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Dear Governor Rendell:

This letter is a plea to halt the proposed demolition of several
irreplaceable, and in many ways incomparable, works of
architecture that are in the path of the expansion of the
Philadelphia Convention Center. The specific buildings that we
site are the Philadelphia Insurance Buildings at 111 to 115
North Broad Street and the Race Street Fire House.

These buildings have great architectural merit and all are
listed on the National Register of Historic Buildings. The Race
Street Fire House is also listed as one of our nation's most
endangered buildings by the National Trust for Historic
Preservation.

The importance of the Philadelphia Convention Center rests in
its power to strengthen the city of Philadelphia and the
neighborhood that it occupies. That means that part of that
environment must remain if the Convention Center is to
strengthen it.

The importance of these buildings is in their art, architecture
and in the scale that they maintain for this neighborhood. The
proposed mega-block construction for the Convention Center has
failed repeatedly in American cities. In our city, except for
conventioneers, if the proposed Convention Center's hugeness
continues, there will be no city in that area. Keeping a portion
of the city as it exists, which is what this letter is
proposing, will allow for a smaller scale to be a sign of
welcome in the Convention Center Neighborhood.

There are innumerable ways to save these buildings. No architect
or city planner would even break a sweat figuring out how to re-
use the Race Street Firehouse. A banqueting hall within the old
fire station is one easy example, and would make an unequalled
convention space. There are a host of other solutions that the
architects and planners of the Convention Center would celebrate
in their designs. This would only make the design of the
Convention Center smarter, healthier, more innovative and more
lucrative. The saving of these "old" pieces of the city is an
asset to a Convention Center not a burden.

Please save these buildings