Return From Near-Death Experience

A hot real estate market in downtown Philadelphia has inspired the restoration of two long-empty buildings. The Victory, built in 1873 for the New York Life Insurance Co., has recovered from a 15-year vacancy with a $20 million refurbishment -- while the Western Union Telegraph, no longer suspended in a decade-long limbo, will enjoy a $45 million renovation. The Western Union building, recently approved to turn the 1922 four-story masonry structure into a high-rise by adding seven modernist stories above, will house condos and ground-floor retail.