Do you ever walk by something frequently and quietly admire it? Or maybe wonder about it? I did the former often when I got off the commuter train at Philadelphia's University City station. I walked past the relatively new, 300 million dollar Perelman Center - affiliated with the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania - and always noticed the "old" in with the "new." On Friday, after months and months of planning to do it, I took some pictures.
The Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine, which opened in 2008, is at 34th and Civic Center Boulevard in West Philadelphia. There is no longer a Civic Center on Civic Center Boulevard because the Perelman Center - and a big gaping hole that will eventually be filled with at least one more medical building - occupies the site of the former Civic Center. There was, however, a building that preceded the Civic Center on that site. Probably one that the majority of Philadelphians don't know about.
In the late 1890's, University of Pennsylvania Botany Professor William Wilson "imagined creating a permanent world's fair exhibition in Philadelphia," according to the Perelman Center web site. He arranged for world fair artifacts to come to Philadelphia to be part of his Philadelphia Commercial Museum. These artifacts came from the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago, the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in Saint Louis and fairs from around the world.
Wilson's museum served "as a school for American Businessmen" where they could learn about world markets. Starting in the 1920's, because of the growth of the US Commerce Department, the forming of business schools - such as Wharton - at American colleges, and a general loss of interest in world's fairs, Philadelphia official began to look for other uses for the Commercial Museum site. This change begat the Civic Center.
Again,
according to the Perelman Center web site,
The Municipal Auditorium, finished in 1930, was the centerpiece of the new convention center. It was a splendid example of Art Deco design. The Municipal Auditorium played host to a number of important political events. In 1948 all three major political parties – Democratic, Republican and Progressive – held their conventions in the Municipal Auditorium.
This convergence on a city for their political conventions does not happen today. According to
Smithsonian Magazine, it happened in 1948 in Philadelphia because
The city was at the center point of the Boston to Richmond coaxial cable, then the main carrier of live television in the United States. By 1948, as many as ten million people from Boston to Richmond could watch the tumultuous process by which the major parties selected their candidates.
 |
Harry Truman Delivering his Speech in Sweltering Heat
in his White Linen Suit |
In 1948, Thomas Dewey was the Republican Candidate and Harry Truman the Democratic one - and the underdog. While viewers got to watch the parties' nomination proceedings, they also got to see the faces of famous journalists only known, up to that point, by their voices. Perhaps the best example of this was Edward R. Murrow.
It wasn't Dewey, Truman, or Murrow, however, that I thought about when I passed the Civic Center on my train in 2004 - 2005 as it was being demolished. I was thinking about FDR.
I had heard somewhere along the line that FDR had accepted his party's nomination for his re-election in 1936. (When I fact checked this, I learned that occurred on June 27th of that year.) I thought about this larger-than-life man as I sadly watched the Civic Center's demise Monday through Friday for months. It was a slow death, and it pained me even though I never stepped foot in the building. (I suppose I just have a reverence for history and don't believe that new is always better than old.)
I really thought of FDR when the demolition got to the point where I could see inside the Civic Center and I caught views of the stadium-style seating. I pictured a president trying to save a nation from falling off the precipice. I wondered if he was able to hide his disability in front of all of those people, as he seemingly desired to do so as not to appear weak.
I also wondered about the story behind the beautiful friezes on the exterior of the building and how they would disappear when this Art Deco building crumbled.
Some of these friezes, which
Smithsonian Magazine said "celebrated American values and the history of humankind," were what I took pictures of on Friday. Someone had enough foresight to save the friezes, as well as some Art Deco lighting, and install them on the exterior of the Perelman Center. I am so grateful these were saved. I have studied them in a way I could have never done when they were perched high on the Civic Center as the demolition was occurring.
It is a little strange that these pieces of the past are displayed on the side of the Perelman Center facing a parking garage. This location, and the one-way traffic on the street, seemingly offers limited exposure to these beauties. They are even in the "smoking section," as witnessed by the spiked cigarette disposal device seen in the bottom picture. Oh well, at least they survived.
The storied history of the Civic Center continued well after FDR and Truman.
Wikipedia indicates that Pope John Paul II, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela all spoke there. In addition, The Beatles performed there in their first U.S. concert. President Lyndon B. Johnson also spoke there in August, 1964.
After the Spectrum was built in South Philadelphia in 1967, however, the Civic Center began to fall out of favor. The last event held there was the 1996 Atlantic 10 Men's Basketball tournament. The building sat vacant for almost a decade before it was razed.
I'm glad I finally stopped to photograph and eventually write about this little piece of the old mixed in with the new. I am sure there is so much I pass every day that has an interesting story so I am reminded to be more aware and open to seeing what is hidden in plain sight.
