Skyline changes in Philly

Samantha Melamed has an article in The Philadelphia Inquirer about changes to the Philadelphia skyline:

In less than an hour, a Center City landmark was transformed, and Philadelphia's skyline along with it. The building at One South Broad Street was quickly stripped of its iconic PNB signs, as a crew atop the 28-story building worked in tandem with a helicopter (photo) to remove the letters, each of which weighed one and a half tons.
The giant letters, PNB, on each side of the four sides of the former Philadelphia National Bank building, had been in place since the 1950s.
"It took an hour this time to remove nine letters, and last time it took four hours to remove three, so they're doing better," a police officer joked as the letters were hauled onto large flatbed trucks to be towed away. In August of 2014 three of the sixteen-foot letters were removed after building owner Wells Fargo had determined the letters were structurally unsound, and a safety hazard. But the process was stymied by technical difficulties. "In the course of the removal last time, it was discovered that, where the letters were bolted onto the framework, it had corroded into almost a solid unit, and that's what made it so difficult to get them off," Wells Fargo spokeswoman Barbara Nate said. "This time, armed with that knowledge in advance, much preliminary work was done to address that issue and free the joints."
Not everyone was sad to see them go. Ken Avella, 49, stopped to snap a photo of the denuded skyscraper. He lives in a highrise nearby, and watched the helicopter remove the letters from his balcony with a bit of glee. "It's such a beautiful Art Deco building and I always thought the letters kind of marred it," he said. "So I'm very happy. I hope they don't put another sign in its place."
Terrence White, 57, of Southwest Philadelphia also stopped to check out the scene and conceded he felt a bit nostalgic. "It's been there a long time," he said. "But I guess everything is subject to change."

Rico says another case of Californication...