Spotlight on Building #33, the little orange columned structure at the end of the Lego Franklin Parkway.
To better illustrate the buildings I will be discussing in this section, I have provided links to professional photos, all of which lead to Phillyskyline.com. The photos to which the links lead are all by the amazing photographer Bradley Maule. Brad's attention to detail in all of his photos were a great help to me as I built Legodelphia. With pictures of virtually every major building in the city before me, I was able to make Legodelphia's features resemble the real city.
The photos of Legodelphia below are all my own.
When Legodelphia was first built and sent to the Franklin Institute in 2005, it was much smaller than it is now. In fact, it was less than half the size it is now. It represented Center City only, between the Delaware and Schuylkill and from Chestnut St in the South to Vine Street in the North. At that time, there was no Delaware River, no Ben Franklin Bridge, no 30th Street Station and no Cira Centre. As much as I would have liked, there was simply not enough space to complete the entire length of Philly's Benjamin Franklin Parkway, so in the model, the Parkway terminated at what would be Logan Square/Circle. However, I placed a "representation" of Logan Circle much closer to where 16th Street would intersect the Parkway so it would look more "centered." That location was be about three blocks East of where the park actually exists in the city.
When Legodelphia was expanded in 2006, I relished the opportunity to branch north and extend my Lego Parkway. I carefully designed it to cut through the city at about a 45 degree angle, making sure it formed a direct connection between City Hall, all the way to the not-yet-built Museum of Art, dissecting Logan Square (which I moved to a more accurate location) on the way. Building the Philadelphia Museum of Art was a real challenge, and in all honesty, second to the Ben Franklin Bridge, it was the most difficult building to recreate. It had to resemble the real Museum, which meant I had to try to utilize my very slim supply of orange bricks. I had no idea how I would make the columns, and the fact that the museum is positioned on a 45 degree angle in reference to Market Street made it all the more challenging, because Legos cannot be placed in such an angle. Using my imagination, as I did from the very first brick laid in the entire model, I obtained a few strange little pieces which I later found are used as the bars of the jail cells in Lego's Police Headquarters playset (item #7744). I discovered that these jail house "bars" made excellent Corinthian Columns not only for the Museum of Art, but also for the Academy of Natural Sciences (building #29), the Franklin Institute Science Museum (#30), and the Free Library of Philadelphia (#31).
My Parkway was astounding, and added such a Philadelphia feel to my city that it couldn't quite capture before. Looking from the perspective of the Art Museum, the entire city seems to part like the Red Sea, making way for an unobstructed view of Legodelphia's City Hall. To the East of City Hall's Tower, the Ben Franklin Bridge, Aramark Tower and Loew's Hotel are prominently visible. To the West stand Verizon Tower, Comcast Center (origional version), the former Blue Cross Tower, and the Commerce Square twins. Behind the Art Museum I placed a few small pines to represent the southernmost tip of Fairmount Park. A little further north would be Boathouse Row. The Parkway was a huge success, and I even impressed myself.
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