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Philadelphia City Hall with the statue of William Penn in the tower's top
The Curse of Billy Penn (1987–2008) was a sports-related curse, urban legend, and popular explanation for the failure of major Philadelphia professional sports teams to win championships following the March 1987 construction of the One Liberty Place skyscraper, which exceeded the height of William Penn's statue atop Philadelphia City Hall.[1] For decades prior to the construction of One Liberty Place, there had been a gentlemen's agreement in place to ensure that no building in Philadelphia would be permitted to be higher than the William Penn statue atop Philadelphia City Hall.[2]
The curse ended on October 29, 2008, when the Philadelphia Phillies won the 2008 World Series, a year and four months after a statuette of the William Penn figure atop City Hall was affixed to the final beam during the June 2007 topping-off of the Comcast Center, which made it the highest building structure in the city at the time.[3]
^Chairusmi, Jim (June 12, 2007). "Does the Curse of Billy Penn Continue to Haunt Philadelphia?". The Wall Street Journal.
^Major League Baseball on Fox: Game 5 of 2008 World Series. Fox Sports. October 29, 2008.
^Matza, Michael (October 22, 2008). "Lifting the curse of William Penn". philly.com. Archived from the original on 2008-12-03. Retrieved 2009-01-14.
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