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buildphillynow.substack.com

Read the full coverage here: buildphillynow.substack.com/p/historical... The final hearing on the mural is next Friday and I'll have full coverage and analysis at BPN following the meeting - subscribe to be the first to know

Historical Commission’s Designation Committee Advances “We the Youth” Mural Designation

A report on the Philadelphia Historical Commission’s September 22nd meeting

The big question is about what this nomination means for the future of preservation in the city - the "object" statute is quite broad and would allow ~anything to be nominated, however this mural is something of a singular case.

Theres an air of conspiracy that hangs around the proceedings - some people have suggested Feibush intends to sell the mural or reinstall it at a new location (there is no evidence anyone has suggested doing this)

Feibush says that the mural is detaching from the party wall and is in danger - his proposal is to remove, restore and reinstall it Some public commentors challenged Feibush's assessment & restoration plan

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The Haring mural is on a party wall between two lots - one is a community garden owned by Neighborhood Gardens Trust, the other is building owned by an LLC that Ori Feibush of OFC is the manager of

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buildphillynow.substack.com

New from me - an analysis Keith Haring's "We the Youth" mural's shot to be historically designated by the city This is really a first of its kind nomination, and raises a lot of questions about historical preservation in philly 🧵 buildphillynow.substack.com/p/historical...

Historical Commission’s Designation Committee Advances “We the Youth” Mural Designation

A report on the Philadelphia Historical Commission’s September 22nd meeting

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Read about all this and more at BPN News: open.substack.com/pub/buildphi...

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A neighboring organ transplant non-profit, Gift of Life, wants to purchase the property from Rubin in order to grow their operations in Philadelphia - which would likely involve demolishing this building

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Then there was a nearly two hour debate between investor Mark Rubin and the Commission about whether or not to protect this building in Spring Garden.

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A huge 363 unit apartment project at 4889 Umbria St in Manayunk cleared a key hurdle when the commission added the former Manayunk Plush Manufacturing Company building to the historic register, but allowed construction on the apartments to continue

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The commission denied a permit request from a Rittenhouse homeowner to build a third and fourth floor addition - they said it "creating a false sense of history" and also criticized the apparent use of generative AI in creating the renderings

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Commentors called these townhomes in West Philadelphia a "billboard for the billionaire class" It's being built at 4230 Chester Ave in West Philadelphia on a site that is currently a greenspace across from Clark Park

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buildphillynow.substack.com

m helping provide detailed coverage of the Philadelphia Historical Commission - this month's meeting was particularly meaty 🧵 open.substack.com/pub/buildphi...

BPN News | 363 Apartments in Manayunk Clear Historic Preservation Hurdle

A report on the Historical Commission's June 12th meeting

Brendan @ninthhostage.bsky.social · 28/02/2026

New from me: In 1818 free Black Philadelphians attempted to form their own volunteer fire company, this is the story of what happened next open.substack.com/pub/pigeondr...

Jon Geeting @jongeeting.bsky.social · 16/02/2026

Reposted by Brendan

Read @ninthhostage.bsky.social on last Friday’s Philadelphia Historical Commission meeting, where the Commission decided a designation case for a 1920’s movie theater in Frankford, among other things open.substack.com/pub/buildphi...

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Brendan @ninthhostage.bsky.social · 25/04/2025

Check out a history of the first six months of the Philadelphia Home Defense Reserve - a little known paramilitary organization from the first world war open.substack.com/pub/pigeondr...

open.substack.com

Regarding the Purpose of the Philadelphia Home Defense Reserve

Part I on the History of the P.H.D.R.

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One of the great things about doing thus kind of research is finding all kinds of interesting tidbits - this is a future philadelphia mayor talking about why he got intk politics in 1950

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which begs the question, for councilmanic prerogative, does a district council member really "know their district best" when their district is composed of 150k residents? Prerogative emerged when that number was closer to 10k

Philadelphias city council has varied in size and composition quite a bit - it got at big at 145 members in 1920 The number of residents per council member has increased 17x since 1860

A look at the history of the structure & powers of the Philadelphia City Council

Philadelphia friends: I wrote an essay on the history of the structure of city council, and how that relates to councilmanic prerogative - you can see it here: open.substack.com/pub/pigeondr...

open.substack.com

Jackals and Bosses

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Brendan @ninthhostage.bsky.social · 24/01/2025

There's a group that meets at bike stop ~monthly - phillyrubberclub on IG, that's probably a good starting place

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Brendan @ninthhostage.bsky.social · 15/07/2023

bluesky got milkshake ducked?

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a king among men - thee steps ahead of me

thing to include in the regex is probably filtering out stuff about the tv show always sunny in philadelphia

Unique politicians names would probably work well ish too

hoagie and wawa will both have a lot of south jersey/ delco overlap so I guess the q is if we’re limiting to phila proper or the philadelphia metro region

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wondering how good the hit rate on “center city” would be …

Brendan @ninthhostage.bsky.social · 01/07/2023

smdh all these people hopping on blue sky who haven't read the book first

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Reposted by Brendan

Bucco Capital @buccocapital.bsky.social · 01/07/2023

One nice benefit of Elon completely fucking up Twitter is the VC’s and Investors can shut up now about operating a tach business with only 20% of your staff

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Brendan @ninthhostage.bsky.social · 21/06/2023

it also has a remarkably high success & recovery rate for younger people with early intervention and defibrillation! how could someone say that you'd have been better off without the attempt??

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Brendan @ninthhostage.bsky.social · 21/06/2023

what does that even mean? at a basic level... you only do CPR on someone who is already, for all intents and purposes, dead - and it seems hard to do more harm then "dead" under almost any sensible ethical system

Brendan @ninthhostage.bsky.social · 20/06/2023

that's like so horrific and callus - but also - medically illiterate - real one two punch

Brendan @ninthhostage.bsky.social · 28/05/2023

when you go to a bar that has no beer taps - that's when you know

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Brendan @ninthhostage.bsky.social · 13/05/2023

really is feeling like 2009 era facebook out here

you see this kind of behavior with (I’m sorry) people with medical backgrounds a lot too hell hath no fury like an male doctor who is informed that his MD does not, actually, impart mastery over anything other than the general practice of medicine (and maybe not even then)

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that behavior is telegraphing insecurity like a lighthouse in the fog and demonstrating that attainment of an economically valuable technical skill does not make you either a model of virtue nor a particular thoughtful or wise person

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the almost compulsive snideness that some CS / eng people display when someone questions their credentials / suggests that an eng background doesn’t make you an intellectual ubermensch is quite unbecoming

gen ed curriculum still exists and includes math right? or is that just a liberal arts thing?

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Brendan @ninthhostage.bsky.social · 02/05/2023

do any of the people behind those websites actually have philosophy backgrounds?

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$1500 mortgage (Philly) - think that’s directionally equiv to ~2k rent

Brendan @ninthhostage.bsky.social · 25/04/2023

Philly 🙋‍♂️ - do a little with my niche of gov tech, follow the space

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Brendan @ninthhostage.bsky.social · 20/04/2023

can I send noods to the chatbot? If not what is the point