For those who think that there'd be a Restaurant School at St Mark's and Walnut if the Historical Commission had its say about the original building. We'd probably still have an abandoned house there. Historically correct, but abandoned....
A previous plan for a restaurant called for construction of a glass addition to the Engine House....
That idea, proposed by the operators of Catelli's Restaurant of Voorhees, was sharply criticized by preservationists and some members of the park commission and the Philadelphia Historical Commission.
What the article fails to mention is the fact that this is NOT a new restriction.
Catelli's first proposal refused to accept the constraints imposed on the site ORIGINALLY by the Fairmount Park Commission. They chose to pretend that they could simply bulldoze their way through the Park Commission by paying off enough politicians. They took as their model the University of Pennsylvania's treatment of University City. "We can do whatever we want because we're doing something. We don't care what the community thinks."
There are also far more people who want to know what kind of stuff Catelli's is smoking to think that they would be able to successfully operate a humongous catering hall at that location after the initial subsidies from the City ran out. While it seems nice that they are willing to risk private capital on the surface, it is no different than most of the other City re-development projects, it is dependent upon massive government subsidies to succeed. ... Remember, they had to be solicited to bid on this, they didn't come up with the idea because it made good business sense!
Many of the criticisms of the changes were based on the high probability that this would become an abandoned structure on its own within 18 months.
T.T.F.N. William H. Magill [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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