Why Are Men Who Build Skyscrapers Afraid of This Woman?

WOE TO THEE, architect or developer who conjures up a parking garage that crosses paths with Inga Saffron. Back in January, after leaving the Comcast Center, she walks over to the half-complete skeleton of the Ritz-Carlton condos. (“Speaking of using the wrong material … ” she says.) Then it’s on to the Murano, a 42-story condo charged with injecting some life into an otherwise desolate stretch of Market Street west of City Hall. The squat tower itself is fine — it’s the garage attached to it that draws her ire, along with the Logan Square Neighborhood Association. The association feared that retail space on the lot’s ground floor would become a panhandling hangout, so the builder was permitted to leave it empty. “Had the planning commission been involved instead of an untrained volunteer neighborhood group,” Saffron says, “it could have been different.” LSNA’s new leadership regrets that decision, too, but as Saffron stares at the gaping driveway and lifeless concrete on the garage’s ground floor, it’s obviously too late for change. “Architecture is unavoidable,” she says. “If there’s a painting on a wall that offends you, you don’t have to go back and see it. But our built world is something we share. Like the Comcast Center. We’ll never get past those security gates, so who cares what the offices look like? The building is part of our lives. It’s how we define ourselves as a city.”

Saffron positions herself across from the Murano and takes it in. “I like the muscularity of the concrete,” she says. “I like that it looks toward the train station and West Philadelphia.” She pauses. “I don’t like the garage.” Rush-hour commuters pass by in the winter darkness, crossing Saffron’s path as she stands on the sidewalk. Like those sculptures in the Comcast lobby, they gaze straight ahead, without noticing the one woman who’s looking up.