Looking West from Broad and Spruce

South Rosewood StreetLooking out the back or West side of the Atlantic Building which was known as Anderson Hall at the time and housed the Philadelphia College of Art.

schoolcatalog198081phil_bw-10

From the 1980 -1981 Philadelphia College of Art Catalog. The building on the right was Anderson Hall. It still stands and is now known as the Atlantic Building.

The 20 story skyscraper that once was a business office for the Atlantic Richfield Oil Company became The Philadelphia College of Art when ARCO pulled up stakes and moved to the West Coast. It was an impressive building for the squat town that the City of Philadelphia once was, and it was surrounded by smaller residential buildings and businesses. The photo at the top of the post shows the tops of some of those smaller buildings. It looks like a scene from an old detective movie and screams URBAN.

I scanned this from a 35mm negative I shot in 1983. I was an illustration major and I was probably shooting reference photos although I don’t think this shot ever figured into an actual illustration.

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