I hope everyone can take a moment today to help save a pair of historically significant buildings that are under the threat of needless demolition.

Early in the morning on the Saturday before Christmas, the state's Department of General Services (DGS), sent a team of workers to demolish the Philadelphia Life Insurance Co. Building and Annex at 111-115 North Broad Street to make way for the expansion of the Philadelphia Convention Center. This was done despite the fact that in 2004, the head of the Convention Center Authority had signed an agreement with the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission to spare these two National Historic Registered buildings.

The city woke up to some good news in the Inquirer—Governor Rendell is evidently going to try to broke a compromise on the Convention Center labor dispute. So Council is not likely to adopt Frank DiCicco’s proposal to open the expansion of the Convention Center to non-union contractors

This is a tough issue for those of us who are both pro-labor and pro-minority. There is no question that many of the building trades have fewer minority and women members than they should, given the demographics of the city and region. And there is no question that racism is a main reason for these low numbers.

And yet, while I don’t doubt the good intentions of Frank DiCicco and the other supporters of this proposal, opening work at the Convention Center to non-union contractors is not a good solution, for many reasons.