Society Hill Tower III

02 December 2005

Designed by I.M. Pei and constructed in 1964, the towers stand atop a hill in the middle of 2nd Street in Philadelphia.

The Inquirer has an interesting story from 2004 about the ruthless 1950s transformation of the neighborhood, orchestrated by city planner Edmund Bacon. Strangely, the distinctly modern towers were seen as the finishing touch to the deliberately gentrified neighborhood marketed on the basis of its colonial charm.

That large blurry shape on the left is the no-parking sign I was leaning against in order to steady the camera. That and the heavy digital noise give this photo its charm, no?