Scaffolding

A quarter-century after it opened, the federal courthouse in Center City will again be veiled in scaffolding as workers prepare to strip off and replace the brick skin that covers most of the 22-story tower. The long-awaited $17.8 million, 18-month project will, federal officials hope, solve a problem that has been getting noticeably worse for six years: loose bricks, some of which have fallen on the building's lower rooftops. No one has been injured, and contractors have stabilized the facade by periodically replacing patches of loose brick.

Philadelphia may be the city that loves you back, but some tourists may ask, "What's love got to do with it?" when they get a gander at the grimy edifice wreck that is City Hall. The grandiose Second Empire-style building completed in 1901 is a monument to Philadelphia's glory days. Like the city, the building's ornate marble halls and carved figures are gritty and worn. "The building is a civic eyesore," Kevin A. Hammond tells the Philly Whip. To visualize City Hall's former grandeur, visitors and residents must look at the tower and clock topped by the statue of Philadelphia founder William Penn.

My favorite story from Ed Rendell's just-completed mayoralty remains the time he got the scaffolding taken off Independence Hall for the Liberty Medal ceremony. The nation's most historic building was undergoing repairs in the summer of 1993, and the mayor realized that when the nation tuned in to watch the President of the United States honor Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk, the ceremony would look as if it were taking place at a construction site. The Park Service didn't have the money to take the scaffolding down and put it up again afterward, so the mayor got on the phone.

Five months, 3,500 square feet of pine siding, one roiling storm, and 60 cans of ranch-red paint later, the only covered bridge still standing in Philadelphia has been restored. The Thomas Mill Covered Bridge, or the "red covered bridge," which spans the creek in the Wissahickon Valley section of Fairmount Park between Bells Mill Road and the Valley Green Inn, is still not ready for the public yet, because of some extra work that has to be done. That's why gates at either end of the bridge and a Johnny on the Spot remain on the site.

Dennis P. Dougherty Sr., 63, a former Abington Township commissioner and a volunteer firefighter who lost a son to a fire, died Friday of sarcoma at his home in North Hills, Montgomery County. Mr. Dougherty, who was in the business of manufacturing scaffolding, served three terms as a Democratic commissioner in Abington, from 1969 to 1981. When he wasn't dealing with the township's day-to-day affairs, he was riding to its rescue as a member of the Edge Hill Fire Company in North Hills, where he had lived since 1965.

Internal Affairs is relocating from Center City to the Northeast, something that Police Advisory Commission members, and others who monitor how the department polices its ranks, say is a bad move. The advisory commission says moving to the Northeast will discourage civilians, especially minorities living closer to Center City, from pursuing complaints against the police. "The more difficult you make it for people to file complaints, the lower the probability that you will file a complaint," said Hector W. Soto, the commission's executive director.

In the course of a long-running major repair job on the venerable Washington Monument, a lot of people in this staid old city have fallen in love with . . . the scaffolding. Some are even discussing the possibility of leaving the scaffolding - designed by noted postmodern architect Michael Graves - in place after the repair job is completed next year, or moving it to another prominent location. This being Washington, a town not noted for doing back flips over the nouveau, there is also a solid minority that hates the new structure.

Both functional and decorative, the scaffolding that has covered the Washington Monument since last summer has drawn raves from tourists, residents and architectural critics alike. During the day, the sun glints off the 37 miles of aluminum tubes that cover the 555-foot obelisk. A fine blue mesh overlaid on the metal keeps the workers who scurry around repairing and restoring the monument hidden. At night, bright lights strung throughout the scaffolding cast a shadowy pattern on the famous shrine to the father of the republic.

There's a huge, gleaming white structure in the heart of Center City that no one has ever seen, and architect Hyman Myers wants to uncover it. That would be City Hall, which took so long to build that Myers figures that coal smoke and dirty rain had already stained the first parts long before the last marble block was put in place. "No one has ever seen this building as it was originally built, not even the builders," said Myers, one of the country's leading restoration architects.

Firefighters teetered on scaffolding on the Benjamin Franklin Bridge 150 feet above the Delaware River yesterday to fight a stubborn fire that shut down the busy span at rush hour. The fire broke out in oil-soaked sheets over wooden scaffolding used by workers inspecting the bridge's cables, then spread to the scaffolding itself. Fire officials said that careless smoking may have caused the blaze. Cigarette butts were found around the scaffolding. The bridge was closed shortly after 5 p.m., just as the evening rush was getting under way, when the fire was spotted, stalling thousands of motorists on both sides of the river.