"There is more to this story. By the time this building was started in 1972, coal barges had long been gone and the dairy on the site had been closed for years. The land was designated for high rise apartments on Ed Bacon's 1963 Center City Plan. This was to provide a high-population base to feed people into Schuylkill Park, which was part of the same plan. Much of the land along the river had been acquired by the city for the park, aided by federal funds. Mayor Jim Tate, however, knuckled under to Bell of Pennsylvania, which had originally constructed the thing. I co-chaired the Citizens Coalition to Develop Schuylkill Park, formed in 1971 to oppose the building, understanding it would interfere with the development of the riverbank as a recreational facility. Bell Tel falsely told the Irish-American community south of South Street that the building would provide lots of jobs to the neighborhood, as a strategy to pit the old Taney neighborhood against Center City residents who envisioned the development that became the Scuylkill Park years later. The Windows on the south, east and north sides are windowed boxes attached to the design in response to neighbors' and the Planning Commission's objections. Ewing Cole's original design would have had blank walls all around except on the west creating a completely dead box. These cosmetic paste-owns failed, because one has ever to be seen inside them. The walls were reportedly 5 feet thick to withstand a nuclear blast, and the footings would allow a much taller building to be built on top of this one. We lost the fight to stop the building, but in the long run we won because we put Scuylkill Park firmly on the map so we were able to break ground for it -- north of this building -- in 1978.