This quirky complex—a copy of
Independence Hall
, Philadelphia, as the centerpiece of a shopping mall—was the creation of Wilmington-born developer Capaldi. A painter by avocation, he sketched historic buildings in Philadelphia and here assembled many of them in a creative combination: the rows of shops that flank the main building individually refer to Philadelphia landmarks, including the Letitia Street House,
Carpenters Hall
, and
Philosophical Hall
. In Center Line, AIA Delaware blasted the project: “To build such a cheap, commercial imitation of our sacred Hall of Independence would be a disgrace to our community and should outrage each and every citizen.” The flanking buildings formed a “mish-mash,” and the whole was termed a “discreation.” Today one might argue that the Disney-like design blended high and low culture in a way that anticipated postmodernism. Capaldi also designed Olde Colonial Village (completed in 1966), a group of apartments at Naamans and Foulk roads that pioneered the town-house approach, again following eighteenth-century Philadelphia examples. He planned a series of Independence Malls across the country and had begun one in Dover when he died suddenly at age forty-nine in 1966. The central building and tower were burned by an arsonist in 1980 and have been reconstructed in a less elaborate form.