Navy Yard

Phila­del­phians are fa­mil­iar with the pic­tur­esque Schuylkill River Trail, and, farther south, the grit­ty stor­age tanks at Su­no­co's Phila­del­phia re­fin­ery. But there's a vast stretch of the Schuylkill that many peo­ple drive past, but few ac­tu­al­ly see. The city says that six miles along the riv­er's banks, from University City to Phila­del­phia International Airport, is prime for com­mer­cial de­vel­op­ment and accounts for 68 per­cent of Phila­del­phia's un­der­u­til­ized and va­cant in­dus­tri­al land.

Computer technology has trumped all the mental pictures I have of what a "control room" should look like. On Monday, I visited the Navy Yard's new Network Operations Center (NOC) to see what's expected to be a showcase for how "smart grid" technologies will perform at the growing urban office and industrial park. But instead of a wall-size map of the Navy Yard or a long control board with switches and blinking lights, the room on the first floor of Building 101 looked like the classroom it was, albeit with some funky strings of LED lighting.

The Greater Philadelphia Innovation Cluster for Energy-Efficient Buildings (GPIC), the federally funded Navy Yard organization whose mission is to transform the building-retrofit industry, has rebranded itself less than two years after its founding. GPIC is now the Energy Efficient Buildings Hub. EEB Hub, which is funded with $130 million over five years, also launched a new website: www.eebhub.org . "We are very excited about our new name and market-facing website and feel that we will now be able to more efficiently communicate our strategic vision and the ways in which a variety of stakeholders can engage in our work," Christine Knapp, the organization's spokesperson, said in a news release.

What: 33d annual Blue Cross Broad Street Run When: Sunday, 8:30 a.m. Where: The 10-mile race begins at Broad and Somerville, near Central High's athletic fields, and ends at the Navy Yard in South Philadelphia. Participants: A record field of 30,000 is expected for the race that is sold out. Course records: Patrick Cheriuyot, 45 minutes, 14 seconds (2007); women: Catherine Ndereba, 53:07 (1999). For more information: www.broadstreetrun.com

THE NAVAL Yard a/k/a Urban Outfitter campus is where the young cosmopolitan designers, graphic artists and marketers come to work in the world of style. Here at the creative edge of the city, gals dress for show even if they are just meeting at the company cafeteria for lunch. You'll see an eclectic mix of patterns, heel heights, and outerwear. And the guys aren't slacking, either, going from American heritage style to vintage Levis and Allen Edmonds shoes. Who knew such style could be found on the banks of the Delaware River?

Harris M. Steinberg is executive director of PennPraxis of the School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia is a city of hidden treasures. From the vast acreage of parkland that stretches deep into the Wissahickon Valley to the wooden paving blocks of her tiniest alleys, Philadelphia reveals herself in layers. When the first Dutch settlers piloted their boats up the Schuylkill, they called it the "Hidden River. " Unlike the broad and swiftly flowing Delaware, the tidal Schuylkill meanders gently, bending back and forth as it snakes its way from the Delaware to what is now the falls at the Art Museum.

Demolition has begun to remove debris and 94 vacant naval housing buildings at the eastern end of the Navy Yard to make way for Southport, the city's first new marine terminal in 50 years. Philadelphia port officials this week received state and federal approval to continue the demolition but must keep outside a 1,000-foot radius of an unoccupied bald eagles' nest at the Navy Yard in South Philadelphia. Eagles have not visited the nest in three years. A bird monitor is on site, and if no eagles touch down soon, the tree that holds the nest will be cut down.

Among the many changes in the works for drug giant GlaxoSmithKline P.L.C., most of its Center City workers will move by next year to a new building at the Navy Yard, and they won't have office cubicles to retreat to when they get there. Sales representatives no longer get bonuses based solely on commission. Scientists have been shifted so they can share knowledge. Starting 2012 on a profitable note after several years of struggle, Glaxo leaders are pushing forward with changes they hope will drive efficiency, collaboration and, eventually, greater and more consistent profits.

Imagine you're in charge of an old postindustrial city with little open land and a perennially anemic economy. Then a vast district you never knew existed is discovered. It's like a scene from an experimental Czech novel: Pass through a secret door and there's a ghost street grid, handsome buildings from a grand era just out of reach, empty warehouses as big as tankers, and ships as grand as castles. Most of all, a broad waterfront, as close to the sea as your city is likely to get. If your city is Philadelphia, and quite a bit more real than surreal, you've merely walked down South Broad Street, under I-95, and into the Navy Yard.