Photo: Peter Woodall

A wholehearted, major THANK YOU to everyone who came out to make the Hidden City Festival 2013 an unforgettable six weeks of exploration, art, and learning in our own backyard. Nine off-the-radar sites across the city, ten major art projects, innumerable stories from each one. It’s been a lot of fun, and it’s also been a lot of work.

With that in mind, the Hidden City Daily is going to take a short summer recess. We’ve already got stories and photos in the pipeline, and we’ll be back to hit the ground running on Monday, July 15th. So hit the beach, sit back, relax, and peruse the archives. We’ll see you in two weeks.

Michael Bryant, for the Inquirer

• With three developers bidding to transform the Family Court building into a luxury hotel, the Inquirer offers a look at some of the 37 New Deal murals that extol the virtues of compassion and justice within the building. Much of the interior was protected for its historical significance two years ago when the Historical Commission expanded upon its initial 1971 designation of the exterior as such. “’When you do a historical building, those are things you respect,’ said Alan Casnoff, a founder of P&A Associates, which is teaming with the Peebles Corp. of New York to bring a Kimpton Hotel to the site. ‘It’s not a question of whether you like it or don’t like it. Rather, it’s something passed from generation to generation.’”

• Work has begun on the adaptive reuse of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church at Wayne Avenue & Harvey Street, reports NewsWorks. Developer Ken Weinstein is sinking some $4 million into the retrofit—mostly for asbestos removal and new roofing—so that Waldorf School of Philadelphia can begin classes in the space by September 2014. The structure, designed by Frank Furness and George Hewitt, had been placed on the Preservation Alliance’s list of endangered properties back in 2010.

• The New York state-based developer Cedar Riverview LP has promised to meet with the Pennsport Civic Association and Councilman Mark Squilla prior to its planned demolition of the old Engine 46 High Victorian style firehouse“on or after 7-30-13.” Pennsport Civic president James Moylan would like to see “another adaptable business that will be part of the neighborhood. We are trying to emphasize to all developers that it’s better to talk to the community and be a part of it.”

• Last December’s demolition of the Bunting House helped catalyze action within the Central Roxborough Civic Association to preserve the distinctiveness of the neighborhood in the face of renewed investment. The Roxborough Review follows recent community meetings conceived to “properly zone what’s on the ground,” says Northwest Community Planner Matt Wysong.

The Sunday chain once used at Old Pine Street Church. From A History of Old Pine Street: Being the Record of an Hundred and Forty Years in the Life of a Colonial Church (1905).

The Pennsylvania legislature enacted the Sabbatarian Act of 1794 specifically to prohibit business transactions and sporting events on Sundays. The statute was a concerted movement on the part of Philadelphia church congregations—of several denominations—to strengthen religion by enforcing the observance of Sunday worship. This law, and the Chain Act discussed below, shows how much influence and power that Philadelphia’s clergy had two centuries ago, as well as how generally religious the city was back then.

The Sabbatarian Act was the genesis of Pennsylvania’s “blue laws,” which persisted well into the 20th century, and one could argue, to the present day considering our liquor laws. Among other things, the act provided that “If any person shall do or perform any worldly employment or business whatsoever on the Lord’s Day, commonly called Sunday (works of necessity and charity only excepted)… every such person so offending shall, for every such offense, forfeit and pay four dollars… or suffer six days imprisonment.”

A particular goal of the Sabbatarian Act was to reduce the amount of vehicular traffic on city streets on Sundays, as the resulting noise and commotion interfered with church services. Carts, wagons, and carriages—all drawn by horses—were the wooden and iron-tired vehicles in that era. Along with men riding on horseback, these carriages made a terrible racket on Philadelphia’s cobblestoned thoroughfares. The horses made quite a clamor too. Even unpaved dirt lanes produced much noise as horses trotted over them.

Soon after the passage of this law, it was found that there was still plenty of street noise on Sundays. The congregations felt that they needed a special ordinance to prevent traffic from disturbing weekly services and prayers, one that would permit them to close the streets near their churches during the hours of worship.

Representatives of fifteen congregations submitted a petition to this effect to city authorities in July of 1797. The request quoted from the law of 1794 and further stated:

We represent that our religious assemblies are incommoded and disturbed by the noise and confusion occasioned by the passage of carriages through the streets of the city during the time of public worship, to so great a degree, as not only to interrupt our peace and quiet, but in some measure to defeat the very ends for which our worship is instituted. We therefore respectfully petition the Corporation of the city to be allowed to extend a chain or chains across the street or streets of the city, opposite to our several places of public worship, during the hours of its continuance, on the first day of the week, commonly called the Lord’s Day, so as to prevent the passage of all carriages during that time.

This solicitation was the result of a unique bit of early denominational cooperation in the United States. Signatories included representatives of several Presbyterian congregations (including First Presbyterian Church and Third Presbyterian Church—now known as Old Pine Street Church), eleven Protestant denominations (including Christ Church, St. Peter’s and St. Paul’s), as well as St. Mary’s Roman Catholic church and the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas (with Absalom Jones and James Forten as signatories). Methodist, German Reformed, Lutheran, Swedish, and Moravian churches were part of the movement, as was even the Free Quaker Meeting.

The city government rebuffed this appeal, so the congregations presented it to the Pennsylvania General Assembly. On April 4, 1798, the “Chain Act” of Pennsylvania was enacted at the State House (Independence Hall) at a time when Philadelphia was the state capital. (Note that a similar chain act had been decreed previously in New York state.) Applying only to Philadelphia, it empowered authorities of each religious society to fasten heavy chains across the street or streets in the vicinity of their churches and meeting houses so that no horseman or vehicle could pass during the hours of divine worship.

Quoting from the Pennsylvania Bill of Rights, the legislature reasoned that the complete attainment of an individual’s right to worship God as he pleased must surely include the right to worship with no distracting noise. People were supposed to stay quietly at home or to sit quietly in their pews on the Sabbath day and not to drive profanely through the silent city.

“Sunday chains” were affixed between building walls or from curb to curb by way of sturdy iron or stone posts. No chain could be stretched out more than twenty feet away from church property, and they could only be attached on Sundays. Responsibility for putting up the chains usually fell on church sextons, who would do so at least five minutes before Sunday services commenced, and would remove the chains after the congregation was dismissed. Additionally, sextons sometimes stood guard to prevent horsemen and carriage drivers from jumping the barriers or going around them by riding on the sidewalk. (Pedestrian traffic was still permitted on the sidewalks.) The fine for each instance of violating the Chain Act was thirty dollars—a hefty penalty in that day. Money collected went to support poor residents of Philadelphia.

Most houses of prayer took advantage of the privilege and the practice was widespread two hundred years ago. In 1816, the law’s scope was extended to other districts around Philadelphia, including the District of Northern Liberties.

Presbyterian congregations spearheaded the overall effort. (In the 18th century and during much of the 19th century, Philadelphia was virtually the capital of American Presbyterianism.) Consider that First Presbyterian Church moved to the south side of Washington Square in 1820—where it remained for about a hundred years—because the site was calm and peaceful. According to a 1876 issue of Potter’s American Monthly,”[The location] will be the most quiet situation because a chain across towards the square and another across Seventh street will prevent any carriages from coming within a square on the northern eastern or western sides.”

English writer Frances Trollope was bewildered at how religious the city was when she visited in the 1820s. She observed in her travel book, Domestic Manners of the Americans, that “The religious severity of Philadelphia manners is in nothing more conspicuous than in the number of chains thrown across the streets on a Sunday to prevent horses and carriages from passing.”

Sunday chains eventually became so numerous that it was difficult for people driving vehicles to reach their destination without taking circuitous routes. Walnut, Chestnut, Market, Arch, and Race Streets from Front to Ninth Street were so chained up on Sundays as to be totally impassable. The same was true, to a lesser extent, for most lanes running north and south through Philadelphia.

Citizens began protesting Sunday chains as an interference with their right to use public roads. In addition, the chains engendered fights on the Lord’s Day in front of the very churches they were supposed to shield. Impatient men would break through the barriers and sextons were often beaten when they resisted. Worse still, children and mischief makers would knock over the posts during the week when the chains were down.

Furthermore, travelers in stagecoaches grumbled over the inconvenience of waiting for the Sunday chains to be lowered or of being obliged to pass through the streets indirectly to hotels and other points of interest. And volunteer firemen maintained that it was just as important for them to save property as it was for pastors to preach sermons. Public sentiment usually approved whenever firemen disregarded church sextons and took down the chains.

Old Pine Street Church’s chain was given to the Presbyterian Historical Society sometime in the nineteenth century. Today, the society has lost track of this chain and is unfamiliar with the Presbyterian Church’s involvement with the Sunday chains. This image is from The Romance of Old Philadelphia (1918).

Doctors also asserted that they could not quickly reach patients who lived far away on Sundays because of the chains. A Dr. Casper Morris cut a chain that obstructed him and was arrested and taken before the mayor. Morris complained so indignantly about the law and the fine that the mayor also fined him for “disrespect to the court.”

On another occasion, a man drove his carriage into town to find a physician for some dying member of his family. While attempting to return home, time was lost as the frantic driver tried to get free from the maze of chains blocking the streets. This affair was witnessed by one John Moss, who was so angered by what he saw that he immediately dismantled the chain at Locust and Seventh Streets, which guarded the aforementioned First Presbyterian Church. A 1880 issue of The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography contains this account by John Samuel:

It was my grandfather, the late Mr. John Moss, who was the immediate means of the removal of the last chain which blockaded the streets in front of the churches in Philadelphia. The chain in question was stretched across Locust Street at Seventh, guarding the Presbyterian Church there… [Mr. Moss's] feelings were so excited by what he considered the injury done the ill man and his friends, that he tore down the chain with his own hands, and took such measures to have the law or ordinance abrogated that it was never replaced.

Drivers of U.S. mail coaches were the most serious enemies of the Sunday chains. (Perhaps surprisingly, mail was transported seven days a week until 1912, when pressure from religious and labor leaders led to the end of Sunday delivery.) The question as to whether Pennsylvania’s Chain Act or federal mail delivery laws should be supreme became a point of contention not only in Pennsylvania but throughout the nation. Congress was petitioned in 1828 to cease postal transport on Sundays, but the Tammany Society of New York City condemned this movement as unreasonable, and other societies around the country joined this effort. The experience of mail coach drivers in Philadelphia on Sundays—when they would see chain after chain on city’s main streets—was given as a reason why mail delivery should have the right of way everywhere without local interference.

When opponents of Pennsylvania’s Chain Act appealed to the General Assembly to rescind it, the controversy was centered over the issue of Sunday religious observance. The act’s defenders offered several rationales: the law was necessary for the proper respect due to religion; eliminating it would be a blow to Christianity; and those who opposed the act were not good citizens. Petitions on each side of the argument were sent to the Pennsylvania legislature and to the governor in 1828. One supporter was the elderly Bishop William White of Christ Church, who had lobbied for the statute decades before.

Thirty-some years after its enactment, the state legislature repealed the Chain Act on March 15, 1831. Lawmakers declared that Philadelphia had become so large and populous that the statute could no longer be properly enforced. They also felt that the law had, indeed, become a nuisance and that it was simply a matter of common sense to void it. Conversely, those who wished to retain the act felt that a great wrong had been committed and that the religious objectives of morals and virtue had fallen on evil days.

The repeal was widely reported across the nation. One who hated the chains—and Presbyterian clergymen—was Anne Royall, by some accounts the first professional female journalist in the United States. She rejoiced when the General Assembly invalidated the Chain act and wrote (quite vehemently) in Mrs. Royall’s Southern Tour, or Second Series of the Black Book (1831):

[G]lory to the Pennsylvania Legislature, we have given Dr. [Rev. Ezra Stiles] Ely’s good sound Presbyterianism another good broadside. The Legislature has passed an act forbidding chains to be drawn across the streets on Sunday, in Philadelphia, and I believe throughout the State. Those tyrants, not satisfied to chain the consciences of the citizens, clapt chains on the carriages, and the next step would be to chain us hand and foot. It must be known that both in Philadelphia and New York these infamous swindlers, who rob the country under a cloak, of millions of dollars, the better to make themselves heard on Sunday, to enforce this money from the city people, had stopped all the carriages by drawing chains across the streets. The friends of liberty must rejoice at this bold and manly stand against clerical tyranny, and as for God, any fool might know He could make money if He wanted it.

Keeping with this mindset, an editorial appeared in the December 17, 1831, issue of Evangelical Magazine and Gospel Advocate:

Cannot something be done to repeat the unconstitutional laws which authorize religious societies, in the cities of Albany and New York, to extend chains across the streets on first day of the week? This anti republican and injurious practice was abolished by repealing the law which authorized it in Pennsylvania last winter—one of the blessed effects of the attempt to stop Sunday mails. Will not New York, and other States, follow the example?

So the Sabbatarian chains of Philadelphia were soon removed. But the prohibition of traffic in front of houses of worship still persisted informally. Churches and meeting houses would not allow the city’s new streetcar lines to run on Sundays for years into the nineteenth century. (It was lamented that “the poor man must walk, while the rich can drive with impunity.”) Even as late as 1849, there was a call to prohibit the Pennsylvania Railroad from running on Sundays during religious services. The Pennsy’s board of directors actually passed a resolution to this effect that November and it was carried out until April of 1850, when the railroad’s stockholders had their say and ended the practice.

Eilat at night | Photo: Nathaniel Popkin

They were glimpses, that’s all I got–of the Arab city of Nazareth, of Jerusalem, of Tel Aviv, of the Negev, of Syria from across the border, of black Bedouin tents set in the chalk and glare of the Jordan desert. A traveler is struck dumb, for one, and if he’s not reporting, and not making his way to the backs of shops or inside strangers’ apartments, or to the shade of a school’s courtyard or at a table in a university lecture hall or getting a shave in a crowded medina, he can only proffer and guess.

I went to Israel on a family trip, the occasion of my niece’s bat mitzvah. I went with my liberal prejudices and love of the work of Israeli novelists Amos Oz and David Grossman, and my unquenchable desire for ancient Muslim cities–labyrinthine streets, alternating darkness and light, sour smell and piercing color, insistence and reticence all at once. With my little Olympus, I stole some 4,000 images.

The politics fled from me quickly; they hurried along from my mind in bursts of confusion and contradiction and I was left only to gaze and ponder the security wall around the West Bank, the pro-Palestinian graffiti in the doorways of Jerusalem’s Old City, minarets rising above countless Israeli towns, Israeli flags forcefully planted at the Damascus Gate of Jerusalem, a Tel Aviv beach–Givat Aliyah–inhabited equally, and peacefully, by Muslims and Jews.

On the Jaffa Road, Jerusalem | Photo: Nathaniel Popkin

I watched a Palestinian boy show an orthodox Jewish toddler how to fly a kite and held it with him as his mother smiled joyously on and a block away I was manhandled and called a dirty Jew by an Arabic-speaking shopkeeper who didn’t believe me when I said I didn’t have time to browse his store (it was true: we had to be at dinner at 7:30). Space signifies everything and time confirms it; space is devout; space is trampled on; space is cursed; space causes people to kill. At the Western Wall, with the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock above, space is a battleground for gender; space is secreted for the divine; space is shared haphazardly; space is ruthlessly defended.

And here I found the manipulation of space through architecture and street art all the more potent. At the Holocaust museum, Yad Vashem, I was moved to tears not by the now familiar story of the genocide, but by the momentary experience of survival engendered by the architect Moshe Safdie; you leave the galleries, leave the names and the stories of the murdered, of the survivors, and are propelled by the force of the building itself in to the defiant glare of the promised land. Your dirty privilege swells from your stomach into your throat.

Yad Vashem, Moshe Safdie | Photo: Nathaniel Popkin

In the long hall of the old cotton makers’ souk in Jerusalem, faces blur and neon collides with stone and dirt and darkness. In Florentine, a Tel Aviv neighborhood more akin to a hip section of Barcelona or Athens or the Northern Liberties of a decade ago than the cotton souk of old Jerusalem, street art–sometimes diminutive, sometimes overpowering–speaks, sometimes in a whisper, sometimes in a shout, with all the nervous confusion of a place worn from love, what really must be a kind of madness.

Street art in Florentine, Tel Aviv | Photo: Nathaniel Popkin

“The light was fantastic.” | Trophy photo by @kmerdi

With six weeks of Festival and two weeks recovery behind us, the @hiddencityphila and @igers_philly teams are happy to announce the grand prize winner of the #igers_philly_hiddencity Instagram contest: Kira M! As user @kmerdi, Kira’s photos made recurring appearances on the judges’ ballots, with the image above from Globe Dye Works receiving the most first place votes of any photo in the contest’s three week run. As well, her images from Congregation Shivtei Yeshuron and Hawthorne Hall received multiple votes. With the victory, she is entitled to the grand prize of a Hidden City membership, t-shirt, and hard hat. Congratulations, Kira!

Patterns and fabrics | Photo: @kmerdi

* * *

Previous weeks’ winners @ejbrus and @seasaleo_21 are the runners-up. Others receiving votes for the final tally include @dan_o79, @rokojoe, @nipseyrussell, @so_jane, @ajaxworks, @moonbeam_lane, @emilymanaloruiz, and @elliebeee. Many many thanks to everyone who came out to the Festival and who participated in the #igers_philly_hiddencity contest. Be sure to follow @hiddencityphila and @igers_philly on Instagram!

Some of our other favorite photos from the Festival will take us on home.

“Paned recovery (at Hawthorne Hall)” | Photo: @so_jane

In the Chess Room at the Athenaeum | Photo: rokojoe

House hunting at Fort Mifflin | Photo: @emilymanaloruiz

Light play at Germantown Town Hall | Photo: @phreqy

“Leaf and bones (at Hawthorne Hall)” | Photo: @ajaxworks

And finally, to echo the sentiments of our week one winner, THANK YOU | Photo: @ejbrus

Memories overgrown | Photo: Dan Papa

It is an estimated 380 acres of pastoral land and forest, home to wild foxes and deer, an arboretum’s worth of plant life, and a treasure trove of history etched in stone. And yet Mount Moriah Cemetery, one of the largest cemeteries in Pennsylvania, remains largely unknown, hidden by weeds.

Straddling the western edge of the city on Cobbs Creek, half of the cemetery resides in the borough of Yeadon and half in Philadelphia. For many years this place was neglected, and eventually abandoned. Amazingly, there is currently no legal owner of this property; the last known member of the Mount Moriah Cemetery Association, the governing body of the cemetery since its inception, died in 2004.

Founded in 1855, Mount Moriah was one of the popular rural burial grounds for the victorian elite of Philadelphia, along with Laurel Hill and the Woodlands. But unlike those other well preserved grounds, a quick stroll around Mount Moriah shows just how neglected it’s been. Headstones are buried and broken, monuments are toppled over. A huge ball of granite sits in Cobbs Creek. Massive obelisks and mausoleums are obscured by dense forest growth.

Return to nature | Photo: Dan Papa

There is a strange beauty in this return to nature, almost like looking at the ruins of an ancient city, but there is also a terrible loss of history. People still come to this cemetery looking for their ancestors, sometimes digging through shrubs, bushes and poison ivy to do so.

On a Saturday I talked to board members from Friends of Mount Moriah Cemetery, a non-profit that in the last two years has taken serious action in cleanup and maintenance of this land. They were busy on mowers and weed whackers, volunteering their time to maintain the history preserved here.

Calling herself the “renegade” of the group, board member Donna Morelli comes across as the sheriff of Mount Moriah. Sporting a handgun on her hip and riding an ATV around the property, she relates her personal investment at the cemetery. Her house and backyard are directly adjacent to the grounds, and she witnessed people dumping trash nearby, a common practice in recent years.

“I started sitting out here on the weekends at night,” she says. “I ended up catching them in the afternoon and got them to clean up a little bit, and then we had a little showdown. Since then, we’ve been pretty good on this side.”

Morrelli says she works in the cemetery basically every day, mowing paths through dense areas to make sure they stay accessible. Because of an abundance of ticks, she contracted Lyme disease and was forced to quit her job. But her passion for the history of this place drives her to continue. “It’s hard to keep me out of here,” she says. “My husband is not thrilled about it.”

“There were times when we were pulling sofas, mattresses, abandoned cars out of this place,” says board Treasurer Ken Smith. He estimates that only a quarter of the grounds can be maintained by volunteers. That’s worth noting considering the population of the buried. “Officially, there’s 150,000 people interred here,” Smith says. “Unofficially, we have a feeling it’s over 300,000.”

Friends communications director and board member Ed Snyder, a cemetery enthusiast who operates the blog The Cemetery Traveler, graciously led me on a tour of the grounds. We walked to the upper portion on the Yeadon side to the Naval Asylum section. Soldiers who were treated at the Naval Hospital on Grays Ferry Avenue dating to the Civil War are buried here. Incredibly, this part of the cemetery, as well as a small military plot on the Philly side, is regularly maintained by the federal government. The mowed grass and neat grids of white headstones lie in stark contrast to the surrounding overgrown sections. A metal sculptural anchor, damaged most likely by someone attempting to steal it for scrap, stands as a monument.

The architect’s tools | Photo: Dan Papa

Back on the Philly side, Snyder led us to the Masonic Circle, isolated and overgrown. This section is designed as a circle within a circle, illustrating the Mason’s geometric theories. The center is marked by a tall marble column, topped with the compass. Around the edges additional monuments can be glimpsed, but the relentless summer growth obscures nearly everything.

This section also includes the former site of Betsy Ross’ grave. In 1976, city officials decided to move the Ross grave to Old City for the Bicentennial. According to Snyder, they found no remains under her stone and so continued to dig out a large area of the family plot, until the first bones found were declared to belong to Betsy Ross. Today the site is marked with a bare flagpole.

Again on the Yeadon side, a cluster of large mausoleums and obelisks stand on a hill that until recently was overrun by 10 years of invasive tree growth. Board members cut down the trees with chainsaws over the winter. Then on a large spring cleanup day, organized by the Friends of Mount Moriah and supported by Comcast, seven wood chippers were provided by Asplundh to remove the cut trees.

Snyder says on cleanup days in the spring and fall, when work is easier because of less growth, it is normal for 100 volunteers to show up. “Often those people are descendants of people who are buried here,” he says. “We have access to the records, so we will help them find their ancestors’ graves, and it’s a very emotional experience. We get people traveling from all over the country.”

Ownership of Mount Moriah Cemetery is in complicated legal limbo. Currently moving through the court system, assignment of a new owner is an ongoing process. Once this happens, the Friends group speculates that essential grant funding will become much more accessible. Snyder speculates that the last administrators of the cemetery office may not have been the owners at all. They abruptly abandoned the office, leaving the historic records to be damaged by water.

Stephen Decatur Button’s gatehouse, standing in ruin | Photo: Dan Papa

Until a new owner emerges, the Friends group does not have authority to touch the buildings or monuments on the site. This explains the deteriorated state of the Victorian brownstone gatehouse on Kingsessing Avenue. Designed by Stephen Decatur Button, the gatehouse was declared endangered by Preservation Pennsylvania in 2004.

Friends Board President Paulette Rhone speaks eloquently about her vision for Mount Moriah. “I see it as a wonderful green open space for the community, for the city of Philadelphia and beyond,” she says. “In the mid 19th century people came and picnicked on the graves of their family. We [would like to] have walks and bike rides and sporting events and kids learning history—learning the dash in between the birth and death date. Learning about sociology, horticulture and the environment. Kids know about technology but they don’t know how to just learn from the environment, and that is my goal. I see it as an opportunity for so many people, and I’m just delighted to be a part of that.”

Learn more about the Friends of Mount Moriah Cemetery at their web site HERE. To launch a gallery from the cemetery, click any of the photos below.

Corner of Rhawn & Castor Avenues | wikipedia.com

• Work has begun for the Central Northeast District Plan, says Plan Philly. Its neighborhoods—Fox Chase, Lexington, Rhawnhurst, Burholme, and others—are increasingly younger and more diverse (22% of residents are foreign born). The preliminary focus is to determine what these trends mean for the District’s future needs. Will first-generation Ukrainians and Brazilians stay put, or move to other sections of the city? How much would transit improvements affect economic development?

• NewsWorks looks at the first go at “The Oval,” part of the “More Park, Less Way” initiative on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. Through August 18, locals will enjoy some 16 tons of sand dumped into place by Parks & Recreation. The transient urban beach—made possible by a $200,000 grant from the William Penn Foundation—aims to excite the imaginations of how the space may be utilized in years to come.

• Axis Philly speculates as to whether Philadelphia “is developing a national reputation for good bicycling,” after a July 5 editorial in Charleston, South Carolina’s Post & Courier admitted some degree of envy over the Schuylkill boardwalk, now under construction. “In a tightly-connected country,” writes Nicholas Mirra, “where individuals and businesses can choose to locate anywhere, Philadelphia needs all the edges it can obtain. Notorious narratives aside, bicycling is becoming one of our edges. We need to keep it sharp.”

• As the Housing Authority prepares for another round of auctioning off its vacant properties, it had to clear one apartment on the 24oo block of North Bouvier Street that wasn’t all that vacant. NBC10 reports that two families had thought they were renting from Michael Davis, yet he never owned the 21 buildings that he claims to have bought from the PHA two years ago.

Historic American Building Survey, 2000 | Photo: Joseph E.B. Elliott

Forty-six years ago today, John William Coltrane laid down his saxophone and departed the terrestrial for his final Ascension. On North 33rd Street, the home he purchased in 1952 stands as a testament to his time in Philadelphia, a National Historic Landmark suffering from deterioration. Two upcoming events have the potential to ameliorate that, directly and indirectly.

Tomorrow evening in Brewerytown, Alfie Pollitt and his band will perform the music of John Coltrane at a benefit for the John Coltrane House, the nonprofit led by Lenora Early, whose late husband purchased the home from Coltrane’s cousin Mary Alexander, the inspiration for his tune “Cousin Mary.” The concert, at Veteran’s Memorial Park, the green space at 31st & Girard, runs from 6–8PM and will feature food from Rybrew and Shifty’s Tacos, new Brewerytown restaurants, and beer from Saint Benjamin Brewing Company. The event itself is free, but donations to the Coltrane House are encouraged. For more information, visit the Facebook event page HERE.

Then on Wednesday, August 7th, the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia presents the premiere of Coltrane’s Philadelphia: A Documentary Film at the International House in West Philadelphia. At 25 minutes, the short film profiles the saxophonist’s formative years in Philadelphia, 1943–58, and provides a glimpse into the city during the burgeoning Civil Rights years. The film, which will be accompanied by a second film on Sun Ra, is free, but requires registration. To do so, visit IHouse’s web site HERE.

A view anew on Grays Ferry Avenue | Image courtesy of Plumbob LLC& 2300 South Street Association LP

This evening in G-Ho, developers will introduce plans for a modern five-story retail and apartment building on the corner of 23rd and South Streets, with a design from the architecture firm Plumbob.

Newman Galleries’ South Street studio | Photo: Rob Lybeck

Currently a parking lot, a former theater, and the Newman Galleries conservation, restoration, and framing studio, the property sold in April for one million dollars to a 2300 South Street Association LP. The limited partnership is headed by Jason Nusbaum, owner of City Living Philly, Rittenhouse Market (formerly Great Scot’s Rittenhouse Market) and South Square Market.

Wrapping in a triangular fashion from South Street to 23rd Street to Grays Ferry Avenue—just across the street from where the three converge at the recently reactivated Catharine Thorn Fountain—the first floor would feature 4,600 square feet of retail space, suitable for two or three storefronts. The upper floors would have 24 one- and two-bedroom rental apartments. Thirty-two bicycle parking spaces, eight outside and 24 in the basement, would also be included.

Way before and way after: top image from 1953 from PhillyHistory.org; bottom photo courtesy of Plumbob LLC and 2300 South Street Association LP. Note Catharine Thorn Fountain in each. (Click to enlarge.)

At five stories, the development would be slightly taller than most recent developments in the neighborhood, including the nearby Odunde headquarters and Naval Square townhouses. Proposed at 58′, 2300 South would be 20 feet higher than the 38′ currently allowed by right, thereby requiring a zoning variance. A demolition permit would also need to be pulled for the handsome, but not historically protected, two-story building which fronts both South Street and Grays Ferry Avenue. Though it resembles a firehouse, the Grays Ferry portion of the building was once home to a theater.

Led by Howard Steinberg and Timothy McDonald, Plumbob is the architectural component of Onion Flats’ development/design/build collective. Their five-story design would bring contemporary architecture to a neighborhood flush with new development but saddled with trite, imitative design. “[Plumbob's design] is our way of contributing to the ongoing improvement of the neighborhood,” says Nusbaum, whose South Square Market sits diagonally across the street from the property, and itself has improved steadily since Nusbaum’s purchase in 1998.

Neighborhood chatter has led to speculation of a Starbucks deal for the first floor retail space. Similar rumors saw Starbucks moving in at locations currently occupied by The Igloo frozen dessert shop and Dollar General. Of this rumor, Nusbaum says, “I have no doubt that a Starbucks would be successful, but it would be putting the cart before the horse to market to any retail before we even have [zoning] approvals.”

The South of South Neighborhood Association’s Zoning Committee meets at the Shiloh Baptist Church, 2040 Christian Street, at 7pm this evening. The 2300 South Street plan is the first item on the agenda. For more info, visit the SOSNA web site HERE.

Those blueprint maps were probably based in part on the Bromley maps, like this one from 1885

In the early 1990s, as my colleagues and I set up an office of community planning at Penn’s Center for Community Partnerships, one of the first things we did was create a West Philly map. How? I took the trolley from 36th and Sansom to 22nd and Market, and walked three blocks north to the blueprint shop above Arch Street. There, and only there, you could purchase City of Philadelphia zoning, parcel, and building maps in blueprint form according to a numbered grid that covered the entire city. Making a West Philly map meant purchasing about 25 of these maps, taking them back to the office, cutting off the borders, and taping them together. Then, the map could be taped to the wall (which we did), and markered up as desired.

Soon, our office began to develop its programs, creating neighborhood plans, gathering data, and eventually overseeing the implementation of improvement projects. With some of our small budget we ordered something new–a software package considerably more expensive than the blueprint maps: GIS. Now, we could plot vacant land parcels, public spaces, houses for sale, and retail corridors. All this would make assessment easier and more fluid and of course allow us accrue and overlay data. I don’t recall the software quite living up to its potential. Did it transform the planning process? Did it allow users to easily add data? Could it interface with other programs? The answer to all three is likely no.

About two decades later, and following the broad trajectory of technology, it appears that the aspiration of early GIS is being met. In the last year, a slew of user-friendly and interactive map tools have proliferated, and more are coming. Many of these maps, from the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority’s available properties map to the Garden Justice Legal Initiative’s new Grounded in Philly interactive map, are geared to engaging with vacant land and abandoned buildings. Others focus on tax assessment, zoning violations, and crime. Several now in development want to connect people and their energy and ideas to vacant parcels, hoping to spur action.

I spent some time with these map applications, and I offer an overview of the various map tools, and consider their strengths and weaknesses.

Phila.gov/map

Screen shot of L&I violations from phila.gov/map

You can’t disagree with the City’s ambition on this map, which allows you to map and search just about every function related to the built environment and quality of life, from key planning elements like bike lanes, healthy eating options, solar projects, and green stormwater infrastructure installations to the expected public amenities, crime, building violations, and zoning. The map connects the user with endless data. You choose the subject, a legend appears, and you can click on map elements. For L&I violations, for example, the map will show you property maintenance, fire, construction, and business violations, and cases in adjudication. You can click on the property for detail. The map itself is clear and clean and the legend easy to read. It seems slow to zoom, however, and the user can’t really overlay data. It’s only possible to view one subject map at a time (though you can essentially toggle back and forth).

AxisPhilly AVI Tax Changes

Screen shot of AVI map, AxisPhilly

This is an exceptionally easy to use map that shows 2014 tax assessments under AVI compared to 2013 tax assessments under the old system. It shows degree of change with clear color gradations. Tell the map where you are and it will zoom to you. Search an address. Hover over the map for ease of seeing. Very useful for gaining a clean visual sense of the impact of AVI.

PRA Available Properties

Screen shot of PRA available property map

This is a clunky feeling but useful map that shows available properties owned by various public agencies. You can zoom in, but you can’t seem to zoom out. You can, however, see the properties listed in a spreadsheet. You can click on an available property, view the information, and click again to “express interest” in purchasing the property. The nomenclature on the map is like this: once you “express interest,” you can “track an expression.”

PHL Crimemapper

Screen shot from PHL Crimemapper

PHL Crimemapper is a straightforward map application that does one thing: map recorded serious crimes according to an physical area and date range you determine. You can view homicide, rape, burglary, aggravated assault, robbery, and theft according to any set of days within the last three years in time chunks up to six months. You can draw physical boundaries as you like–the particular crimes are then represented by color-coded tags.

Grounded in Philly (beta)

Screen shot from Grounded in Philly

The Public Interest Law Center’s Garden Justice Legal Initiative and 596 Acres of Brooklyn, which builds organizing platforms for land reuse, came together to build this site. It focuses on vacant land parcels–gardening, healthy food access, and community organizing. Through this map, you can identify vacant land that’s publicly and privately held, add photos and information, and begin to act to reclaim the site as an organizer or advocate. You can download the vacant land information too.

Possible City

Screen shot of Possible City

This is a similar project being designed by landscape architect Douglas Meehan (he borrowed the name Possible City from my column and book). Meehan, who lives now in Brooklyn, desires a map platform that can connect people (particularly in the design field) with land use ideas with properties. As of now, the map will show you if a property is vacant, privately or publicly owned, and if it’s for sale. When you click for more data on a vacant property, the map view shifts to satellite so you can see the property in context. This map, like Grounded in Philly, is still in development.

Reclaim Philly (beta)

Screen shot of Reclaim Philly beta

Reclaim Philly is a project of the Philadelphia Association of Community Development Corporations. Enter an address and the map will give you vacant land, vacant commercial, and vacant residential buildings within a half mile radius. The interface us easy to use, but when you search the map will respond with a pile of tags–it’s hard to see it all clearly. Clicking on a tag does get you to street level zoom and some data on the property, but as of now no path to action. This map tool, too, is in development.

Photo: Dominic Mercier

On a blazing hot and humid July day, the Athletic Base Ball Club of Philadelphia sticks to its guns. While it would be easy – and recommended – to switch to something cooler, players are adorned in their woolen trouser, long-sleeve jersey, puffy jeff cap, and bow tie uniforms as they take on Delaware’s Diamond State Base Ball Club. For the club, historical accuracy and education is just as important as the fun that comes with playing.

The Athletics, who play in a league with other vintage teams in the Mid-Atlantic region, was founded 2009 by Scott Alberts and Ryan and Eric Berley – the dapper proprietors of 2nd Street’s old timey Franklin Fountain – after Alberts was on a late-night Internet quest to answer about the Philadelphia Phillies history and the team’s late-1800s home, the Baker Bowl.

“The next thing you know, it’s two in the morning,”  Alberts, the club’s president since its founding, says. He started thinking it would be fun to “get 18 guys, some beer, and play a game in the park” following the early rules of the game.

A few days later, by chance, Alberts’ mother sent him an article about a match between Maryland teams from Elkton and Havre de Grace. Left scratching his head as to why there was no Philadelphia team, Alberts turned to the Berley brothers, whose father happens to be a baseball historian and the rest is, well, living history.

The Athletics generally play their home games in the shadow of Memorial Hall in Fairmount Park, an ironic location, Alberts says, since the Centennial Exposition of 1876 contributed to the downfall of the original Philadelphia Athletics. Already feeling the pinch from bans on alcohol and gambling, the Athletics weren’t able to compete with the Exposition, which gobbled up the common man’s spending money as the preeminent recreational activity that summer and fall.

“It didn’t help, quite frankly, that the Athletics sucked that season,” Alberts says, though, historically, the Athletics were one of the most successful and most documented of the early base ball teams.

The current day Athletics and vintage base ball in general, says Alberts, draws interest from all walks of life, from hardcore baseball fans, history buffs, folks attracted to the social aspect, to softball teams who just want to wear cool uniforms. With 22 teams in the Athletics league alone, vintage baseball continues to grow.

“It’s viral,” he says. “A team starts up and everyone who goes and sees that team wants to start one. It’s like when everyone saw the Velvet Underground and went and started a band.”

The style of play varies from team to team, but when calling the shots on their home turf, the Athletics play by 1864 rules and some additional variants, including the Philadelphia version of town ball, a precursor to the game similar to rounders

Differences between the 1864 and modern game include only underhand pitching, bats that can be any length and the vastly reduced role of the umpire – whose main job is to keep the game honest by settling disputed plays. Overrunning first base is not allowed, and the lack of the infield fly rule and the ability of runners to move back and forth between bases leads to lots of trick plays, says Alberts. Gloves didn’t become commonplace until the late 1880s, and the first player to wear one in the 1870s was nearly laughed off the field.

Alberts says the club offers more than just the chance to play competitive vintage base ball. Taking on the role of historical educator, the club takes part in speaking gigs and other educational activities and partners with other events steeped in history, like the Tweed Ride.

“This is about teaching people history, not just base ball history,” says Alberts. “The game tells a lot about the history of Philadelphia, but base ball is just the hook.”

The club holds informal games from time to time so the curious can try their hand at the game. Interesting facial hair is encouraged, but not required.

The club is open to any who are interested and holds informal tryouts. Its next home game is scheduled for August 3 at Columbus Square Park, 12^th and Wharton Streets. For more information see www.phillyvintagebaseball.org.

Mildred Court | Image: JKR Partners

As demolition continues on Ortlieb’s original brewery in Northern Liberties, another piece of the city’s beverage-making history is going to rubble in South Philadelphia.

The former 7-Up bottling plant between the 800 blocks of Carpenter and Montrose Streets is being cleared to make way for a residential project. Developer US Construction will build 25 townhouses between Eighth, Carpenter, and Montrose Streets on the land occupied by several vacant industrial buildings including the plant, and the canopied loading dock on Eighth Street.

The project, known as Mildred Court, was designed by JKR Partners and approved by the Zoning Board of Adjustment in August. It replaces a humble example of South Philly’s 20th-century vernacular architecture, and a symbol of its Italian entrepreneurial heritage.

Photo: Peter Woodall

Anthony Imbesi founded the 7-Up Bottling Company of Philadelphia in the 1930s to market and distribute the emerging soda product. The extended Imbesi family would become nearly synonymous with the soft beverage industry in the mid-Atlantic region, owning plants in Camden, Wilmington, Baltimore and Salisbury, MD. (While local lore claims that Anthony Imbesi invented the modern-day lemon-lime formula, the 7-Up Company’s official website only notes the formula’s origin in St. Louis in 1929.)

Imbesi later dedicated his fortunes to breeding dogs–his favorite was the English Setter–and thoroughbred horses, for which he purchased training grounds in New Jersey.

When Anthony’s son John took over 7-Up Philadelphia, the company had moved its operations to Conshohocken and in 1995, it was acquired by locally based Beverage Enterprises. John Imbesi then founded the North American Beverage Company, headquartered in Ocean City, NJ, whose product line includes Chocolate Moose and Havana Cappuccino.

However, he also fell into trouble with the law: several former employees filed sexual harassment suits against him after he had left 7-Up. One was awarded $725,000 in damages; another who had accused Imbesi of turning her into his “sex slave” received a settlement out of court.

Former 7-Up Bottling Plant, now under demolition | Image: Googlemaps

The closest the South Philly 7-Up facility came to historic recognition was a 1995 nomination to the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission to erect a marker outside the plant. The nomination, submitted by historian Celeste Morello, was rejected because PHMC “doesn’t endorse products,” as Morello (best known for her written account of the Philadelphia mafia) told the Daily News at the time.

The loss of the bottling plant this week is part of an ongoing transformation of the 800 block of Montrose Street. In 2011, US Construction began erecting houses on the long-empty lot across from the plant. The lot was once occupied by Our Lady of Good Counsel Roman Catholic Church, erected to accommodate a growing Italian immigrant population. The church was closed in 1937, partly due to declining parish enrollment, despite a long dispute with the Archdiocese’s largely Irish-American leadership, and was demolished soon after.

In 2012, US Construction also tore down the former Fante-Leone Swimming Pool, notable for its classical façade at the corner of Darien and Montrose, to make way for more homes.

As we’ve said several times over the last two weeks, we love producing the Hidden City Daily and we love taking our readers to fascinating places–in print and person.

And so we are grateful for your support of our campaign, which crossed the $10,000 mark Friday afternoon. By raising money this way, we have saved money and demonstrated to institutional funders that we can be sustained. In this uncertain era for journalism, it’s a very big deal.

We thank you and appreciate your continued and enduring support.

The Boyd Theater, 1935 | Courtesy of phillyhistory.org

• The proposed “façadectomies” of two of Philadelphia’s last remaining 20th century movie palaces—the Boyd and the Royal—has Inga Saffron concerned that “a historic designation has become just another fungible commodity, to be traded in when the right time comes along … If you can’t develop a historic building in a few years, the thinking goes, it’s time to tear it down. But a preserved building is supposed to be preserved forever.” It’s been seven years since the Boyd last changed hands, says Saffron. “In the history of theater rescue stories, seven years is nothing.”

• Temple University announced last week that it will dedicate some $190 million toward a new library at the site of Barton Hall along 13th Street between Norris Street and Polett Walk, reports The Temple News. Whereas the outdated Temple 20/20 plan sought a library on the west side of North Broad, this spring’s Visualize Temple Initiative will opt for distinct concentrations of academics and athletics. The final design for the 200,000 to 300,000-square-foot space will be executed by Norwegian firm Snøhetta and Philly’s Stantec. The library will be completed by 2018.

• Alexander Balloon, manager and sole employee of the Tacony Community Development Corporation, has spent the last two years facilitating 14 façade improvements along Torresdale Avenue. Such physical change, says Axis Philly, is geared not so much for attracting, but for retaining—and shaping the behavior of—long-term residents. “It used to be that I might cross the street to talk to the guy who owns the hardware store, but that was about it,” reflects store owner Scott DeGiralomo. “Now we all know each other, we talk. We’re focused on the same goal.”

• D3 Real Estate Development has just lined up another project for itself around Front & Oxford, says the Philadelphia Business Journal. What is now 21,000-square-feet of a truck repair shop at 1601 North Front Street will one day join the $35 million Oxford Mills now under way, becoming “a destination that will have retail space, a micro-brewery, restaurant, office space, fitness center or gallery. It will also have space for live entertainment.”

• The Roxborough Review says that the Roxborough Development Corporation is beginning the renovation of the circa 1910 Allison Building by Ridge & Krams Avenues, in an attempt to diversify the Ridge Ave corridor.

The house of hits, at Broad & Spruce | Photo: Bradley Maule

With reports of a possible demolition at 309 South Broad Street to make way for a high-rise hotel-condo, those involved in the city’s music industry just a generation ago no doubt felt a twinge of sadness. While the building itself–a three-story 1920s era structure–is not all that remarkable, one can’t deny its rightful place in popular music history as the home of both Philadelphia International Records (and the endless series of hits Gamble & Huff produced there) and Cameo-Parkway Records’ dance hits.

The city has long been an important musical center, but two periods in the twentieth century saw Philadelphia as an undisputed leader in popular music: the late 1950s/early 1960s and again in the 1970s. That unremarkable building at 309 South Broad figured prominently in both periods, serving as the headquarters for two different record companies that produced distinctive bodies of music representing the epitome of the “Philadelphia Sound” of their time: the ’50s-’60s pop and rock & roll of Cameo-Parkway Records and the ’70s rhythm & blues and soul of Philadelphia International Records. In their respective heydays, the two companies were pop music powerhouses.

The Dovells’ “You Can’t Sit Down” on 45 | Parkway Records

Cameo-Parkway was founded in 1956 by musician Bernie Lowe (née Bernard Lowenthal), who with lyricist Kal Mann (Kalman Cohen) and guitarist/arranger Dave Appel built the company into a well-oiled pop music machine, churning out hit after hit with local artists Charlie Gracie, Bobby Rydell, the Dovells, the Orlons, Dee Dee Sharp, the Tymes, and Chubby Checker. Working first out of Lowe’s basement and later out of studios at 1405 Locust Street, the company eventually became successful enough to purchase its own building at 309 South Broad, where the hits continued for several more years.

After about a ten-year run, Cameo-Parkway began to lose steam, and by the latter part of the 1960s had become a subsidiary of MGM and basically stopped producing new music. It wouldn’t be long, however, before Philadelphia would again be at the center of the pop music business.

As Cameo-Parkway was winding down in the mid 1960s, two songwriters and producers with dreams of owning their own record company were already on an upward trajectory. Having collaborated as performers and producers at Atlantic Records with artists like Aretha Franklin and Wilson Pickett, Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff scored their first Top 5 hit with the Soul Survivors’ “Expressway to Your Heart” in 1967. In 1971, the pair founded Philadelphia International Records where, along with producer/songwriter Thom Bell, they would hone the world-renowned rhythm & blues/soul style known as the “Sound of Philadelphia.” Gamble and Huff first had offices in the Schubert Building across Broad Street but, like Cameo-Parkway a decade earlier, grew to such success that in 1973 they and Bell purchased 309 South Broad for the company’s headquarters.

Gamble & Huff, circa 1970s | Philadelphia International Records press photo

Philadelphia International Records’ string of hits lasted throughout the 1970s. Recording artists produced by the Gamble/Huff/Bell triumvirate–including the Intruders, Stylistics, Delfonics, O’Jays, Harold Melvin & the Bluenotes, Teddy Pendergrass, Lou Rawls, Jerry Butler, Billy Paul, and others–were hugely popular and defined soul in the 1970s, bridging the gap from early R&B and disco. But as the decade drew to a close so did the company’s impressive run of turning out hit records on a consistent basis. When Philadelphia International Records wound down recording new music in the 1980s, 309 South Broad Street again retreated from the spotlight.

Unlike the museums preserving the legacies of Motown, Stax, and Sun Records (in Detroit, Memphis, and Memphis, respectively), Philadelphia has no building devoted to so successful a genre. If plans to demolish 309 South Broad Street are realized, the best place for hosting one will be lost.

Girard Square rendering via National Real Estate Advisors Development Services

• A Center City District report from 2007 called Market East an area of “obsolete and underperforming low-scale structures, unattractive storefronts, neglected historic assets and large, vacant parcels at key locations.” Little has changed, laments The Inquirer. The problems are great and many. The Gallery needs updating—and light. The Convention Center’s projected bookings for the three years ahead are distressing. The parcel at 8^th& Market remains (and very well may remain) a parking lot. For hoteliers, the area is a ceaseless embarrassment that only serves to dissuade tourists’ return trips to Philadelphia. Yet hope, says the piece, increasingly concentrates upon the 1100 block of Market & Chestnut, as SSH Investments is set to reveal an ambitious plan for Girard Square—including an 80-unit apartment complex—in the coming months.

• Uncertainties mount after the Commonwealth Court vacated the Common Pleas decision to uphold the Historical Commission’s hardship finding for the Church of the Assumption.Plan Philly describes “an odd impasse,” to be surmounted only when the current property owner, John Wei of Chinatown, reaches a decision on his next move for the admittedly unsafe building at 12^th& Spring Garden. While the City could appeal the recent Commonwealth decision in order to bring it down and raise a taxable development in its place, city solicitor Andrew Ross admits that’s unlikely. Meanwhile, this landmark case in Philly preservation still holds some significant legal questions, mainly: does the hardship designation stay with building itself, or is it limited to the owner, Siloam, who sought and received it?

• According to NewsWorks, the use of an old train trestle for the Cresheim Trail (running from the Forbidden Drive to Cheltenham Township) is all but a done deal; an official ordinance—perhaps in June—is all that is left for fundraising efforts to begin. Mt. Airy-based developer Ken Weinstein, who helped broker the deal, estimates that $450,000 will be needed to make the Friends of Cresheim Trail’s vision a reality. The trail will also serve to fuse the Mt. Airy and Chestnut Hill neighborhoods for walkers and bicyclists.

• The Philadelphia Real Estate Blog discusses the flourishing of development in northern Fishtown. The Zoning Board last week granted “a variance to build six four-story townhouses on a wedge-shaped lot spanning 2214-24 Blair Street and running to Trenton Avenue.” The Harman Deutsch-designed project will join a resurgent neighborhood, with the restored 26^th Precinct Police Station at Trenton & Dauphin and the new Norris Point project at Trenton & Norris making this “proposal for more housing an easy sell.”

Getting ready for the holidays at the Woodmere | Photo: Bradley Maule

Anyone expecting fireworks at Thursday’s open house at the Woodmere Art Museum in Chestnut Hill had to settle instead for the installation of Christmas lights on the Victorian mansion—a new complement to the traditional lights adorning the giant conifer next to the building each holiday season. The open house, an introduction of the community to architect Matthew Baird, who the Woodmere has chosen to craft its master plan and expansion, was downright cordial, a relief after the years of contention following the 2001 expansion plan from Venturi Scott Brown and Associates.

VSBA’s Woodmere expansion plan, circa 2005 | Photo courtesy of Roberta Fallon, artblog

VSBA’s plan would have built an enormous modern extension outward from the main building, sloping downhill with a Venturi-esque “Woodmere Art Museum” sign announcing itself to Germantown Avenue. That plan never sat well with the North Chestnut Hill Neighbors, who challenged the museum in court over parking and aesthetic concerns until eventually it fell through.

Baird brings a different vision to a museum that itself is arguably, a decade later, a little different. Since Bill Valerio took over as Director and CEO in 2010, the Woodmere’s attendance has risen—as have the donor base and expense budget. But the museum’s infrastructure hasn’t kept pace, so Valerio called for a master plan that modernizes facilities as well as expands the gallery space. “A lot of the long term master plan is very workaday, nuts and bolts stuff—how much life is left in the heating and cooling system, accessibility, better bathrooms,” Valerio says. “One of the fundamental goals of the expansion is adaptive reuse—to make the best of what we already have.”

Among the current conditions at the Woodmere’s six-acre campus: a currently underused Director’s House, a lawn that has suffered from water runoff issues, and a tenuous connection with Germantown Avenue—all considerations for a new architect when the Woodmere sent out its RFP. Matthew Baird’s response, stressing connectivity, transparency, and clarity, was selected from a pool of architects either based in Philly or with Philly connections. Of course Baird’s architectural pedigree didn’t hurt.

Coming from a family line of architects—his grandfather designed a number of York County’s civic structures, and his great-grandfather was on the PAFA board that selected Frank Furness for their landmark main building—Baird spent his formative years in Chestnut Hill. In his presentation, he recalled going to the Woodmere as a youth. He also tipped his cap to his Chestnut Hill forebears. “There’s an incredible architectural legacy here,” Baird says, citing George Howe’s High Hollow, Louis Kahn’s Esherick House, and Robert Venturi’s Mother’s House. “They’re all touchstones for anything we’ll try to accomplish here.”

The former American Folk Art Museum (now part of MoMA), designed by Matthew Baird for Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects

This thoughtfulness is not lost on the near neighbors. “I can tell you that at the present time [that] I am pleased with the approach and direction of Woodmere and its architect,” says Bob Shusterman of the North Chestnut Hill Neighbors. Shusterman helmed the NCHN’s opposition to the VSBA plan, but considers the current process more inclusive and cooperative. “The neighbors want Woodmere to succeed,” he stresses. “I think that the values that Bill Valerio has been discussing for the museum, the site, and its physical plant are good for the near neighbors and the museum.”

Of course the Woodmere isn’t Baird’s first foray into a controversial museum. In his time at Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects, he served as project architect for the American Folk Art Museum. Completed in 2001, the New York museum earned critical acclaim, including the AIA National Honor Award, but attendance fell short and its $32M cost proved too costly after the financial collapse. In 2011, the neighboring Museum of Modern Art purchased the museum for its own expansion and announced plans earlier this year to demolish the 12-year-old building. An immediate backlash from critics and the architecture community made them reconsider. “That’s a building I hope won’t be torn down,” Baird told the open house to nervous laughter.

While the Woodmere’s VSBA plan was ultimately shelved, Baird has learned from it and its process. “A lot of the research they did is still very valid—accessibility, research and storage space,” he notes. “You better believe I’ll be flipping through my Learning From Las Vegas,” he jokes of the 1972 Venturi Scott Brown book.

“A lot of what we’ve heard is the Woodmere needs to maintain its identity as a quirky museum with a countryside,” Valerio says of his preliminary meetings with neighbors. Museum founder Charles Knox Smith, a Kensington-born self-made entrepreneur with investments in oil and mining, had an Emersonian view of city and nature, and founded the museum as a way of infusing that experience with art. With that in mind, Valerio says, “we want to reestablish a connection with the [Morris] Arboretum, the Wissahickon, and with main street, Germantown Avenue.”

Catherine M. Kuch Gallery | Photo: Bradley Maule

There’s room to do that across the six acres extending north from Germantown Avenue between Bells Mill and Hillcrest Roads. Much of the land sits overgrown with brambles, space that might become a sculpture garden with pathways. Baird referenced the Hirshhorn Museum and Storm King Arts Center in his presentation as potential inspirations. “But,” he says, “the scale has to stay domestic, as it’s an asset to the Woodmere.” To that end, one of the highest priorities is improving pedestrian access from Germantown Avenue, for those arriving on foot from the train and the Wissahickon.

The largely vacant Director’s House, along the Bells Mill side of the property, could be used for offices and administration, freeing that space for artwork in the main Victorian mansion. That, and expanding on the centerpiece Catherine M. Kuch Gallery in the building’s rotunda, will allow for a greater permanent display of the museum’s collection. Currently, only 3 percent of the museum’s holdings are displayed.

With a growing base, a determined director, and a four-star rating from Charity Navigator, the Woodmere has the potential to fill the void of the domestic-art-on-landscaped-grounds experience left by the Barnes Foundation when it moved downtown. And with its mission toward showcasing Philadelphia art and artists, the revamped estate in the Wissahickon valley comes with an added layer of civic pride.