Also this issue: Philly By Numbers Investing in our numbered streets will pay off. -Alan Greenberger

October 17-23, 2002

cityspace

Hole-ier Than Thou

by Daniel Brook

In this space last week, we ran an item titled “The Hole Story,” describing a mysterious hole punched into the modernist orange façade of the National Building on North Second Street in Old City. Readers were informed that L&I had granted a permit allowing the developer to remove front tiles and then revoked the permit when inspectors determined that the work being done on the building wasn’t what was specified in the permit.

Well now we give you the whole Hole Story. After press time, L&I spokesperson Andrea Swan explained what exactly the developer was up to.

"The applicants indicated on the building permit application that they were going to remove front tiles," Swan explained. "But throughout the conversation with the L&I inspector, the applicant indicated that actually they were demolishing the front veneer of the building. So the permit was revoked because demolishing the front exterior -- the veneer of the building -- and removing tiles are not the same thing."

Essentially, the developer was using a permit to "remove tiles" to destroy the historic façade of the National Building.

The South Street-Headhouse District (SSHD) is appealing a zoning board decision to allow Inferno Body Piercing to get into the tattooing business. SSHD board chairman Michael Samschick says it’s just a matter of sticking to a long-standing policy of limiting the number of tattoo parlors in the area.

Strangely enough Brett Mapp, who owns Inferno, which is located at 618-620 South Street, is on the board of SSHD. "The board's primary purpose is to keep the street safe and clean and they do a good job of that," he says. Mapp just wishes the board would stick to that primary mission instead of trying to tightly control the types of retail on the street.

Ed Andricola, who runs E-Zone, which specializes in "sensual lingerie," says he has frequently sparred with SSHD over his erotic window displays. Andricola thinks attempts to limit the number of tattoo parlors is part of a larger strategy to turn South Street into a sterile, suburban-style shopping mall. "The whole purpose of South Street was supposed to be [that] it's eccentric, it's different. Now they're bringing in all these chains [and] the rents are going up."

Samschick says SSHD is just trying to reach a happy medium. "We like the funky tattoo parlors [but we want to] have a broader mix [that will] appeal to a much wider variety of people."