Print City: How Newspaper Buildings Shaped Philadelphia's Downtown

presented by Inga Saffron

Philadelphia, like other big American cities, was once home to dozens of print newspapers. These papers exhibited a strong pack mentality (much like journalists themselves), and set up their offices in close proximity to one another, often on the same block, forming distinct media enclaves or newspaper rows. Other industries - from pianos to jewelry - clustered together in a similar fashion. But while those businesses tended to stay put, Philadelphia's newspaper row shifted its location frequently as the papers followed the progression of money and power westward through the downtown. With each move, Philadelphia’s highly competitive newspapers constructed ever grander homes in an effort to distinguish themselves from their peers. While both newspapers and newspaper buildings have pretty much vanished from our daily experience, the history of Philadelphia shifting newspaper rows still offers valuable insights into the spatial organization of Center City. The research for this talk comes from a more extensive history of American newspaper buildings provisionally titled, Holding the Presses.

Inga Saffron is the architecture critic for the Philadelphia Inquirer. For more than 20 years, she has been a forceful advocate for meaningful design, accessible public spaces and transit, affordable housing, historic preservation and policies that make our cities more livable and climate resilient.  Her work has been recognized with numerous awards, including the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Criticism, the 2018 Vincent Scully Prize from the National Building Museum,  a 2012  Loeb Fellowship from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design and a 2023 Guggenheim Fellowship. 

Inga began her career as a municipal reporter in New Jersey,  and went on to become a foreign correspondent in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. In the 1990s, she covered wars in Yugoslavia and Russia, where she witnessed the destruction of Sarajevo and Grozny. She has published two books: Becoming Philadelphia: How an old American city made itself new again, a selection of her Inquirer columns, and Caviar: The Strange History and Uncertain Future of the World’s Most Coveted Delicacy, a cultural history of the sturgeon. She is currently working on a social and architectural history of the American newspaper building, tentatively titled Holding the Presses: How Newspaper Buildings Shaped the American City.

This presentation is part of the Preservation Alliance's Fall Speaker Series, Preserving Philadelphia, and will be in-person, hosted by the Cosmopolitan Club on 1616 Latimer Street, Philadelphia PA 19103. Refreshments will be served. 

Seating is limited. Pre-registration is required. 

Have questions about building accessibility or the program? Email us at tours@preservationalliance.com