I don’t think it’s out of line to say that Penn Tower just isn’t a very pretty building.
A former hotel, the 40-year-old tower reaches 23 floors into the sky, standing tall over the Henry A. Jordan Medical Education Center and the Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine. Unfortunately, next to those new, modern buildings, Penn Tower just looks somewhat … plain. A relic of its era, maybe, a monolith that once dominated a much different-looking landscape on the banks of the Schuylkill River.
In the near future, progress will overtake Penn Tower. The 250-foot building and the offices it contains will, floor by floor, be dismantled and brought to the ground to make way for a new addition to the ever-expanding University of Pennsylvania Health System medical complex.
And I’m going to miss it.
Because while Penn Tower didn’t exactly house lush accommodations or a photogenic façade, it did have something — something very, very important to me — that few other buildings in the vicinity can claim:
An absolutely stunning view.
I’ve been able to make it up to the roof of Penn Tower four times over my three years here with Penn Medicine, and each time I’ve been amazed at the glimpse it provides of everything in the area. The Smilow Center for Translational Research doesn’t loom quite as large when you’re on top of Penn Tower. You can look down onto the helipad at the top of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania from the top of Penn Tower. Even the Jordan Center — practically invisible from the street, positioned atop the Perelman Center — can be seen easily from the western side of Penn Tower’s roof.
Looking beyond the medical complex, you can see plenty of the University of Pennsylvania campus. Look eastward, and you’re treated to one of the most beautiful views of the Philadelphia skyline you could ever ask for.
Photography is one of the several things I do here, and working in that capacity for Penn Medicine has given me access to all sorts of incredible places and things. I don’t know of any view in the health system that tops the one from the roof of Penn Tower.
I’m unsure I’ll be able to get up there one last time before the long deconstruction process takes hold of the place, so for the sake of strolling down memory lane (and digging through a whole bunch of old photos I’ve taken), here’s an all-too-short slideshow of pictures I’ve taken from atop (and inside) Penn Tower.