You never know when you’re going to see that unexpected thing that you want to photograph. I found one of those things today when I photographed that segment of wall you see above.
I was in downtown West Chester for the moving sale for the store Dishfunctional on S. Franklin Street. They have been in this old warehouse for a number of years and they are moving soon to Lincoln Court in Frazer because West Chester borough approved Eli Kahn to build like two more apartment buildings.
Now I feel building apartments right there is just stupid because everyone knows it floods. And the other thing is every time you hear of some new ugly apartment building going up you wonder why nobody does adaptive reuse? Do you still see it in the city of Philadelphia in spots (my recent favorite example is The Gotham – look it up.)
So you have here this perfect section of old brick wall. What was it from? Where does it go because doesn’t it look like something is bricked up?
I have no idea what the latest behemoth apartment building will sprawl across but I don’t think that wall will survive somehow. So I decided to take its picture because I think it’s just so cool.
The new construction we see today is without depth, human scale, design, imagination, and sometimes you wonder about the quality of the whole project. They certainly don’t do brickwork like this anymore.
Thanks for stopping by. Off to watch A Discovery of Witches.
I agrre it’s a beautiful wall. Maybe your comment will make them take another look and build around it.
It’s amazing but so many time you just what I’m thinking!
I have looked at that “window to nowhere” on a daily basis as I come to work at Dishfunctional. It turns out that piece of brick wall was created to see the texture of the brick and the pointing in different natural light before Eli Kahn crelated that beautiful building and open space at the intersection of Gay and Church streets. He takes great effort to build buildings that embrace the town as well as create a safe environment to live and work. Eli has been a wonderful landlord to me ever since Michael Rubinstein sold the properties to him. I’ve been at this location for over 12 years with my store operating for 5 1/2 of those years. My warehouse has been useful, affordable, freezing cold in the winter, roasting in the summer, with parking and of course flooding twice a year for the past two years. I am still thankful for the opportunity to have been in this building for more than a decade.
As one chapter closes another one begins, I embrace my past and look forward to at least the next five years at Lincoln Court where my new landlord has done so much to be accommodating to our needs. I am very fortunate to have lived and worked in West Chester for 35 years and will miss the downtown. We will still be able to enjoy it on some beautiful evenings and a weekend or two here and there. Thanks for the memories.
I appreciate your response and perspective. I just don’t care for your soon to be landlord’s structures. Eastside Flats in Malvern is one and I just don’t like the lack of human scale or design aesthetic. I think these developers can do better. And that bit of brick I photographed yesterday is just a very cool looking thing – thanks for the backstory and I will see you in Frazer!
Being the “other half” of Dishfunctional, I have to say that its true Eli Kahn HAS been very good to Alfred and tries hard to be fair. I want to agree on one thing here, I too think he could do a bit better to be more cognizant of the feel for “our” town where I have lived my entire life. While progress is inevitable, and change is good for many reasons, I have to agree on esthetics not being his forte’
Thank you and hope all will continue to visit us in our new “digs”
In West Chester it’s called the “Bernardonization” of the borough. Bottom line architecture that does not age well aesthetically nor materially. The exposed HVAC system that sits atop the the Justice Center could be the beacon of borough bs regarding basic, sensible planning.