South Broad Street's Got the Blues and Lookin' Good

LITTLE BY LITTLE over the last couple of years the stone facades of buildings along South Broad Street on the blocks below City Hall have been highlighted with a blueish hue,  making the Avenue of the Arts look positively bluesy at night.  It's a striking look and it's been slowing creeping south, building by building, until now it's beginning make the predominent first impression.

  For some reason, Broad Street has always seemed dark to me at night.  More than just dark, Broad Street seemed to be the place where light went to die.  Even with crowded sidewalks and the majesty of City Hall looming ahead, South Broad Street, the heart if Center City Philadelphia, always looked gloomy in years past.

  These blue lights highlight Broad Street's architechture, the  "beetling gibraltars of concrete", which is how Public Ledger columnist Christopher Morley described the same stretch of South Broad in the early 1920's..