Posted 12:13 PM by Gene

It would insult the memory of a truly distinguished man to call Edmund Bacon an early proponent of RENDELLISM -- the notion that if you pour enough money and sexy architecture downtown a whole city prospers -- but he was. Unlike EDDIE, whose idea of style is to stare down (or up) at a woman, Mr. Bacon had style, and taste. Though much of what the hacks foolishly call our city's "RENAISSANCE" really happened with the urban beautification projects around the time of World War I to the Sesquicentennial, which saw a whole neighborhood of breweries replaced with the inspired Logan Circle, and the Free Library, and the Ben Franklin Parkway, topped off by the temple on the hill the Art Museum, Bacon gave it all that last soupcon of grace. Look at pictures of Philadelphia's skyline from the sixties and you see a certain form and nobility. It was destined not to last, as hacks and louts fully took over our government, and refrigerators clanked upwards, and the faux-Chrysler Buildings sprouted (Mr. Bacon was opposed to things like that), and meantime the city lost wealth and jobs, and with WILSON BADDE its reputation, and despite EDDIE's heroic ogling it remains just another pile of dog leavings with a shiny diamond on top. But for a time Philadelphia achieved a certain illusion of grandeur. Eugene Ormandy gave it a sound, and Edmund Bacon gave it a vision.