Center City turns 180 in 30 years

Like the man said, here's DORE's and my first editorial, posted in two installments. Enjoy!

If you stood on the corner of Broad and Walnut streets at lunch hour in 1977, and asked anyone walking by where you could buy a condo, 99 percent would direct you to the nearest drug store. The other Philly downtowners would slap you across the face.

Yet over the past three decades, condos have redefined the term "quality of life" for tens of thousands of Center City dwellers. They seek convenience, security, services, and comfort -- not to mention city vistas that usually exceed the word "breathtaking."

I've lived in at least five different condominium buildings in Center City over this period, before fleeing to the seashore lifestyle. But I missed Center City living, with its bevy of new restaurants, art museums, concerts, neat shops, and special sense of soul.

Now I return here with an eager and optimistic spirit, bent on sharing its wonders with my wife and 7-year-old daughter. Let's look back on the past three decades of condos, and how their development reshaped the quality of life in Center City.

For trivia nuts, the very first condominium in Pennsylvania was developed by the late Ralph Heller, a visionary with short pockets and big dreams. He created a faux colonial village on the south side of Lombard Street in 1967. I bought a unit, but Ralph was years behind in construction, so I finally asked for my deposit back. My loss, for certain.

The Academy House at Locust and 15th streets was the next to come to Center City. It was the first purpose-built high rise, but it didn't sell until residential marketing king Joe Fluehr of Northeast Philadelphia took charge.

Fluehr convinced John Bunting, the construction lender on the job and Temple alum who headed First Pennsylvania Bank, to grant 30-year fixed rate mortgages to all buyers, with only 5 percent cash down payment at 6.5 percent interest. They quickly sold all of Academy House's units in less than a year.

Then the first condo real estate office opened in a tiny ground floor space for resales and rentals. It was owned by an Irish ex-nun with a fondness for a nip. She hired a recently licensed youngster who had been politely rejected by realtor czar Joe Fluehr, Jr., for "not possessing the ability and aptitude to succeed in residential real estate sales."

It's an anecdote destined to be included in his own eulogy some day -- since the 22-year-old "reject" from Ft. Lee, N.J., and graduate of American University, was named ...

Think you know? Post your guesses here. Then check back soon to find out the answer, and read the story's conclusion.