As an unintended consequence, the Crosstown Expressway proposal depressed property values and rents in the South Street corridor, leading to a turnover of the neighborhood's character from largely Jewish-owned garment shops to the thriving commercial and nightlife center that it is today. Other concepts conceived during Bacon's tenure, such as Schuylkill River Park, included in the 1963 Center City Plan, came into being many years later. After Bacon's retirement from the Planning Commission in 1970, he served as vice president for the private planning firm Mondev U.S.A., was an adjunct professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and at the University of Pennsylvania, from 1950 to 1987, and narrated "Understanding Cities", an award-winning series of documentary films describing the history and development of Rome under Pope Sixtus V, Paris under Georges-Eugène Haussmann, Regency London under John Nash, American cities, and cities in the future post-oil era. He vociferously but unsuccessfully opposed the development of skyscrapers in Center City Philadelphia taller than Philadelphia City Hall, which until 1984 set the informal height limit for downtown at the hat of the statue of William Penn. That custom, known as the "Gentlemen's agreement," was broken forever by developer Willard G. Rouse III's One Liberty Place. "The New York Times" correctly noted Bacon's opposition to the project, but it was incorrect in saying that "in opposing the skyscraper One Liberty Place, Mr. Bacon refused to attend the tower's 1986 groundbreaking and stopped speaking to his friend Willard G. Rouse III, who built it. 'I think it's very, very destructive that he and he alone has chosen to destroy a historical tradition that set a very fine and disciplined form for the city,' Mr. Bacon said at the time." Bacon was present at the groundbreaking, which took place in May 1985. Of course, Rouse was not capable of single-handedly changing the custom, even if it was not formally legal. Rouse's enormous project had the support of Mayor W. Wilson Goode, Philadelphia City Council, and the City Planning Commission, which was forced by the announcement of Rouse's plan to admit that it had no up-to-date plan of its own for the future of Philadelphia's downtown. Coincidentally, the groundbreaking ceremony for Liberty Place occurred within minutes of the catastrophic confrontation between the Philadelphia Police and MOVE in West Philadelphia. Bacon won numerous honors including the Frank P. Brown Medal in 1962, the American Institute of Planners Distinguished Service Award, the Philadelphia Award, and an honorary doctorate from Penn.