Comcast Center
Northwest Corner
About
The newness -- and tallness -- of this skyscraper is reason enough to enter its glassy, three-story atrium lobby. Well, those reasons, plus the weirdly lifelike sculpture of people "walking" on beams overhead the atrium. And the 83-foot-wide, 10-million-pixels-rich, high-definition video screen, whose pictures couldn't be more real looking if they were in 3-D. Cable giant Comcast put its name on this 975-foot-tall tower in 2008 when it became the company's headquarters. Soon thereafter, the Philadelphia Inquirer referred to the building as a giant USB memory stick. The public is welcome in the lobby to ogle the screen any time. In December, the center puts on festive, 10-minute shows (every hour on the hour); it's a smooth, high-tech version of the beloved light show at Macy's in the John Wanamaker Building. A fun aside: The ironworkers Local Union 401 that built the structure affixed a small William Penn figurine to the final beam. Their goal: Break the "curse of William Penn," which, according to local lore, was that Philadelphia's major pro teams couldn't win a championship after a Center City skyscraper was built higher than Penn's statue atop City Hall. It worked. The Phils captured the World Series a few months later.
