In the heart of Old City lay scattered relics of our revolutionary heritage. Near the Liberty Bell, two blocks from the building where the Declaration Of Independence was signed, are the foundations of George Washington’s slave quarters used while he was in Philly on business. Across the street are the local headquarters of Dow Chemical and Wells Fargo Bank. Rising from streets of Center City just west of City Hall are One & Two Liberty Place, the first glass and steel towers to break the local ‘Gentleman’s Agreement’ that no building in the city would be taller than William Penn’s hat on top of City Hall.

Construction of Liberty Place was completed in 1987 the year I moved to Philly. Their planning and construction a historic flexion point between old and new visions of urban American life. Coming on the heels of the civic identity crisis of the 1970’s, accelerating deindustrialization, and consequent class and social struggles.

These towers are symbolic of the dynamic changes taking place in the local economy. Like a modern City of Oz gleaming in the distance they are visible from most of Philly’s neighborhoods: working class communities hit hard by deindustrialization and now squeezed by austerity and the gentrifying forces that were unleashed by Liberty Place.

The seismic economic shifts, escalating real estate development and gentrification of our neighborhoods have resulted in a particular – potentially explosive – economic, political and social mix. Contradiction, juxtaposition, class conflict, gentrification, love, hate, and friendship mingle against the backdrop of a post-industrial urban landscape still alive with pockets of industry. We work, we play, we live, we love, we fight, we die, we make great sandwiches… and we all live in the shadow of liberty – literally and figuratively.