Quote:
Originally Posted by christof
Look at the apartment complex that was developed privately on Walnut Street between 39th and 40th Street. There is retail shops on street level, much like what Drexel is doing on Chestnut and what they have planned for Lancaster.
The new Penn dorm will be much like my freshman year dorm, King's Court. And I hate to say it, KC (and for that matter, the Quad, Hill, etc) are fortress style buildings on the street level.
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Doesn't look that way to me based on the renderings. And incidentally, I lived in the Quad, myself (Hurrah, hurrah Pennsylvania!
), and very much appreciated the traditional, cloistered, collegiate atmosphere it provides once inside.
I think this is part of the larger tension and balance that a school like Penn must constantly confront as an urban university maintaining and expanding a green, more traditional campus befitting its historic, Ivy League pedigree. In fact, I think it's that very balance--especially given Penn's close proximity to Center City--that makes it unique among the Ivies and attracts many of Penn's applicants.
While I agree that the Radian at 40th and Walnut succeeds as a private dorm for upperclass students just outside the perimeter of campus--including the ground-level retail that serves the entire campus community--you have to look at the freshman/underclass college houses a bit differently, especially given their location on the campus proper. Some of the best development decisions Penn has made over the last 50 years have involved closing off several of the streets that traverse campus--Locust, Woodland, etc.--and turning them into lovely pedestrian-only walkways that give Penn the unique character it has today. I--and I believe Penn--view the new college house on Hill Field as part of THAT tradition, and not the commercial development just beyond the perimeter of campus that has done so much to enhance the neighborhood surrounding the Penn campus. Fortunately, with Penn's 300-acre campus and the greater University City District, there's plenty of room--and NEED--for both, and Penn is in a much better position to do that than are the top urban universities with which it competes for students (
cough . . . Columbia . . . cough ).