Society: Score-chester!

‘‘It’s the true walk of shame,” says a guy-about-town we’ll call Mr. Horndog. He’s harking back to his single days in the early ’90s, when he’d spend the night at the Dorchester on Rittenhouse Square, then tiptoe out at dawn past the front desk, the friendly doormen, and the annoyingly chipper early-morning exercise crowd. Horndog never lived at the Dorchester, but was frequently there — he had some guy friends in the building and was always hoping he’d meet a hot girl at Carolina’s around the corner and get lucky. Sometimes — he estimates 30 percent of the time — he did. “I once counted the number of steps from the elevator to the front door,” Horndog remembers. “I think it was 57. I’d be thinking, ‘I’ve got to get out of here before I see someone who knows my mom.’”

That’s the Dorchester for you — though 32 stories tall, the place is far too cozy for anyone to get away with much. And even if you can make it through the lobby without encountering someone you know, the building’s glossy, glass-fronted entrance expels you directly onto the southwest end of the Square, a.k.a. Gossip Central. Of course whatever you’re doing — and who you’re doing it with — will be seen, dissected, speculated on (and, depending on your age, possibly relayed to your mom).

Look around Center City today and you’ll see plenty of new high-rise residential buildings climbing skyward, yet it’s unlikely any of them will ever match — at least in terms of gossip-worthy behavior — Center City’s original modern high-rise, the Dorchester. Since it was built in the ’60s, the Dorchester has been the go-to building for the Beautiful People on the Square, with an eclectic mix of residents filling its 536 units. They range from wealthy power couples and young professionals to some lucky grad students, and all of them seem to be having a lot more fun than the people at, say, 1900 Rittenhouse Square. With its blank cement facade, it isn’t the most classically beautiful building around — “You want to live in the Dorchester so you don’t have to look at the Dorchester,” jokes Fred Mann, the philanthropist and CEO who’s resided there for 34 years — but the cool vibe attracts a particular kind of person with a particular view of what city living should be. The Barclay may be grander, the Rittenhouse more grandiose, but in Philadelphia, the Dorchester is emblematic of modern city living — carefree, even a little risqué.

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