From the city's Philly History blog:
And the skyline could be growing again: Comcast might build another behemoth in Philly.
1900 Developer Williard Rouse didn’t 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’s “gentleman’s agreement,” 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: ‘It’s only a gentleman’s agreement. The question is, are you a gentleman?’”
There were a lot of places in the city where you couldn’t even see City Hall tower or the statue of the founder. “If you stood at Rittenhouse Square right now and looked for William Penn,” Rouse pointed out, “you would not find him.” According Benjamin M. Gerber’s chronicle of the gentleman’s agreement’s demise, the Inquirer editorial board agreed: “much of the symbolism of Penn’s supremacy was already lost amidst ‘a stubby tide of undistinguished office buildings already [lapping] just shy of Penn’s pantaloons.’” ...
Liberty Place was built, of course.
1987
In 1987, when it opened, some couldn’t forget that architect Helmut Jahn adapted it from a much taller, unbuilt tower proposed for Houston. They couldn’t forgive that it looked like a bulked-up version of New York’s Chrysler Building. Hine wrote that Liberty Place “loomed,” but appreciated how, amidst the “stubble” of existing office buildings, it turned “the uninspiring commercial agglomeration into a complete visual composition.” Liberty Place stood “like a mountain among the foothills.”(h/t VIADUCTgreene)
And the skyline could be growing again: Comcast might build another behemoth in Philly.
 |
| What will rise at 1800 Arch Street? |
Developer
Williard Rouse didn’t 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’s “gentleman’s agreement,”
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: ‘It’s only a gentleman’s agreement. The question is, are
you a gentleman?’”
There were a lot of places in the city where you couldn’t even see City Hall tower or the statue of the founder. “If you stood at Rittenhouse Square right now and looked for William Penn,” Rouse pointed out, “you would not find him.” According Benjamin M. Gerber’s chronicle of the gentleman’s agreement’s demise, the Inquirer editorial board agreed: “much of the symbolism of Penn’s supremacy was already lost amidst ‘a stubby tide of undistinguished office buildings already [lapping] just shy of Penn’s pantaloons.’”
- See more at: http://www.phillyhistory.org/blog/index.php/2013/06/breaking-away-from-the-gentlemans-agreement#sthash.rYgL14j6.dpuf
There were a lot of places in the city where you couldn’t even see City Hall tower or the statue of the founder. “If you stood at Rittenhouse Square right now and looked for William Penn,” Rouse pointed out, “you would not find him.” According Benjamin M. Gerber’s chronicle of the gentleman’s agreement’s demise, the Inquirer editorial board agreed: “much of the symbolism of Penn’s supremacy was already lost amidst ‘a stubby tide of undistinguished office buildings already [lapping] just shy of Penn’s pantaloons.’”
- See more at: http://www.phillyhistory.org/blog/index.php/2013/06/breaking-away-from-the-gentlemans-agreement#sthash.rYgL14j6.dpuf
