May 11, 2006

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania recently honored Edmund Bacon, Philadelphia's famed city planner from 1949-70, by naming May 2 "Edmund Bacon Day.”  Bacon passed away on October 14, 2005 at age 95. May 2 was his birthday, and the new holiday will be celebrated yearly. 

Bacon is considered a planning visionary responsible for the rebirth of Philadelphia in the postwar decades. He revitalized a decaying city center by transforming a seedy historic area between Independence Hall and the Delaware River to create Society Hill. He also replaced Broad Street Station with Penn Center, a complex of office buildings linked to mass transit with plazas, sunken courts, and pedestrian concourses. Bacon's design philosophies also resulted in Market Street East, Penn's Landing, and the Far Northeast, among other local landmarks.

The Ed Bacon Foundation, a nonprofit organization formed in 2004, preserves his legacy today. For more information, visit the foundation web site at: www.edbacon.org

Tony Illia

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