Grand Finale

The entire reasoning for everything that I have blogged up to this point boils down to this very post. This post is essentially the explosion scene of the very movie that this blog hailed its name from. In David Fincher’s film Fight Club, the common “everyman” played by Edward Norton falls victim to his mind-dulling post modern life. He initiates an organization known as “Project Mayhem” to wreak havoc as a scheme of revenge against the corporate clutch on the city. The team’s decisive strike would be the explosion of a piece of corporate art, and ultimately the destruction of the cities corporate-ridden skyline. The Philadelphian remake of Fight Club will have its own grand finale destruction scene. The three buildings that will be featured in the scene each have different historical and cultural backgrounds and represent the 3 distinct neighborhoods of Philadelphia.

Fincher's Fight Club

When I began to think of a building to represent North Philadelphia, I considered numerous possibilities. But after a little more thought I realized I forgot a building that I knew was the obvious choice for this scene. On the corner of Broad Street and Fairmount Avenue lies one of Philadelphia’s most recognizable abandoned buildings, The Divine Lorraine. I personally remember gawking at it as I drove up North Broad Street to visit Temple for the first time, but its rich history remained unknown to me. “This broke-down palace first came in to being as the Lorraine Apartments in 1894, one of Philadelphia’s first high-rise luxury residences. It was designed by Willis G. Hale, a controversial architect widely criticized for his unrestrained, high-Victorian style.” (UntappedCities). 

The Divine Lorraine

). Only 6 years after its construction, the building shifted from the real-estate business to the hospitality business as a hotel. For the next 50 years the hotel attracted many of Philadelphia’s new class of nouveau riche who gained wealth during the industrial revolution. During this time a belief group headed by Reverend Major Jealous Divine was gaining followers throughout the North East coast. “It was in 1948 that the Lorraine and the Divine linked. That’s when the International Peace Mission Movement bought the hotel for $485,000 — all cash donations from the Reverend’s followers.” The Reverend provided something that the area, which dealt with poverty and prejudice, desperately needed. Through his sermons he preached about inner-strength and gave many opportunities to anyone that walked through his doors. “By the time he attached his name to the roof-top sign on the building, the Divine Lorraine had become the first racially-integrated hotel in the United States. Later, as North Philadelphia shifted from prosperous to poverty-stricken, Reverend Divine’s building served as a beacon of hope in the area and his sermons began to promote equality, desegregation, and anti-lynching legislation.” After the International Peace Mission Movement relocated its headquarters to a 73-acre estate, the building became abandoned and currently lies in bedlam. The building itself is “being demolished slowly via neglect and exposure.” It currently functions as a canvas for graffiti and a death-trap for ambitious explorers. 

Read: Plunge inside Divine Lorraine teaches Temple daredevil a hard lesson

Since this building served opposite ends of the wealth-class scale, its destruction would serve as a symbol of the end of a struggle between social classes, uniting the people of the city together. 

The next building to be featured in the destruction scene is The Comcast Center located at 1701 John F. Kennedy Boulevard. The tower, designed by Robert A. M. Stern of Liberty Property Trust, is a 58 story skyscraper completed in 2008 which houses the corporate headquarters for the Comcast company. Towering over the hat of William Penn’s statue at City Hall, the tallest building in Philadelphia can most definitely claim the title of the Gentlemen’s agreement’s biggest offender.

This building will represent the Center City district of the city in connection with its corporate corruption. Ever since Comcast has surmised as a giant in the cable and communications world, it has been marked with criticism and controversy. Between misleading advertising, lobbying efforts, accidental transmission of pornography, and network neutrality issues, Comcast cannot seem to keep their name out of the headlines. But above all, Comcast’s biggest problem is its customer satisfaction. The company makes the top of nearly every “Worst Company in America” list across the country. Business Insider reports that “Ever-unpopular media conglomerate Comcast has been blasted for early withdrawals, faulty equipment, and unprofessional service technicians” (Yahoo Business). In the American Customer Satisfaction Index survey in 2004 and 2007, studies found that no company in America had a worse customer satisfaction rating than Comcast. Given that Comcast is the biggest company to call Philadelphia its home, it’s a disappointment that our city is not better represented.

Nothing can precisely capture the culture and history of South Philly quite like the South Philadelphia Sports Complex can. Once home to legendary grounds such as John F. Kennedy Stadium, Veterans Stadium, and the Spectrum, many historic moments of Philadelphia culture happened within those very confines. Between the 1980 World Series winning Philadelphia Phillies at Veterans Stadium, and the Broad Street Bullies and Sixer’s championships during the 70’s at the Spectrum, Philadelphian’s finally had something to take city-pride in. But as every sports fan knows, when stadiums get old, they get demolished. That is exactly what happened to those three stadiums, to make room for a new wave of state-of-the-art stadiums. Citizens Bank Park has witnessed the Phillies win the World Series in ’08 and Lincoln Financial Field has witnessed many successful seasons of Eagles football. That leaves one stadium remaining, the Wells Fargo Center. The center opened in 1996 on 3601 South Broad Street, and was designed by Ellerbe Becket Company. In its 17 years of existence it has only ever seen 2 teams reach a championship, both resulting in losses when the 76ers were defeated by the Lakers in 2001 and the Flyers lost to the Blackhawks in 2010. 

The center itself has gone through a ridiculous amount of name changes by greedy financial institutions. When it opened in 1996 it was named the CoreStates Center, until 2 years later when it was changed to the First Union Center. After 5 years under that name, First Union was bought out and the center was renamed after the buyer, the Wachovia Center. History repeated itself again 7 years later when Wells Fargo bought out Wachovia. "Wachovia, which owned the building's naming rights, was bought out by Wells Fargo Corporation effective Dec. 31, 2008. Wells Fargo now holds the naming rights at a reported cost of $1.4 million per year until the contract expires on June 30, 2023" (Philly.com) The naming of stadiums has lost recognition as greedy banks and other corporate companies try slap their names on as a form of brand recognition. The Wells Fargo Center simply lacks the history and legendary stature that its predecessors possessed.

By destroying these three buildings, each with a different historical and cultural background, the film could symbolize its large impact not only to the city as a whole, but also to each neighborhood of the city that these buildings call home. Each building has a different story but they all contain something that the city can learn from them, and the best means of expressing this is via a grand finale of destruction in homage to David Fincher’s cult classic Fight Club.