Photo: Ben Leech
Say what you will about the Sidney Hillman Medical Center at 22nd and Chestnut, it was certainly one of a kind. Designed by Louis Magaziner and Herman Polss in 1950, the building featured rich stone facades and ribbon windows in a stepped, angled massing that evoked a Southwestern pueblo or a Mediterranean hillside. Some people saw it as a modernist gem, while others saw it as a good place for a new highrise. Demolition began this morning.
Photo: Ben Leech
About the author
Ben Leech is a preservationist, architectural historian and illustrator based in Philadelphia and Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Instagram @bentleech and support his capitalist alter-ego at Archivolt Press
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As a photographer, I’m thrilled to have enjoyed shooting the smooth marble and angular lines of this 50’s classic. For me, it will live on in my digital files.si
I’d like to see your photos.
I would also love to see the photos. The Architect, Herman Polss, was my great uncle. I know very little of his work.