GENESIS OF THE IMAGE

Because the location we have just studied is peripheral to the most intense civic core, the separation of the pedestrian and the vehicular movement system can be achieved on the same ground plane. As the designer moves into the core itself, the separation can be achieved only in the third dimension, by the establishment of multiple overlapping planes of movement at different levels. This is seen in the Penn Center Project developed by the Pennsylvania Railroad on the site of an abandoned elevated track.

The plane, one level below the street, originally conceived as the dominant path of pedestrian movement, is shown in the photograph of the model at left. This plane, labeled "Shopping Concourse in Penn Center," with its gardens open to the sky, and extending beneath the streets the whole length of the project, was relegated to a subdominant position by the modification of this original plan which provided for roofing over

1952

1953

1966

250

1:10000

10

Penn Center at 16th

## Market Street West

Penn's initial plan designated a Front Street at the western end of the city along the Schuylkill River, matching the Front Street along the Delaware. The streets were originally numbered in, toward the Center Square, and the present consecutive numbering system was not adopted until 1857. Penn hoped development would start along both riverfronts and move inward. However, there was no substantial growth along West Market Street until the late nineteenth century, following the construction of the Broad Street Station of the Pennsylvania Railroad (1881).

In recent years the area immediately west of City Hall was completely reconstructed. The Broad Street Station was demolished in 1953, along with the elevated tracks behind it referred to by Philadelphians as the "Chinese wall." In its place the Pennsylvania Railroad initiated construction of Penn Center, the first new commercial office project in the city since the completion of the PSFS Building twenty years earlier. Penn Center was recently extended by the city through the construction of an office building for its own use, the Municipal Services Building, and through the creation of several new public plazas around City Hall.

Although Penn Center extends as far west as Twentieth Street, its primary influence has been in the area of City Hall. Several additional buildings have been proposed or constructed adjacent to it among rapidly disappearing movie houses and pinball parlors. The mixture of marginal buildings, warehouses, and parking lots surrounding new office buildings increases west of Seventeenth Street. Office growth is continuing to expand westward, supported by the fine shopping areas along Chestnut Street one block to the south of Market Street and the new apartment buildings along John F. Kennedy Boulevard one block to the north. While the western edge of Penn's original town—along the Schuylkill River—will be preserved as a park from the Art Museum to South Street, office space will undoubtedly continue to expand across the river to connect with the Thirtieth Street Railroad Station.

Broad St.

### Market Street West

9 Center and Studio Theaters

23 Centennial National Bank

5 Central Penn Bank

1 City Hall

2 City Municipal Services Bldg.

22 Evening Bulletin Bldg.

24 Food Fair Bldg.

26 Franklin Field

11 Greyhound Bus Terminal

12 Holiday Inn Market St.

6 IBM

7 IVB Bank

18 Keystone Auto Club

16 Logan Circle

8 Milgram and Fox Theaters

25 Parking Garage

17 Penn Center Inn

21 Penn Central R.R. 30th St. Station

14 Penn Towers

19 Phila. Electric Tower

15 Rittenhouse Square

20 U.S. Post Office 30th Street

13 World Theater

3 2 Penn Center

4 3 Penn Center

10 6 Penn Center