SugarHouse Casino plans public arts display, film festival

It seemed to Philadelphia Art Commission members a curious notion: SugarHouse Casino was asking for approval to finance a documentary and annual film festival to meet its mandate to invest in public art.

Members were receptive Wednesday, but had questions: How does a $100,000 film about the history of Philadelphia as a onetime motion picture mecca constitute public art? How, unlike the LOVE statue, would it be visible to the public? Would such a project endure for years?

"What assurances has the city . . . that this is going to be lasting?" asked Jose Almiñana.

More straightforward was the other portion of the casino's proposal: a $600,000 wall of illuminated, colored dichroic film panels to adorn the facade of a seven-story parking garage under construction just off Delaware Avenue near Shackamaxon Street along the waterfront.

The commission approved the garage proposal while giving SugarHouse and local documentary producer Sam Katz only conceptual approval for the documentary. The casino must submit some details about how public, and how enduring, the cinematic project will be.

"There has to be a commitment in writing to say where some of these venues may be," said Chairman Emanuel Kelly.

"We believe it will boost Philadelphia as a filmmaking community," Katz told the commission. "We're grateful to SugarHouse for its willingness to work with us on this."

The two-part film, in 25-minute installments, would premiere in a 1,000-person venue inside the casino in May 2016. The casino would also launch an annual film festival designed to celebrate new and old films made in the city, made by people from the city, or featuring actors with local roots.

Both proposals, said SugarHouse general manager Wendy Hamilton, aim to meet a condition of approvals granted to the city's only casino before it opened in 2010. SugarHouse must spend the equivalent of 1 percent of its development costs on public art of some kind, she said.

The bulk of its investment will be visible in a more conventional sense. The casino will build a facade of backlit panels whose colors will change during the day as pedestrians and cars pass. That project is the design creation of East Falls-based artist Lyn Godley.

The grid will be affixed to a garage that, upon completion, will be about 290 feet wide and 85 feet tall, and visible from Delaware Avenue. In the evening, the panels will be set against a backlit garage whose colors also will change throughout the night.

The lighting design and system will be up and running by the end of the year, Godley said.

The documentary requires a more creative definition of public art.

"We're pushing the envelope a little bit here," Katz said afterward.

Hamilton said SugarHouse was willing to consider ways to meet the commission's concerns. Perhaps movies could be shown on the casino's wall for people using the nearby riverwalk, she said. Ideas will be kicked around.

Katz said the film would be available for viewing online and through a mobile app, and would one day be handed over to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Its public purpose, Katz argued, would be significant.

Few people know that Philadelphia was once a hothouse of the motion picture industry, he said.

For instance, the long-empty parking lot at Eighth and Market Streets was once the site of a studio run by Siegmund Lubin - at the time the most significant motion picture producer in the world, Katz said.

Engineers at the University of Pennsylvania and the Franklin Institute were key to the transformation from still photography to motion photography, Katz said.

And the area from Fourth Street to Eighth Street near Market Street, where today there is virtually no trace of this cinematic history? Said Katz: "It could have been called celluloid alley."