019s most distinctive and animated skylines.\u201d What\u2019s missing today, writes Brownlee<\/a>, is the biggest, boldest, roofline of them all. The Manufacturers\u2019 Club \u201csuffered a bad haircut\u201d when it\u2019s \u201cgiant Florentine shadow caster, proportionately one of the biggest cornices in the city, was removed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Land<\/a>
Land Title Building and Annex, Southwest corner of Broad and Chestnut Streets. Charles P. Mills, photographer, December 11, 1916. (PhillyHistory.org)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Manufactures’ Club\u00a0earlier, 5-story Queen Anne style building<\/a> by Hazehurst & Huckle opened at 1409 Walnut in the 1880s. But membership quickly expanded beyond the city\u2019s textile manufacturers to include any industry. By 1912, 1,800 members strong, the club had acquired the site of the Hotel Bellevue after it merged with the Stratford. One architectural competition later, the club signed on Simon and Bassett and builders Irwin & Leighton and the construction of the 10-story steel frame clubhouse<\/a>\u00a0was underway.<\/p>\n

Simon and Bassett designed it in the Italian Renaissance style, and a rendering was exhibited in 1912 at the Eighteenth Annual Architectural Exhibition Held by the Philadelphia Chapter of the American Institute of Architects<\/i> and the T-Square Club. <\/i>It\u00a0featured <\/i>a paneled mahogany lobby, a lounge and caf\u00e9 above a basement billiard room and a rustic, tiled grille. On the second floor, members found the library and card rooms. An auditorium for 1,200 occupied the third floor. Above that were three floors of guest rooms, an elaborate banquet hall overlooking Broad Street on the 8th <\/sup>floor and a dining room above it all. \u201cOne of the handsomest and best equipped clubhouses in the world\u201d praised one architectural journal<\/a>.\u00a0 A welcome contrast to \u201cthe familiar bleak \u2018skyscraper\u2019\u201d wrote another<\/a>.\u00a0\u201cA tall building of truly artistic conception \u2026 one of the most impressive sights of South Broad Street.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot<\/a>
The Manufacturers’ Club, center, without its cornice (Google Streetview)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Edward P. Simon partnered with David B. Bassett from 1908 to 1919 and produced another great cornice that survives. This one, from 1917, is atop the historically designated Pomerantz Building at 1525 Chestnut Street. Hidden City<\/a><\/i>, called this cantilevered cornice \u201caudacious.\u201d Its historical nomination (see the .pdf here<\/a>)\u00a0described it as a \u201cradical projection\u201d extending \u201cmore than seven feet out from the plane of the fa\u00e7ade\u201d causing it to \u201calmost…float above the sidewalk.\u201d Instead of harkening back to classical times, this feature endowed its building with something ironic. Simon & Bassett \u201cused the daring projection of the cantilevered cornice as a reminder that the building\u2019s structure is modern.\u201d So, too, with the spreading cornice at the Manufacturers\u2019 Club.<\/p>\n

How, then, did this most expressive and defining attribute disappear?<\/p>\n

Cornices were considered dangerous. Almost immediately after the Club opened, Philadelphians read of an earthquake in Avezzano, Italy<\/a> that \u201cknocked cornices off buildings in Rome.\u201d Closer to home, cornices and ornamental coping were falling off Philadelphia’s own City Hall. \u201cDanger In Cornices,\u201d read one headline. To reassure a worried public, city officials removed five tons from the upper reaches of City Hall.<\/p>\n

It was only a matter of time before the Manufacturers Club at Broad and Walnut would get a similar shearing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Going back a century or so, the well-dressed edifice would carry itself with proud bearing. Such buildings lined public avenues instilling character through style and substance. At the Manufacturers Club, for instance, a grand entrance framed by pairs of freestanding columns finished in the Corinthian classical order welcomed (or intimidated) visitors. Rising above, entablatures and […]<\/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-9718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9718","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=9718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9718\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}