OFFICIAL - Power & Light Apartments

[moderne]

The DNA advocated for an upgrade to the alley to make it similar to the pedestrian experience through the P&L district. Instead it will still be just an ordinary alleyway with blank walls, parking garage and electrical transformers. Just a service passage.

[Midtownkid]

Noticed the lantern was glowing all different colors this friday! Oddly, the very top crown was not changing colors with the cut-glass windows, below. I hope they end up with LED lights for both areas and they are synced up. I assume they will be.

[mykn]

Drawing showing the twin tower for the P&L Building.

Where did you find this? I've always heard the twin tower was a myth.

[flyingember]

Heard it's a myth, a guy interviewed an employee at the architect who said there were no plans. So unless a first party source is wrong it's a muth. It's linked further back in this thread.

Unless this came out of something from the 1930s, and there's no source linked, that could be a modern manipulation.

[moderne]

A clue to the apocrypahal nature of this legend is the footprint of the building. An identical twin butted up against the present tower would not fill the space all the way to Wyandotte. The present building on the west stops well short of even the alleyway. There would have to be some structure filling the gap.

[flyingember]

a twin wouldn't have to fill the space. I'm not bothered by that.

what makes little sense if done like that image it would block multiple windows. why would they spend the money to put windows in where they plan to put a building blocking them? architects aren't stupid because the people spending the money wouldn't waste it like that, especially during the depression.

If this is real it could be a super early concept drawing.

[mykn]

To me, it looks very strange butted up together like that, almost fortress like.

[flyingember]

nice. I found a problem with that image

look at the building today. the west wall is straight up, it doesn't step back any. you can look at the west side in google street view to see what I mean.

have that up now look at the drawing. In it the west wall is singular up to the first setback. so the idea is the new building doesn't have it's own fire wall, it shares with it's pair and if you tear out the east building you have to leave this common wall. maybe those windows become corridors and they would remove that exterior wall. now look upward to the higher levels that are set back. they doubled the width of the exterior wall.

Think about this. the perfectly vertical wall is one thickness at the lower levels and twice as thick up higher. but if you count windows and look at the spacing it's the same design.

So the building couldn't exist as shown. It's impossible to build that.

And no architect of note would never seriously show something that can't be built to a client for something being considered. This is the era of great drafters using mechanical tools to get work done. They would know the building isn't parallel.

My guess is this is an academic exercise. A what if. It would be a work being prepped to try and get bigger commission from a bigger project that failed because the owner was never planning to spend more than what was built.

[smh]

Also, the artifacts to the left of the tower are replicated to the left of the second tower. Clearly this is just a fabrication, not an actual drawing.

[flyingember]

I would believe the original concept had two towers but it got dropped and was never intended to be built.

[pash]

.

[beautyfromashes]

It's a copy of the original. Look at the bottom where the street is copied. Also, line from top middle down the middle of the two towers.

[flyingember]

Also, the artifacts to the left of the tower are replicated to the left of the second tower. Clearly this is just a fabrication, not an actual drawing.

that could be a printing block being used twice but that seems unlikely with other factors

look about ground level on each side. there's mimicked detail there that's not straight

I don't see someone taking extra carving work in the printing block to add that weird swirly texture for something with straight lines. people weren't lazy in the 1930s but they still had to get work out the door

and the street level point is good too. dead center under the awning there's a shape that kind of looks like someone on a bike that's mirrored

it's just a really bad modern photoshop job

[grovester]

But dammit how many floors are there?!?

[atticus23]

^^^ BWAHAHAHA!!! Best comment so far!

[FangKC]

I think it's a fantasy exercise. I imagine people of that time had the same curiosity then that we do now about adding to the skyline, and filling that adjacent lot. It seems logical that someone would come up with that solution, and even execute it with a drawing.

There doesn't appear to be any real evidence that KCPL ever intended to build a twin tower, so the concept is a myth until some real evidence of it is discovered.

Had KCPL really planned to do it, there would be more of a paper trail. It would make sense that they would have the architect do the renderings all at once because it would not have added that much cost to go ahead and draw up the plans, or create a rendering at least of the exterior, and then shelf it for later. Companies tend to want to know what their future options are in advance. Even omitting that exercise of rendering the second tower for cost purposes, there would have been at least some correspondence between KCPL and the architect where the architect outlined the reasons for designing the first building the way they did (placement of elevator shafts, etc., windows on the west side that would be replaced with doors to allow access between the first and second buildings--had a second tower been planned).

Even if the original architect's correspondence on the project had been lost or destroyed, it seems unlikely that KCPL also would have lost the correspondence on their side. Then there is the city. Any project of that size would have most likely had plans filed with city planning that would have included a possible expansion tower. Even if KCPL didn't intend to build it right away, they would have wanted to make sure that zoning was approved in advance, and things like height restrictions, fire safety issues, etc. approved before they even started the project. Thus, there would most likely have been some evidence remaining at city planning.

The other curious aspect to this is--had they ever intended a second tower, or planned for it later--the lack of any mention of it in the media coverage of the time. Developers and companies that build large buildings usually discuss this type of thing when the construction is announced. Builders--even in those times--tended to be grandiose about future plans and expansions.

I give as a more recent example One Kansas City Place, which was part of a much larger development scheme that hasn't been realized. UMB Headquarters, at 11th and Walnut, is another example. When it was announced in the media, there was mention of a future expansion plan possibly in the future.

I can't believe that when such a large building (for that time) was being planned and constructed, that KCPL would not have alluded to a possible second tower in the newspaper coverage.

[flyingember]

You can go further. This was built during the height of the depression. To have a possible major project creating jobs within reach of states affected by the dust bowl (1933+) would have left a federal paper trail.

To have a project discussed and not have the city's congressman leave an official record somewhere of it is even more unlikely than all of that.

[moderne]

Wonder what will happen to the exterior fire stairs on the northwest side? At 909 Walnut they had to remove the exterior fire stairs and carve out an interior stairwell inside the building.

[joshmv]

New Eric Bowers photos...

http://ericbowers.photoshelter.com/gall ... Tvr.8rU/21

[beautyfromashes]

The top of that building is exquisite. Do they plan on doing anything inside that small section of the building? Cigar lounge? Pool table?