Exploring the Victory

Recently, a friend of mine went out of town and offered her place to me so I could have some space to myself and spread out with my thoughts. She happens to live in a building I have been ogling since I moved to Philly 4 years ago. The Victory building at 10th and Chestnut has a long and twisted history, most likely an ironic victim of it's own name. It was built in 1873, designed by architect Henry Fernbach, and is the city's second most famous example of French Second Empire masonry. City Hall is the first. I love them both, but the Victory has a bit of a dark side and is harder to get into, just how I like my architecture.
The Victory used to house a night club on the first floor until 1982 when a four alarm electrical fire started in the basement and destroyed large portions of the interior. Fortunately, the building is as solid as they come. The staircases are cast iron and marble, the walls are 3' masonry and granite, and the whole thing is bolted together pretty solidly. I stayed there for a total of about a week and a half and never heard a footstep, a tv or a conversation from another condo.
The building was owned by sleazy porn king Sam Rappaport, who let it rot on Chestnut street and sprout trees from the roof line. He requested a permit for demolition, but luckily thanks to a few savvy historic preservationists and then Mayor Ed Rendell, he was denied. The building managed to outlive him, and was sold by his estate to a developer who had a better plan in mind than a surface lot.
For 25 years the building was bordered up and known only to the hippie/punk squatter crowd that roamed it's bulk in the darkness. One of my best friends, Cat, was one of those lost teens and tells some amazing stories about the things she saw and heard in her time there. Cat found her way out of both her troubled teenage years and the abandoned husk of the Victory, but the building still finds a way to haunt her dreams. With her husband, some good friends, and a few bottles of red wine in tow, Cat was ready to make peace with some old ghosts and revisit the halls she could once navigate from memory in pitch darkness.

Cat, my Brother Dusty, and Jude

First, it was up the grand staircase to look for roof access. It was surprisingly easy and in a few minutes we were face to face with the menacing lion heads on the cornice 10 stories up. It was raining pretty steadily, but we were undeterred and spent the evening climbing ladders, crawling near the edges and being careful to prop doors open behind us.

Cranky Cornice Guardians

Facing North West from 10 Stories up

The old elevator shaft and crank access from the roof (no longer in use)

Cat abandoned the two hands on the ladder rule in favor for one hand on the beverage.

We took the fire escape stairs to the basement all stealthy like...

And here it begins

We found a myriad of strange things in the basement. First, let me say that these pictures do not do it justice. There was no light in most areas of the basement, so the flash from the camera gives a much clearer view than what we saw most of the time in the narrow beam of our flashlights.

Some of the smaller rooms were filled with debris, defunct plumbing, cobwebs and rats. At one point I followed my brother into a small corridor, mostly because he had my flashlight. We both heard the tell tale screeching noises associated with rats, but of course I thought he was making the noises, and he thought the same of me. When he turned to tell me to shut up, the throw of the flashlight revealed the movement on the floor. We left quickly, with me matching the rats' shrieking noises on the way out. One of these rooms was piled 5 feet high with old rusting office equipment: typewriters, calculators, metal chairs and stools, and some things I couldn't identify through the rust. Oddly, this room must be under the street or the sidewalk because the rain was leaking through the ceiling even though we were in the basement of a ten story building.

Rusting Typewriter. Can anyone identify how old it is?

Key pad from an old calculator

It 's hard to describe the size of the basement and its varying states of decay and repair. Some of the levels had lights and had been cleared while others looked like they hadn't been seen since the fire. One of the cleared rooms housed this amazing old staircase. It seems the fire robbed it of its wooden banister and spindles, but the cast iron structure and detail remains in tact. The basement had at least 4 levels, and just when we thought we had found the deepest section, we came upon another unused elevator shaft door labeled 'level 5'. It seems everything else below us had been sealed off, or we could just be lousy explorers that gave up when our wine glasses needed refilling.

A slightly out of focus portrait of Cat and Jude

Cat crawls up to a burnt out window for the creepiest photo of the evening.

Upon returning to posh condo land, the boys got a little giddy.

And then crashed...

Check me out, I'm a specialist in human

Visa

I'm all kinds of official now! Things are starting to really pick up. Last week I went up to the Japanese Consulate in New York and just a few days later, I have my visa! It was incredibly quick and easy once you have a little thing called a Certificate of Eligibility. Your employer in Japan has to apply for that ahead of time, but it basically says that the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has no gripe with me. Aside from the fact that having the certificate makes getting a visa a breeze, I also am quite fond of it because it looks like a birth certificate with Japanese characters all over it and my picture. It was my first official piece of mail from Japan and I ran around showing it to everyone for days.

Certificate of Eligibility

Summer Time

My view from the hammock

Thanks to my friends, my summer is off to a great start. I've been spending a lot of time at Cat and Jude's on the weekends and they've been making it hard to leave. Not only are they some of my favorite people to talk to, but we spend our time playing in the pool, drinking wine on their idyllic back porch overlooking the creek, and while I nap off a hangover in the hammock surrounded by roses, Jude cooks dinner on the grill. They say I should stay there for a while until I leave, I can't imagine why I haven't moved my stuff already except that my pesky job requires getting to, at least for 11 more days.

Cat and Jude's back deck

As I write this, Cat just texted me to come up for a drink on the deck and a swim. Don't mind if I do. Sadly, I was out of touch with Cat and Jude for a while and just got back in the swing with them since December. Now, I spend nearly all of my time with them and will miss them tons when I go. Luckily, these are the kind of friends who can pick up right where we left off.

Pond at Central Park

On Wednesday, I took a trip up to New York to process my Visa. It's the last of the paperwork to contend with before I go. My Brother was kind enough to accompany me, and so the day was transformed from a long errand to a fun day with my Bro. It's a good thing he came along, as my errand would have taken me twice as long without his sense of direction. How it came to be that I can read blueprints but not maps is beyond me. I would have gone in the wrong direction every time AND forgotten the carbon copy at the post office on Lexington. Thanks Dusty! Yes, I'm aware of the absurdity that I cannot navigate New York without assistance, but am planning a solo year long trip to Tokyo. As Scarlett said, I'll think about that tomorrow.

Watching a little softball

Check out the dude crossing the street

Best storefront ever

Fourteen rows behind home plate! You can see the pitch in this one.

Phillies game with Eli and Emily: For three people who could care less about Philadelphia sports, we sure did get the hook up with our tickets last week. We were fourteen rows behind home plate and I couldn't help but feel guilty with all the die hard fans sitting behind me while I marveled at the ring on the player's wife sitting next to me. Aside from the guilt, it was a great night to be outside, and even if baseball bores you to tears, there are plenty of other things to entertain you. Notably, the kiss cam where couples suck face when the camera is turned on them and the kids in the stands yell Eewwww!, the philly phanatic is truly adorable despite his sexually suggestive dance moves, and a couple of the players are great eye candy, if you're fortunate enough to be able to see their faces from your seat. I could. *smirk*

Eli, Emily, Me

We were in the minority of people not wearing red, but we clapped when everyone else clapped, and I felt like we were convincing. I did give us away when at the seventh inning stretch, I looked around blankly and asked "What the hell is going on?"