Perched atop the City Hall building at Broad and Market Streets in Center City Philadelphia is a statue of William Penn, founder (and namer) of the city, and original proprietor of the then-British colony of Pennsylvania.
By tradition — although not by law — no building in the city could ever rise above this statue. However, in March 1987, a glass skyscraper, known as One Liberty Place, was opened for business approximately three blocks away. It dwarfed the City Hall building, exceeding its height by a whopping 397 feet (121m), reaching 945 feet compared with the latter's 548 feet . Its sister scraper, Two Liberty Place, rising to 848 ft, would soon follow.
This is where the "Curse" began. Philadelphia sports teams had, up until then, enjoyed an admirable run of recent success, as in 1980 Major League Baseball's Philadelphia Phillies had won the World Series, the NHL's Philadelphia Flyers had won back-to-back Stanley Cups in 1974 and 1975, and the NBA's Philadelphia 76ers had won the championship in 1983.
Since that time, all 4 sports teams have reached the championship game at least once, but have yet to win a championship.
During the 2007 Phillies playoff run, the Ironworkers working on the new Comcast building placed a small statue of William Penn at the top of the building to try and expel the curse. But the Phillies got swept by the Colorado Rockies in the first round.
