Changing Skyline: Building plan may hem in the Rodin

The Rodin Museum is a beloved Philadelphia icon, a taut little neoclassical temple designed for the Parkway by one of the city's master architects, Paul Philippe Cret. The City Branch rail bed is a cultural treasure of a very different sort. Some envision the exuberantly overgrown right-of-way as a ribbon park that could link the Reading Viaduct to the Art Museum.

The two have sat side-by-side for nearly a century - both artifacts from the city's manufacturing heyday - mostly ignoring each other. But now their fates have become intertwined by a proposal for an apartment house over a one-block section of the rail bed, which runs in an open trench behind the museum. The building's south facade would be just 60 feet from the Rodin's back door.

It is a project that manages to be at once both dismaying and intriguing. Commissioned by David Blumenfeld's Cross Properties, the mixed-used building promises to fill in one of the remaining gaps in the booming neighborhood north of the Parkway. Yet the six-story apartment house would drastically alter how we experience these two important historic structures.

The case is more difficult than usual because Cret's museum is among Philadelphia's most recognizable works of architecture. It derives its charm from the serene and aristocratic way it resides on its Parkway site, surrounded by greenery like an isolated country villa. While there are many high-rises nearby, the specific location of Blumenfeld's building could put an end to the fantasy and make the diminutive Rodin look hemmed in by a giant.

The impact on the jungly landscape of the rail bed, which has been dubbed the "low line" by the group that wants to turn it into a trail park, could be equally profound.

Two stories below street level, the trench also benefits from the perception of isolation. Walking its two-mile length, you experience the city at a distance, occasionally glimpsing snippets of the skyline above its massive stone walls. Once capped by the apartment building, the pit behind the Rodin would be reduced, at best, to a dim tunnel. At worst, the corridor would be cut into two useless pieces, rendering the park idea stillborn.

For all that, Blumenfeld's proposal does offer the city something in return.

The building would immediately establish a strong urban presence on Hamilton Street, between 21st and 22d Street. It would be part of a growing line of grand residences stretching from Pennsylvania Avenue - where Cret built his last project at No. 2601 - to the new Granary Apartments on Callowhill Street, behind the Free Library.

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Changing Skyline: Building plan may hem in the Rodin