I'm a little surprised to see no reply at all, not even a snide
retort.  Is B-P getting this?  Is everybody offended?  Is my mail
being filtered out?  Hello?

                                              Larry

On Nov 28, 2007 7:44 PM, Lawrence Kestenbaum <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Been meaning to write this for weeks now.  Today, I'm home recovering
> from yesterday's cataract surgery, so I don't have lots of work
> clamoring for attention.
>
> When I read the posting about the building in Manhattan that leans one
> foot over into the vacant lot next door, I immediately opened up
> Google Street View to find the property in question.  To my
> disappointment, I couldn't see much of it.
>
> However, that was in New York.  As Google Street View has developed,
> it has gotten better.  Specifically, it works much better in
> Philadelphia and Pittsburgh than in NYC.  Among other advantages, in
> the more recently-done cities, you can look up toward the tops of tall
> buildings, the ceilings of tunnels, and so on.
>
> So what to look at in Philadelphia?  After some wandering around, e.g.
> looking at City Hall and the walls of the Eastern State Penitentiary,
> both of which I saw in person when I was there last, my fingers took
> me to the 6200 block of Osage Avenue, where a 1985 confrontation
> between police and a radical group called MOVE started a huge fire
> that destroyed dozens of houses.
>
> I remember the Philadelphia mayor tearfully promising the burned-out
> homeowners that "we will make you whole" by rebuilding all the houses.
>  And various construction trades and architects hurried to volunteer
> their services and share the photo op.
>
> The neighborhood around Osage Avenue today looks pretty solid, with
> row houses probably built in the 1910s and 1920s.  But the post-1985
> replacement townhouses (on Osage and on parallel Pine Street) are an
> exception.  Most of the windows look to be boarded up, and torn
> building paper hangs off the facades of even the occupied ones.
>
> Hmmm.  Eighty-plus-year-old vernacular houses in West Philadelphia are
> occupied and look pretty good, while a group of 20-year-old
> architect-designed houses are mostly vacant wrecks.  Or am I
> misreading these photos?
>
> See for yourself.  Go to maps.google.com, search on "6200 osage ave,
> philadelphia", click on "StreetView", click on one of the blue lines
> to get a view window, click "Full Screen" to make it bigger, use your
> mouse to move around.  Click on arrows to move up and down the street;
> mouse-drag inside the picture to get a 360 view.
>
> Don't just look at just the first houses you see.  Swivel around and
> look at both sides of the street.  Stroll down Osage from 62nd to 63rd
> (aka Cobbs Creek Parkway), go north a short block, and come back along
> Pine Street to see the houses on the other side of the block.
>
> What do you think?
>                                                                       Larry
>
> ---
> Lawrence Kestenbaum, [log in to unmask]
> Washtenaw County Clerk & Register of Deeds, http://ewashtenaw.org
> The Political Graveyard, http://politicalgraveyard.com
> Weblog: Polygon, the Dancing Bear, http://potifos.com/polygon
> P.O. Box 2563, Ann Arbor, MI 48106
>

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