HOT LINKS: Creative church reuse, Manhattan layers, 15 San Franciscans, Petrified Forest honors

1962: Petrified Forest National Park visitors compound. [AP]

It's been too dangin long. With that, some hot headlines:

• In Pittsburgh former churches are being converted into more than condos - they're becoming everything from hotels to hookah bars. Can we pull this sort of things off in more places? [NYT]
• Here's some ambition for you, Urban Layers maps Manhattan's history showing the age of every building.
• San Francisco Chronicle design critic John King picks out his top 15 buildings that say 'San Francisco'. [SF Gate]
• Buildings designed by modernist giants Richard Neutra and Robert Alexander in Arizona's Petrified Forest National Park were named a National Treasure by the National Trust earlier this month. [AP]

Hot Links: border feuds, mod preservation plaques, smog-eating buildings, and more

by roboppy on Flickr | Creative Commons

Georgia and Tennessee are having an old fashioned border feud. Over water. (Think Colonial era meets Chinatown.) [AtlanticWire]

Payphone time machines (this is not a new Ice Cube movie) [AtlanticCities]

This artist has drawn more than 500 of New York's building and wants to draw all of them. All 900,000. [NYTimes]

New York City's best public food market is in Philadelphia [Mark Bittman, NYTimes]

QueensWay viaduct park vs restored rail service speeding commutes from Rockaways [A/N blog]

Torre de Especialidades: Mexico City's smog-eating building [Fast.Co Exist]

New Canaan's modernist gems get specially designed mod history plaques [A/N blog]

Michael Bloomberg: Mayor of Preservation [Wall Street Journal]
Yo Pritzker: Give Denise Scott Brown her due [Change.org petition]
Should Madison Square Garden stay put... FOREVER? [A/N blog]

Long time, no links. HOT LINKS lives.

Grand Central Station. December 2012. Photo by The Preservator

Holy Moses, has it been this long? Preservator readers - all three of you - I apologize. I have been cheating on you, writing for a certain Philly-centric online outlet. But, let's be real, I miss being here too. So let's not dwell in neglect, but push on where we left off.

Here are a few Friday HOT LINKS:

JFK's PanAm Worldport (now Delta Terminal 3) building is a goner [Atlantic Cities] To be fair, this once futuristic, jet-age wonder has seen better days, but what a bummer. savetheworldport.org
What's a tree worth? Maybe more than your house. [Next City]
Affordable LGBT housing for seniors in Philly's Gayborhood by Wallace Roberts Todd [A/N blog]
Why the Philadelphia Historical Commission won't process any nominations [Hidden City Daily]
Isn't it time to divorce Penn Station and Madison Square Garden? Kimmelman says yes. [NYTimes]
LPC designates 5 historic firehouses: Sunset Park, Windsor Terrace, Longwood, Rockaway Park, and Bathgate [A/N blog]
Grand Central Station at 100, a look at this beauty past and present [A/N blog]
 

Photo Friday: South Philly Kaleideoscope + Hot Links

South Philly Kaleidoscope, 804 Christian St. photo by Preservator

City Life Could Change Your Brain for the Worse [Wired]
National Trust for Historic Preservation Announces 2011 List of America's 11 Most Endangered Places [NTHP]
America Reviving its Highway System for Cyclists [GOOD]
Solving the Real Estate Crisis with Parks [The Dirt]

Philly Stories:
Park Preservation: Help Save East Kensington's Emerald Park [Grid]
Philadelphia's Summer Music Festival Breakdown [Philebrity]
Philly Independent Film Festival Gears Up [Newsworks
Owner of Church [of the Assumption] Takes Demolition Appeal to Common Pleas Court [PlanPhilly]
Nightmarket's Next Stop: Mt. Airy on Aug. 4 [nightmarket]

Robert N. C. Nix, Sr. Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Philadelphia is not especially well known for its collection of Art Deco/Moderne architecture, but it is home to some real treasures of 1930s design. One of my favorites is the monumental Robert N. C. Nix, Sr. Federal Building and Court House, taking up half of the block along the western side of 9th Street between Chestnut and Market. The Nix building was constructed between 1937-1939 as a project of the Public Works Administration, a federal initiative to provide jobs and economic activity surrounding public construction projects as part of the nation’s recovery from the Great Depression.

The Nix building is a stylized Moderne structure built out of Indiana Limestone, with simplified classical design elements. The entrances to the Court House, on Market and Chestnut, are flanked by huge bas-relief granite sculptures depicting allegories of justice and the rule of law. My favorites, however, are the bas-relief sculptures along 9^th Street showing postal carriers in different parts of the United States. 

For especially good interior photos of the post office and courts, visit the General Services Administration page for the Robert N. C. Nix, Sr. Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse.

All photos above by Preservator.

Monday Roundup: Kimmel Center redesigns, Kensington's Visitation BVM Matters, PHA Property Disposal, SEPTA Goes Hybrid

Dorrance H. Hamilton Garden at the Kimmel Center, 2009.           photo by Bob Jagendorf / flickr / creativecommons license.

Renderings for the BLT Architects redesign of the Kimmel Center's Dorrance H. Hamilton Garden have been released, revealing a more functional event space - check them out on the A/N blog.

West Kensington's beautiful, twin-spired Visitation BVM Catholic Church (built in 1879) is a finalist in the National Trust for Historic Preservation's "This Place Matters" grant competition. The $25,000 prize would support Visitation's church, school, and community center. Vote for Visitaiton BVM here.

The Philadelphia Housing Authority is seeking nonprofit takers for more than 1,000 of its vacant properties, and will over more than 1,200 to the public at market rates. [Inquirer] 

SEPTA plans to install batteries along the Market-Frankford line to capture and store power generated as trains stop [New York Times Green blog].

Photo Friday: Hot Hot Heat + Hot Links

Seger Playground, Philadelphia. Photo by The Preservator.

Whoa nelly. Hot times. Don't forget that the City of Philadelphia has an interactive map designed to help you beat summer heat, showing swimming pools and cooling centers. Click here.

I really miss phillyskyline.com. Brad Maule, the man behind the lens and the words, returned to Philly briefly and posted a great photo essay of his trip on his new website, Maule of America, here. It makes me miss PhillySkyline even more.

Over at PhillyHistory, Shawn Evans posted about the prevalence of the city's neighborhood movie theaters. The pictures of these lost picture palaces are fantastic.

According to the Philadelphia City Planning Commission, The Future Begins Now. This week the commission adopted the Philadelphia 2035 Citywide Vision this week. If you're up for the long read, download the full thing here, or the summary here. Inga sums it up in this week's Changing Skyline.