The Onion Lampoon’s Philly’s Eagerness to Hook Amazon

Renowned satire website The Onion has taken a playful jab at Philadelphia’s keenness to get the bid for Amazon’s second U.S. headquarters. Late this morning, this headline was splashed across their homepage: Confident Philadelphia Officials Preemptively Raze Center City To Make Room For Amazon Headquarters.

Satire website The Onion described a Philadelphia so keen to win Amazon’s attention that it leveled Center City.

Painting the City of Brotherly Love as really, really eager to woo the online shopping giant – one might even say desperate – The Onion “reported” that Mayor Kenney called for the demolition of the two square miles that Center City encompasses, sparing not even LOVE Park or the Liberty Bell. “After taking a look at the competition and figuring we probably have this thing in the bag, we just went ahead and tore down Center City so Amazon can move right in,” Kenney was “quoted” blithely.

The hilarious story describes workers feverishly demolishing thousands of residences, workplaces, and cultural sites while city officials looked into finding new homes for Center City’s 57,000 residents. The tacked-on statement that Philadelphia had splashed out on “promotional videos, full-page newspaper ads, and endorsements from state politicians and local celebrities” was in fact true, as Philly has gone so far as to pepper ads on buses in the Seattle area where Amazon’s flagship headquarters is located – truth in fiction!

The fictional demolition zone showed pathways between “numerous office towers” crisscrossing the former site of Rittenhouse Square and Penn’s Landing, Logan Square, and Society Hill all being casualties of the “modern, business-friendly environment” that would be perfect for Amazon. The kicker? A faux sound byte from the mayor: “The mayor went on to observe that Amazon would have a unique opportunity to put its own mark on the city now that the Inquirer Building, the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul, and Love Park have all been bulldozed.”

Unfortunately, back in the real world, Philadelphia found out recently that they would not be moving on in the process of HQ2 consideration. About 238 municipalities in the United States, Mexico, and Canada submitted bids.