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34-400: Penn Center may refer to: Penn Center, Philadelphia , a high-rise business district on the site of a former railroad right-of-way Penn Center (Saint Helena Island, South Carolina) , an African-American cultural and educational center Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with

68-611: A new Home Rule Charter was instituted. In 1949, Bacon succeeded Mitchell as executive director of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission. Serving under Mayors Samuel , Clark, Dilworth, and Tate , his work brought him national repute along with his counterparts Edward J. Logue in Boston and Robert Moses in New York City during the mid-century era of urban renewal . His face appeared on

102-616: A permanent position for Bacon at the Flint Institute for Planning and Research. Bacon became very active in civic life in Flint, helping to establish the Flint Housing Association and reforming the city's Planning Commission. During his time in Flint, Bacon witnessed the 1936-37 Flint Sit-Down Strike , and felt empathetic to the workers. Bacon gained close contacts with individuals who were active in establishing

136-753: A state historical marker honoring Bacon's memory and commemorating his work. Bacon was awarded the Frank P. Brown Medal in 1962, the American Institute of Planners Distinguished Service Award, the Philadelphia Award , and an honorary doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania . In 1983, Bacon was elected into the National Academy of Design as an associate member, and became a full member in 1994. From 2004 until his death at

170-483: Is the heart of Philadelphia 's central business district . It takes its name from the nearly five million square foot office and retail complex it contains. It lies between 15th and 19th Streets, and between John F. Kennedy Boulevard and Market Street . It is credited with bringing Philadelphia into the era of modern office buildings. In 1881, the Pennsylvania Railroad brought passenger service into

204-470: The Far Northeast . The Center City Commuter Connection , a seemingly radical idea at the time, was conceived during the 1950s by Planning Commission staff member, R. Damon Childs, who succeeded Bacon as executive director. Not all of the concepts that Bacon supported materialized. One proposal that he inherited from Robert Mitchell was to encircle Center City with a series of expressways, including

238-462: The cover of Time magazine in 1964, and in 1965, Life magazine devoted its cover story to his work. That same year, Bacon was appointed by President Johnson to serve as a member of the White House 's Conference on Recreation and Natural Beauty. In 1967, he wrote Design of Cities , still considered an important architectural text. It’s a seminal work on urban design that illustrates

272-623: The City Policy Committee, a grassroots movement of young Philadelphians, established by future civic leader Walter M. Phillips, that was instrumental in Philadelphia's political reform movement. Members of the Committee went on to become leaders in Philadelphia government after 1952, when the reform Democrat and later ( U.S. Senator ) Joseph Sill Clark was elected Mayor , Richardson Dilworth became District Attorney, and

306-577: The Crosstown Expressway proposal depressed property values and rents in the South Street corridor, leading to a turnover of the neighborhood's character from largely Jewish-owned garment shops to the thriving commercial and nightlife center that it is today. Other concepts conceived during Bacon's tenure, such as Schuylkill River Park, included in the 1963 Center City Plan, came into being many years later. After Bacon's retirement from

340-629: The Federal Housing Authority, such as Catherine Bauer and Lewis Mumford . Through these contacts he helped secure federal housing dollars for Flint. However, the local real-estate industry came to see this Federal funding for public housing as a threat to their business, as was the case in several cities early in the history of the FHA. The funding was turned down, and Bacon was effectively run out of Flint in 1939. From Flint, Bacon returned to Philadelphia to serve as managing director of

374-693: The Penn Center name is officially attached to 11 mid- and highrise office buildings. Most of the buildings of the complex are connected to the Suburban Station retail concourse (renovated in 2007) and by extension the Center City Concourse. The buildings share a loading and delivery entrance on Commerce Street which connects to all the buildings underground. Although not part of Penn Center, the Comcast Center connects to

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408-461: The Philadelphia City Planning Commission, came up with a master plan for a four-block area to be cleared. Bacon named the new site Penn Center with the hopes that it would become a business center and model for future development. His plan for the redevelopment of the site included three large office towers, a pedestrian mall, and an underground concourse where retail and business was to be located. He picked architect Vincent Kling to design most of

442-744: The Philadelphia Housing Association. He served in the United States Navy aboard the USS Shoshone in the Pacific in World War II . In 1947, he joined the staff of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission under executive director Robert Mitchell, and served as co-designer to the 1947 Better Philadelphia Exhibition in collaboration with Oscar Stonorov and Louis Kahn . Bacon was also an early member of

476-625: The Philadelphia-New York " Clockers ", and steam-powered trains of the Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines ) for nearly two more decades. Broad Street Station was not completely vacated until 1952, during the term of Mayor Joseph S. Clark . Plans for the demolition of the Chinese Wall and accompanying train station were finalized and both were razed in 1953. Ed Bacon , executive director of

510-570: The Planning Commission in 1970, he served as vice president for the private planning firm Mondev U.S.A., was an adjunct professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and at the University of Pennsylvania , from 1950 to 1987, and narrated "Understanding Cities", an award-winning series of documentary films describing the history and development of Rome under Pope Sixtus V , Paris under Georges-Eugène Haussmann , Regency London under John Nash , American cities, and cities in

544-414: The above ground promenade, and failing to account for actual human usage of the space. Throughout the mid-to-late 20th century, the city's office sector began to move west into the Penn Center area, thanks to planning efforts. As the office-working population became more suburbanized , convenient access to Suburban Station began to take precedence to city planners over local city transit access. Today,

578-699: The age of 95 the following year, Bacon helped found and served as an honorary director of a foundation that bears his name, the Ed Bacon Foundation, whose programs are now managed by the Edmund N. Bacon Memorial Committee at the Philadelphia Center for Architecture . Bacon was the father of six children, including two sons, actor Kevin Bacon , musician Michael Bacon , and four daughters, Karin, Elinor, Hilda and Prudence (later Kira). His wife

612-449: The buildings over Louis Kahn , another possible contender. The Pennsylvania Railroad wanted to sell the land off in smaller lots for piecemeal development, but Mayor Clark used his political clout to see that Bacon's plan was realized. The plan was implemented with public support, but it would come into criticism later from urban planners, and notable journalist Jane Jacobs for placing vibrant urban activity underground leaving no use for

646-623: The center of the city, and constructed the first Broad Street Station just west of City Hall . The sea of iron pillars holding up the PRR's elevated trackbed was replaced in the 1890s by a 10-block stone viaduct to the Schuylkill River . This created a block-wide barrier known as The Chinese Wall , cutting the western portion of the city in half and discouraging development there. At the time, most commercial activity in Center City

680-484: The concourse; such an option was also examined for the canceled American Commerce Center . The numbers of the Penn Center buildings generally radiate clockwise around One Penn Center, the oldest building. John F. Kennedy Boulevard, on which many Penn Center buildings front, was known as Pennsylvania Boulevard until 1964, after the assassination of John F. Kennedy . Edmund Bacon (architect) Edmund Norwood Bacon (May 2, 1910 – October 14, 2005)

714-648: The father of actor Kevin Bacon . Bacon was born in West Philadelphia , the son of Helen Atkinson ( née Comly) and Ellis Williams Bacon. He grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs and graduated from Swarthmore High School in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania in 1928. He attended Cornell University , where he studied architecture. His senior thesis at Cornell made the case for a new civic center for Philadelphia that included an urban park where LOVE Park

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748-682: The future of Philadelphia's downtown. Bacon continued to assert his vision for Philadelphia's future actively in his later years. During the 1990s, he proposed new concepts to improve Independence Mall, Penn's Landing, and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway . During the same period, he promoted a design competition for North American cities to design the best "Post-Petroleum" city. Only one municipality, in Ottawa, Canada, committed to it. In 2002, at age 92, he skateboarded in LOVE Park ,

782-530: The future post-oil era. He vociferously but unsuccessfully opposed the development of skyscrapers in Center City Philadelphia taller than Philadelphia City Hall , which until 1984 set the informal height limit for downtown at the hat of the statue of William Penn . That custom, known as the " Gentlemen's agreement ", was broken by developer Willard G. Rouse III 's One Liberty Place . The New York Times correctly noted Bacon's opposition to

816-500: The plaza he founded and designed at Cornell University in 1932, as a protest against the city's ban on skateboarding in the park. In 2003, he appeared in the documentary My Architect about Louis Kahn , a Philadelphia architect . In September 2006, at the northwest corner of 15th Street and J.F.K. Boulevard, by LOVE Park, The Ed Bacon Foundation and the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission dedicated

850-404: The project, but it was incorrect in saying that "in opposing the skyscraper One Liberty Place, Mr. Bacon refused to attend the tower's 1986 groundbreaking and stopped speaking to his friend Willard G. Rouse III, who built it. 'I think it's very, very destructive that he and he alone has chosen to destroy a historical tradition that set a very fine and disciplined form for the city,' Mr. Bacon said at

884-518: The relationship between historical and modern principles as well as practices of urban planning, applied particularly to Philadelphia. It was during his tenure at the City Planning Commission that Bacon and his staff conceived and implemented numerous large and small-scale design ideas that shaped today's Philadelphia. These design concepts became Penn Center , Market East , Penn's Landing , Society Hill , Independence Mall and

918-632: The so-called " Crosstown Expressway " ( I-695 ) and the Vine Street Expressway ( I-676 ) linking the Schuylkill Expressway ( I-76 ) with the Delaware Expressway (I-95) via South Street . Three of the four expressways were built, however the Crosstown Expressway faced significant local opposition and was never built, while a scaled-down expressway was built at Vine Street. As an unintended consequence ,

952-484: The station and was operationally burdened by its stub-end nature, would move its operations to the newly constructed 30th Street Station and Suburban Station . Those stations were completed and in operation by 1933, but a number of factors, including the Great Depression which stalled the planned redevelopment, forced the railroad to continue utilizing Broad Street Station for certain types of trains (such as

986-476: The time." Bacon was present at the groundbreaking, which took place in May 1985. Of course, Rouse was not capable of single-handedly changing the custom, even if it was not formally legal. Rouse's enormous project had the support of Mayor W. Wilson Goode , Philadelphia City Council, and the City Planning Commission, which was forced by the announcement of Rouse's plan to admit that it had no up-to-date plan of its own for

1020-478: The title Penn Center . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Penn_Center&oldid=699147851 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Penn Center, Philadelphia Penn Center

1054-399: Was an American urban planner , architect, educator, and author. During his tenure as the executive director of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission from 1949 to 1970, his visions shaped today's Philadelphia , the city of his birth, to the extent that he is sometimes described as "The Father of Modern Philadelphia". He authored the seminal urban planning book Design of Cities . He was

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1088-597: Was awarded a scholarship to the Cranbrook Academy of Art , in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan , with Finnish architect and planner Eliel Saarinen , who Bacon revered and whose theories about the city as a living organism as expressed in Saarinen's book The City were a basis for Bacon's later work. Saarinen sent Bacon to Flint, Michigan to guide a WPA traffic survey. This project transformed into

1122-554: Was east of Broad Street , which is why the SEPTA Market-Frankford Line has no stops between 30th Street Station and 15th Street . The stations at 19th Street and 22nd Street are served by SEPTA Subway-Surface Trolley Lines . In 1925, the Pennsylvania Railroad announced its intention to leave Broad Street Station, freeing the land for redevelopment. The railroad, which had both outgrown

1156-647: Was ultimately built. After college, while traveling the world on a small inheritance, Bacon found work as an architect in Shanghai , China in Henry Murphy's office. He was responsible for designing the Nanking airport. With Murphy, he visited Beijing, a city that exerted a deep influence on his thinking. After a year in China, he returned to Philadelphia where he worked for architect William Pope Barney . He soon

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