South Philadelphia Sports Complex

Why Glorify Them?

                Philadelphia has a long and well-known history in the professional sports world.  As far back as the 1870’s, sports have had an important mark in Philadelphian history and to the reputation of the city. Aside from the political history the city has, the controversies, victories, and long-lasting rivalries with neighboring sporting teams has brought the city of Philadelphia most of the attention it gets from the outside world. Philadelphia is known for their old roots in establishing professional and national sporting leagues and their die-hard fans. As a Kinesiology /Sports Medicine major, I choose to glorify the buildings housed in the South Philadelphia Sports Complex because, like many Philadelphians, I too have a love for the sporting world.

Philadelphia Sports History: http://phillysportshistory.com/tag/1870s/

The Buildings:

Wells Fargo Center

Wells Fargo Center (formerly the CoreStates Center, First Union Center and Wachovia Center) is located at 3601 South Broad Street Philadelphia, PA 19148, lies at the southwest corner of the South Philadelphia Sports Complex, which includes Lincoln Financial Field, Citizens Bank Park, and Xfinity Live!. Comcast Spectator, who also owns the Philadelphia Flyers, brought on Ellerbe Spectrum firm to be the architects on the project. The Wells Fargo Center is a multipurpose indoor arena which houses many of the cities professional sport teams including: Philadelphia Flyers, Philadelphia 76ers, Philadelphia Wings, and the Philadelphia Soul. The Arena also holds concerts, conventions, and other various functions. On September 14, 1994, construction broke ground on the project and after two years of building, on August 12, 1996, the CoreStates Bank center opened its doors. At the completion of the arena, the CoreStates Bank Center took over as the home of the Flyers, 76ers, and the Wings, when they replaced The Spectrum as the home arena. At the time, the project cost approximately $210 Million, the equivalence to $307 Million if built today.

Naming Issue (Controversy):  Before construction began, developers decided on naming the new arena after its predecessor as the “Spectrum II”. But that idea was scraped when CoreStates Bank agreed to pay $40 million over twenty-one years for naming rights. For a couple of years, the arena had the name “CoreStates Bank Center” but due to various bank mergers, the facility has gone through multiple name changes. After “CoreStates Bank Center” was gone, the name change to First Union in 1998, Wachovia in 2003, and the latest name change to Wells Fargo Center in July of 2010. (O’Brien)               

Lincoln Financial Field

Lincoln Financial Field (the “Linc”) is located at 1020 Pattison Avenue Philadelphia, PA 19148 between 11^th and 10^th streets, and stands aside theI-95 as part of the South Philadelphia Sports Complex. The Lincoln Financial Field is the home stadium to the NFL’s Philadelphia Eagles. The owners of the facility, the City of Philadelphia, hired the NNBJ firm as the architects for the project. Construction began on May 7, 2001 for the Lincoln Financial Field and two years later on August 3, 2003 doors opened to the new facility.  

Controversy: The Lincoln Financial Field as seen many controversies since it opened in 2003, but one of its most recent issues, the cutback on tailgating, hit Philadelphian fans close to home in 2007. Prior to the opening game of the Eagle’s 2007 season, a ruling was made to curtail one of Eagle’s fans most cherished traditions: tailgating. Although the Eagles did not ban the tradition entirely, they set-up rules to make the practice a little harder for fans, like banning tables and tents and purchasing more than one parking spot per vehicle.  Fans were not happy with the change but had no chance but to adapt to the new policy. (Hutz)

Citizens Bank Park

Citizens Bank Park, also known as “the Bank” or “CBP” to locals, is a baseball park that houses the Philadelphia Phillies is located 1 Citizens Bank Way Philadelphia, PA 19148. Citizens Bank Park is also located in the South Philadelphia Sport complex. Before construction started, the City of Philadelphia decided to “Go Green” with the project which made the Phillies the 1^st Major League team to join the EPA’s Green Power Partnership Program. Multiple architect firms like Stanley Cole (formerly Ewing Cole of Cherry Brott), Populous, and Agoos Lovera Architects were brought on to the project. The City of Philadelphia contracted for construction to begin on Citizens Bank Park on June 28, 2002. And after two years of construction, the Park opened on April 3, 2004.

Phillies Going Green: http://philadelphia.phillies.mlb.com/phi/community/rgg/index.jsp

Film appearances:

                Invincible (2006), a Walt Disney Pictures sports film directed by Ericson Core set in 1976. It is based on the true story of Vince Papale, who played for the Philadelphia Eagles from 1976–78. The film was made to pay tribute to one of Philadelphia’s notable Eagles players, Vince Papale.  The movie represents the popular depiction of the “Philadelphian story” of a man working against all odds to reach his final goal successfully.  Invincible has similar themes and ideas to another popular Philadelphia sport movie, Rocky. Since the movie was based on a famous Eagle player, the Lincoln Financial Field and Franklin Field (the Eagles’ previous home) was used as the backdrop for most of the movie.

Silver Linings Playbook (2012) directed by David O. Russell uses the Eagles and the Lincoln Financial Field as a side story and supplement to the movie. The main character’s father asks him to attend a Philadelphia Eagles game he has bet virtually all of his money on, as a "good-luck charm". After a chain of unfortunate events, the main character misses the game and the Eagles lose. Later in the movie, the father gets convinced that the Eagles can win if his son and the lead female are together. Since the movie was based on Philadelphia and the Eagles, they used the Lincoln Financial Field as a backdrop.  (IMDb)

LA Times on the use of Philly in the movie:http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jan/21/news/la-trb-pennsylvania-philadelphia-shows-off-its-silver-lining-20130115

How the Architecture is used in Films:

            Architecture can be used in various ways in film. Notable buildings are often placed in movies as a symbol to give the viewer information and insight, or used as the backdrop to the story to establish the setting of the story. As seen in the examples given with the South Philadelphia Sports Complex, the facilities were used in films as a backdrop of Philadelphia to give the viewers a better sense of the city. To people who are not native to Philadelphia, using their sporting complexes in the backdrop makes it easier to identify with the city since Philadelphia has such a reputation in the sports world.

References:

• ·         Krista Hutz, "Unfazed fans party on as usual” Philadelphia Daily News, September 18, 2007
• ·         Seravalli, Frank (July 2, 2010). "It's Officially the Wells Fargo Center". The Philadelphia Inquirer (Philadelphia Media Holdings)
• ·         “Silver Linings Playbook (2012)". Box Office Mojo. IMDb.

"Government of the People" --Jacques Lipchitz

Installation of the Government of the People

Jacques Lipchitz, one of the most acclaimed and innovative abstract sculptors of the twentieth century, was commissioned by the City of Philadelphia to create public art pieces that would go on to become a significant part of the city’s notable outdoor sculptures.  One of the pieces, Government of the People, would be one of the artist’s most popular and controversial pieces in the United States. The Government of the People was Lipchitz last public commission in the United States. The statue was created in commemoration of the two hundredth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. It was installed in 1976 and was placed on the corner of Broad Street and John F. Kennedy Boulevard at Municipal Services Building Plaza, opposite of City Hall. The sculpture itself stands over forty-five high in the plaza made of bronze with a granite base.  According to Lipchitz, the sculpture depicts a family (father, mother, two children) supporting a young couple at the top, which is to symbolize the hope for the future. Also at the top of the sculpture, the couple holds a banner that has the seal of the city of Philadelphia. Included with the sculpture is an inscription which states: “symbolizing family life “the wellspring of society, the hope of the future” and the concept of government being of, by, and for the people, this sculpture is dedicated to the people of Philadelphia.” The public, for the most part, was in favor of the piece since it depicted a positive message of hope and success for the future. Even though many Philadelphians were in favor of Government of the People, the sculpture did come with some controversy.

Controversy:

Article : Controversy between Mayor Rizzo and FPAA

The Government of the People is also Lipchitz’s most controversial piece in the United States. The sculpture coincidently looms over a realistic statue of Mayor Frank Rizzo who bitterly opposed its placement in Philadelphia. The mayor at the time, Mayor Frank L. Rizzo, was not a fan of the piece and stopped funding the project during its installment.  Supporters of this piece like the Fairmount Park Art Association, led by R. Sturgis Ingersoll, stepped in and fought for the complete installation of the sculpture. Almost nine years later, they succeeded in having the work on public view in time for the nation's Bicentennial in 1976. Complete story can be seen at: http://libproxy.temple.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=vth&AN=26276571&site=ehost-live&scope=site

Why destroy it?

I feel as though the piece is one big depiction of irony. The piece is supposed to be of hope and strength of the people. But if you look at the sculpture, all you see is people “squished” and crushed against each other. A piece that is suppose to depict a people powerful enough to pursue the future, oddly has the people smashed together to the point where one would say they are stifled and constricted. The piece reminds me of the phrase “crabs in barrel” where there is no room for the growth and hope for the people of Philadelphia. With the amount of people in the sculpture and the way they are orientated would make an observer believe that the people are hopeless and stuck; the opposite of the meaning Jacques Lipchitz gave to the piece.

Government of the People put in place

The inscription for the Government of the People states that the concept of the sculpture is of “government being of, by, and for the people”.  But if the general concept of the piece is depicting a government of the people, then why are the people in the piece all kneeling and in mangled orientations? For the piece that is supposed to be uplifting for the people of Philadelphia, I again find it ironic that the people are in positions that are usually symbolized restraint, conformity, and pain.  In the piece, you see no faces, no people standing upright and no sense of strength that would expect to see in a people who have a “bright future”. Instead, the people in the sculpture look like they are hiding from something, or holding each other back from something. At first glance, I believed this piece was a depiction of some type of fear or anguish. Once I read the inscription and the background information, I was very confused on the ideas Jacques Lipchitz was trying to project in the piece.

Public Art in Film:

The placement of public art in film has always played a major part in the symbolism and meanings the director tries to get across to their audience. Film is all about imagery, and even though the audience may not know the background history of a piece, public art has always been a great way to set the mood of a scene, and place a story in a certain location. It is crucial that the right pieces are used during filming in order to get the right point across to everyone watching. Like in the case of Government of the People, my interpretation of a scene may be entirely different from one of a Philadelphian who knows of history of the piece based solely off the look of the piece in the film.

Commodore Theatre

Inside the Commodore Theatre

Architect: the Ballinger Company

Year opened: September 22, 1928

Architectural style:  Moorish styled

Neighborhood: West Philadelphia

Street Address: 4228 Walnut Street Philadelphia, SE corner of 43rd and Walnut

Corner of 43rd Walnut Street

The Commodore Theatre is located at 4228 Walnut Street in Philadelphia on the corner of 43^rd street and Walnut Street. The theatre opened in 1928 after being built by a renowned local architecture company, the Ballinger Company. Similar to the architecture movement happening across the United States in the early 20^th century, the inspiration for the building was based after Moorish, Spanish Revival styles and designs. At first, the Commodore theatre was established as a film theatre. The Commodore had one screen and could accommodate 1,105 people during a show. Like most theatres, The Commodore theatre kept up to date and shown popular films during its time.  The Commodore then closed as a movie theatre in the late-1950’s. It was then given a new life in the early 1960’s when it was gutted out and turned into a live stage theatre, and changed its name to 43rd Street Theatre.  During the 1960’s, the 43^rd Street Theatre brought the art movement of acting to Philadelphia as many famous Broadway plays made their way to the stage.               

http://search.proquest.com/cv_701361/docview/532193081/13C4026BE55357C92B5/1?accountid=14270

Side View of Theatre

But not too long after, the theatre started to fail after a couple of seasons and the building was left empty for quite some time. In 1973, the 43^rd Street Theatre officially closed their doors and the building was remade into the Masjid Al-Jamia. Mosque.  Today, the Commodore Theatre does not have functionality but the building remains standing.