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Bell Atlantic Tower

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1991, Kling-Lindquist. N. 18th and Arch sts.

For the headquarters of the mid-Atlantic region's “Baby Bell” created by fragmenting the original telephone monopoly, the architects came up with a 1991 version of the modern skyscraper. Ironically its adaptation of Hood and Fouilhoux's 1930s slender slab and stepped top for the RCA Building of New York City's Rockefeller Center reprises without the urban frame and civic space the group of buildings that were ignored in the original planning of Penn Center ( PH109). Bell buildings march across the city denoting the location of the main lines of the telephone system. In 1914, John T. Windrim designed the small classical tower with chamfered corners at N. 17th and Arch streets. This was followed by a reinforced concrete high-rise switchboard building at N. 19th and Arch streets (1926, Eugene A. Stopper; 2001 adapted to apartments, VLBJR Architects), and in 1971 was followed by a modern building at S. 26th and South streets by Ewing, Cole, Erdman and Eubank.

Writing Credits

Author: 
George E. Thomas
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Citation

George E. Thomas, "Bell Atlantic Tower", [Philadelphia, Pennsylvania], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/PA-02-PH115.

Print Source

Cover: Buildings of PA vol 2

Buildings of Pennsylvania: Philadelphia and Eastern Pennsylvania, George E. Thomas, with Patricia Likos Ricci, Richard J. Webster, Lawrence M. Newman, Robert Janosov, and Bruce Thomas. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2012, 110-110.

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