With a day off last week for the holiday, I spent an afternoon in South Philadelphia exploring the ever-evolving Navy Yard, the nation’s first shipyard that was once a booming military powerhouse. Though the massive property was largely abandoned at the end of the Cold War, it has been experiencing a gradual transformation as companies in various industries such as fashion, pharmaceuticals and sports make the city’s Navy Yard home. Nestled along the banks of the Delaware River, the waterfront area is designed like a college campus, dotted with park-like green spaces, historic buildings and new offices. I visited the corporate campus of Urban Outfitters Inc., one of the first of the Navy Yard’s now more than 130 businesses to set up shop in the once-neglected space. The company has transformed various dilapidated historic buildings into beautiful adaptive reused spaces housing its Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie, Free People, Terrain and BHLDN brands. Rather than completely do away with the old and start fresh, Urban repurposed the buildings with the goal of maintaining their history while reflecting Urban’s modern culture. Mixing old and new, they were transformed into creative, light-filled spaces with various historic features kept in place to preserve the rough shipyard aesthetic. Metal was sandblasted and left to rust, old paint was left on walls and rugged wood was salvaged and made into new stairways. Located south of the Walt Whitman Bridge in Philadelphia, Urban’s cafeteria-style restaurant Shop 543 is open to the public, allowing visitors to get a glimpse of how Urban beautifully repurposed the buildings and enjoy a delicious bite to eat. The dining venue, a former pipe and coppersmith shop, is open for lunch Monday–Friday 11:30 a.m.–2 p.m. — Monique Barrett, eFlyer editor/associate editor