• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • Home
  • About
    • About Current
    • Masthead
  • Podcasts
  • Blogs
    • The Way of Improvement Leads Home
    • The Arena
  • Reviews
  • Membership
  • Your Account
  • Log In
  • Member Assistance Request
  • Way of Improvement
  • About John
  • Vita
  • Books
  • Speaking
  • Media Requests

The Curse of Billy Penn is Over

John Fea   |  October 30, 2008 Leave a Comment

For years there was an unwritten law in Philadelphia that no building in the city could be built higher than the statue of William Penn standing atop City Hall. (left). In 1987, however, this tradition was ignored by the builders of One Liberty Place in Center City. (Liberty Place stands 397 feet taller than the Penn statue). Since then, no Philadelphia sports team has won a major championship. It became known as the “Curse of Billy Penn.”

Well, the Phillies broke the curse tonight with their victory in game five of the World Series. Some say that the curse was broken because the iron workers who built the Comcast Center, the city’s new tallest building. The Comcast Center was completed in 2008, complete with a small figurine (below) of Penn placed on one of the building’s steel girders. The great founder of Pennsylvania’s “Holy Experiment” can once again look down upon his City of Brotherly Love. The curse has been broken.

RECOMMENDED READING

Should Princeton University remove its statue of former College of New Jersey president John Witherspoon? How Americans have remembered the July 1776 toppling of the George III statue in Bowling Green (Manhattan)

Filed Under: Way of Improvement

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Footer

Contact Forms

General Inquiries
Pitch Us
  • Manage Your Account
  • Member Assistance Request

Search

Subscribe via Email



Please wait...
Please enter all required fields Click to hide
Correct invalid entries Click to hide
Subscribe via Email


Please wait...
Please enter all required fields Click to hide
Correct invalid entries Click to hide