Photo: Theresa Stigale

If someone were to ask you to describe East Girard Avenue, how would you respond? A potential grand boulevard hampered by traffic and pedestrian obstacles? A mix of new and long-established businesses and restaurants? A car-friendly stretch that is particularly daunting–sometimes terrifying–to those on foot or bike?

The New Kensington Community Development Corporation, which serves the corridor that stretches along Girard Avenue from Front Street to I-95, is hoping to distill and transform those many notions through a recently launched district marketing plan. With funds from the City’s Commerce Department, NKCDC is working with urban planning and design firm Interface Studio and the branding agency Letter 27 to create a cohesive strategy to market East Girard as a destination, complete with new logo, streetscape design guidelines, collateral communications pieces, and an online presence. Girard Avenue west of Front Street received new sidewalks, granite curbs, and street trees in 2010.

While it has its own unique challenges, NKCDC economic development director Angie Williamson is hoping East Girard Avenue can enjoy the same success of nearby Frankford Avenue, home of the Frankford Arts Corridor, which features a similar mix of old and new businesses in a traditionally working class neighborhood that–with NKCDC marketing support–are blooming.

Photo: Theresa Stigale

“What makes Fishtown special is the blending of both [old and new],” Williamson says of the businesses, “and we don’t want to dilute that. We’re looking for something to make East Girard stand out.”

The identity seeking process, Williamson says, kicked off February 15 with a stakeholders meeting featuring 11 district business owners, both old and new. During the meeting, representatives from Interface Studio and Letter 27 presented findings from walking assessments and business owner interviews.

Williamson adds that the stakeholders all believe that in order to support the businesses that have been there for decades while embracing emerging venture, sthe branding and marketing should not veer too far to the traditional and historic or the sleek and contemporary .

Leah Murphy, a senior associate at Interface Studio, agrees, noting that one of the biggest challenges facing the project could be drawing too much attention to the district and disrupting its old/new balance. The goal, she says, is maintaining it’s “everyday main street” ambiance while promoting Girard as a neighborhood-serving corridor as well as a nightlife destination.

In order for the project to be successful, the firms will have to tackle Girard Avenue’s particularly difficult streetscape. Facing a very wide roadway dotted with unsightly infrastructure Murphy says they’ll also be creating placemaking strategies to enhance how the corridor is experienced.

Front and Girard | Photo: Theresa Stigale

“If you think of Girard Station as a gateway to East Girard, it doesn’t exactly make the best first impression and certainly doesn’t say ‘welcome to East Girard’,” she says. “Frankford and Girard is a confusing and potentially dangerous intersection, whether you’re passing through on foot or by car or waiting for the trolley–and good luck if you’re braving it on two wheels.”

At the same time, she notes, “it’s a great opportunity to create a sense of “place” or “arrival,” given that it’s such an lively crossroads of activity.”

Photo: Theresa Stigale

On top of the marketing plan, with funds from Local Initiatives Support Corporation’s Corridors of Retail Excellence program, NKCDC is also working to put ideas into play on an experimental block, the east side of Marlborough to Oxford, 306-316 E. Girard. Work here will concentrate on façade upgrades and visual merchandising to demonstrate low-cost but high-impact revitalization ideas. Both projects are expected to be completed in the early summer.

Photo: Nathaniel Popkin

In the 1890s, the Tradesman’s National Bank of Philadelphia, which had been a city establishment since 1847, was ready to open its own trust company. After only a few years in operation, the new Tradesman’s Trust Company was already ready to build a tower in what was now the city’s central business district around the new City Hall.

The location they chose was 1324 Chestnut, a small plot at the southeast corner of Juniper and Chestnut. This new 12-story tower couldn’t just be any ordinary building. It would have to live up to the designs of Hale Building, Wanamaker’s Grand Depot, and Mint Arcade that inhabited the other three corners of that intersection. In September 1904, the best architects in the city were invited to compete for a winning design. Horace Trumbauer, the Hewitt Brothers, H. L. Reinhold Jr, the firm of Wilson, Harris, & Richards, Carl Berger, and the firm of Hale (Willis G!) and Morse were among those contacted.

Photo: Nathaniel Popkin

They probably ignored the Tradesman’s call, because the winner of the competition was one Lloyd Titus. Titus was a city architect that designed school buildings. The Tradesman’s Trust Company may be the only non-school building he designed. In May 1905, a call for bids was placed for the construction of a 12-story loft building. That September, the construction was contracted to Doyle & Doak, one of the most prolific contractors of the period, headquartered at the Hale Building across the street. New England Granite Works would supply granite for the facade.

But for reasons even the Shadow hasn’t been able to figure out, The 12 story plan was reduced to a two story one by the time construction began. This made the new building shorter than the three story grocery store it replaced.

The new 20 foot by 104 foot structure, clad in Woodbury Granite, opened on June 1st, 1906. The design, though short-statured, was impressive nonetheless. A small portico stood on the Chestnut Street side with “Tradesman’s Trust Co.” sculpted into the top. The roof was decorated with a ballustrade that remains today. Delightfully stylized street labels were imbued into the granite corners facing Juniper and Drury Streets. At the corner of Juniper and Chestnut, a lit-up sign on the building faced west, declaring the company’s presence to passersby on Broad Street.

In 1910, the Tradesman’s Trust was ready to make their original 12-story plan a reality. They commissioned the firm of Baker and Dallett to come up with the design.

Proposed Tradesman’s Trust Addition | Source: Athenaeum of Philadelphia

Baker and Dallett’s plan completely changed the existing space (save the portico) and added a brick and limestone facade covered in bay windows. At the top three floors, there was to be a marble crown that included curved colonnades and a set of pitched-roofed portholes. This magnificent building would certainly compete with its neighbors for the eye of the passer-by.

Oh, but the grand thing never happened. The Tradesman’s Trust Company folded on September 18th, 1911. All assets were liquidated, including $45,000 the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania was holding there. After the Commonwealth got their money back from a surety company two days later, the failure of Tradesman’s Trust was used as an example for how safe the state’s funds were. The next October, the Attorney General of Pennsylvania appointed financier Percy M. Chandler with the task of tying up all of the company’s affairs and disposal of its assets. The trust company appealed this decision, but was dismissed by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Tradesman’s National Bank didn’t give up on having its own trust company. By 1928, a set of mergers made them into the Tradesman’s National Bank and Trust Company. They still survive today as part of PNC Bank.

In the latter half of 1914, the Pennsylvania Company for Insurance on Lives and Granting Annuities moved into the space, calling it their “Broad Street Office.” Their iconic headquarters on the 500 block of Chestnut Street, in the city’s old downtown, had felt too far from the action and the moved west, originally with a branch office in the Franklin National Bank Building at Broad and Chestnut Streets. Eventually, the firm wanted a building of their own in the area and so it commissioned Edgar V. Seeler, whose office was in the long-since-demolished Drury Building directly behind the old Tradesman’s Trust Company, to re-design the Tradesman’s building for their purposes.

By the 1920s, the 1300 block of Chestnut Street had become part of “Piano Row,” inhabited by a few dozen piano companies, stores, and manufacturers centered on the 1100 block of Chestnut. In 1926, the Leefson Conservatory of Music took over the second floor of the Tradesman’s Building, which it occupied for the next three decades. There, instructors not only taught piano, but also certified piano teachers. Strangely enough, the most famous alumnus of this small school was not a musician, but a mathematician–Ralph H. Fox, creator of the Fox n-coloring of knots, the Fox-Artin Arc, and the Fox derivative… whatever the hell those are supposed to be.

As Barricini Candy in 1939. Note the diagonal display window. | Source: PhillyHistory.org

In the 1930s, following the Chestnut Street’s transformation into the city’s premiere shopping district of the mid-20th Century, the first floor of the old Tradesman’s Trust was made into retail space. The storefront featured a unique configuration: diagonal glass display with a single column in the northwest corner of the building. It kept this appearance well into the 1960s. By the time the structure was purchased by the infamous Sam Rappaport in 1986, the retail space had been combined with the building next door.

In 2000, the Greenhouse Food Market moved into the space and has been utilizing both floors of the old Tradesman’s Trust ever since. Though modernized, the most noted feature of the building continues to be the fanciful street labels on the southwest corner.

Worrell-Winter House, 1548 Adams Avenue | Photo: Historical Society of Frankford

The Philadelphia Historical Commission is not currently reviewing nominations to the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places, placing several key heritage sites at risk that were nominated to the Register last year. Preservation advocates and community leaders expected the nominations to be reviewed by now, but a delicate political situation related to the designation of the nominated Overbrook Farms Historic District has frozen action on pending nominations and there is no timeline for when reviews will resume. (For our report on the conflict over the Overbrook Farms district, published first in Grid Magazine on February 7, click HERE.)

Designation to the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places provides buildings with the highest level of protection from demolition or significant alteration.

Among the most vulnerable of the 14 recently nominated properties are the Stiffel Senior Center in South Philadelphia (pictured below), a fundamental part of 20th-century Jewish civic life nominated by the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia; the Gretz Brewery in South Kensington nominated by South Kensington Community Partners; the home of printmaker Dox Thrash in North Philadelphia, nominated by the Preservation Alliance; and the early colonial Worrell/Winter House on Adams Avenue in Frankford (pictured above), nominated by the Frankford Historical Society.

Stiffel Senior Center, Marshall and Porter Sts. | Photo: Rachel Hildebrandt

Meanwhile, the nomination for the Washington Square West Historic District, which would cover 1,500 buildings, half of which are not currently protected, has languished for more than two years without any staff review.

The majority of the individual nominations, as well as the nomination for the Washington Square West district, were the product of a concerted push by the Preservation Alliance, motivated in part by their desire to make up for the Historical Commission’s lack of staff capacity and to keep the nomination process moving.

“The designation process is one of the first responsibilities of the Commission in the city’s historic preservation ordinance,” said Preservation Alliance advocacy director Ben Leech. “While we understand there might be capacity concerns, it seems as if they’re leaving the designation process at the bottom of their priority list and if that’s the case it’s very troubling.”

But Jonathan Farnham, Historical Commission executive director, told the Hidden City Daily that “there’s never been any sort of official timetable” for reviewing nominations to the Philadelphia Register.

The Commission’s Committee on Historic Designations meets on an as-needed basis to consider nominations before the full Commission votes on their approval. Recent practice has seen the committee meet an average of two to three times per year to review anywhere from four to ten individual nominations per meeting. The Designations Committee, however, has not convened since last February. The last comparable period of inactivity was a 12-month stretch in 2007-08–although that, said Leech, was mainly owing to a lack of nominations to review.

One of the buildings at greatest risk is the Worrell/Winter House, thought to be the oldest building in Frankford and “a classic example of rural Southeastern Pennsylvania farmhouse architecture that’s found within city limits,” said Kristin Hagar, the historical consultant who prepared the nomination for the Frankford Historical Society.

Constructed between 1718-1728, the stone structure is in “fair-to-poor condition,” according to the nomination. Patricia Coyne, a Frankford Historical Society board member, said the group had expected the nomination to be heard by the Historical Commission in August. “It didn’t happen in August,” she said. “It didn’t happen in September. We were very disappointed. We knew it was on the agenda, but they still haven’t scheduled a meeting.” The Historical Commission’s efforts to reach out to the owner of Worrell/Winter have been unsuccessful. And recently, the building was cleaned and sealed by the Philadelphia Department of Licenses and Inspection. “We’re in a race against time.”

Pomerantz building | Photo: Nathaniel Popkin

Other buildings in the queue, while structurally sound, remain vulnerable to redevelopment forces. The best-known example is Joe Frazier’s Gym on North Broad, which closed in 2008 and has been converted into a furniture showroom. The Preservation Alliance drew up the nomination for the gym with assistance from students at Temple and Penn as well as the Heritage Consulting Group, as a parallel effort to the push to list the gym on the National Register of Historic Places–that nomination, recently approved at the state level, is now pending before the National Park Service.

Two other sites–the Chinese Cultural and Community Center in Chinatown and the Pomerantz Building at 15th and Chestnut Streets–are vacant buildings whose fragile, elegant facades could be altered or completely removed. The Overseas Motorworks Building, a mostly one-story Art Deco structure at 15th and Fairmount, is adjacent to two large construction sites in a neighborhood experiencing strong development pressure.

Several factors have combined to keep these buildings from receiving the Commission’s timely attention, including perennial staffing shortfalls, a series of time-consuming legal appeals, and a dispute over the nomination of the Overbrook Farms neighborhood in West Philadelphia as an historic district.

Everyone agrees that the Historical Commission is understaffed. Its four staff members in addition to Farnham makes it significantly smaller than similar agencies in other cities with smaller inventories of historic buildings. And of those staffers, only one quarter of one staff position is dedicated to processing historical nominations.

But whether understaffing is the real cause of the delay is disputed. The eight-year saga of the Overbrook Farms nomination, which has claimed an oversized share of the Historical Commission’s attention and resources, points to the influence of politics on a supposedly apolitical bureaucratic process. Councilman Curtis Jones, Jr., responding to pressure from landowners opposed to the district, went as far as to threaten to assert councilmanic prerogative over the authority of the Historical Commission. The nomination deadlocked after Jones and City Commerce Director Alan Greenberger asked the Historical Commission to table the nomination while a political solution was found.

Overbrook Farms | Photo: Peter Woodall

“Designation should be a reflection of both the physical assets and attributes that define an area, and a community’s desire to define itself in terms of those physical assets and attributes,” said commissioner Richardson Dilworth, III, a professor of history and politics at Drexel University, who chairs the Committee on Historic Designations. While calling himself a fan of the Overbrook Farms nomination and praising its “wealth of historical detail,” Dilworth said that there seemed to be a clear divide between residents for and against the district, leading the commissioners to agree that more time was needed for the community to talk things over.

Several people involved in that conflict told Hidden City they had expected the issue to be resolved quickly. But as the year wore on without resolution, the Commission’s nomination process was paralyzed. Presumably, with its authority in question, it doesn’t want to weigh in over other pending nominations, even as Councilman Jones has said publicly that it’s now up to the Commission to make the next move.

Farnham declined to speak on the record about the Overbrook Farms situation. But according to Ben Leech, the Historical Commission has been reluctant to process nominations while Overbrook Farms is still pending, even though none of the buildings are located within the proposed district.

“My understanding is they had been aware, informally, for at least six months that these nominations were coming. What I thought was going to happen was that the Overbrook fiasco was not going to affect the historic nomination process,” said Leech.

Beasley Building | Photo: Nathaniel Popkin

Meanwhile, the Washington Square West district has yet to even receive a review. Part of what may be working against the district is what critics consider to be its redundancy: of the 1,500 properties it covers, about half are already designated individually. Still, that leaves a number of significant properties in the neighborhood unlisted, such as the Gothic-style Beasley Building and the Romanesque Baptist Publication House, both of which date from the 1890s.

Dilworth, whose committee is responsible for reviewing the nominated Washington Square West District, agreed that it merits review. Apart from staffing constraints, however, he said he isn’t sure why the nomination hasn’t been brought to his committee for review.

The fight about Overbrook Farms is one that the Historical Commission, preservationists, and City Council members have taken up before, when the nomination of the Spruce Hill Historic District came before the Commission. In that situation, City Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell, acting on behalf of some property owners in the district opposed to the designation, forced the tabling of the nomination.

That political confrontation caused the Commission to undertake a public reassessment of the historic district nominating process, according to preservation architect and former chair of the Philadelphia AIA Preservation Committee Shawn Evans, and with some improvements in data collection and communications, the district program was put back to use. Several submitted districts, albeit much smaller ones, have since received approval; the largest, Tudor East Falls, consists of 210 properties (the Spruce Hill district remains tabled). “The upshot is there’s generally strong community support for historic districts,” he said.

But according to Evans, tabling the Spruce Hill district and reassessing the district nomination process never impacted the process for nominating individual buildings, which he said Philadelphia has been doing longer than any other American city, since 1955. And nor should it now. “What I don’t understand is why that should impact the listing of individual buildings,” he said. “It doesn’t make sense. A building either meets the requirements [to be listed historic] or it doesn’t. There is a legal process in place.”

The rationale of tabling all nominations until the Overbrook Farms issue is sorted out also doesn’t sit well with John Gallery, the recently retired former executive director of the Preservation Alliance. “We hope the Historical Commission finds a way to resolve the issue of Overbrook Farms,” he said, “but if it can’t I don’t see any reason why the Historical Commission can’t move on to other nominations.”

Gretz Brewery | Photo: Peter Woodall

Gallery added that individual nominations are easier to deal with than districts, which often present conflicts and complications. “I would hope the Historical Commission would find a way to deal with this, even if it means spreading them out,” he said.

For community based preservation advocates like Patricia Coyne of the Frankford Historical Society, there is much at stake to further delay. Coyne’s group sees the saving and eventual restoration of the Worrell/Winter House as a critical piece of an emergent community development agenda that’s been so long elusive in this shop-worn but potentially robust part of Frankford: “The renovation of Womrath Park and early planning for resurrection of the Frankford Creek have neighbors here dreaming.”

Peter Woodall and Nathaniel Popkin contributed reporting to this story.

Rendering of the future Mustin Park District

• Flying Kite discusses the updated master plan of the Navy Yard in the light of storm water management and other sustainability innovations. The burgeoning office park still struggles to offer the necessary urban diversity, yet Robert Stern’s amendments assist the space as a testing ground for the city’s “Green City, Clean Waters” initiative; with its rolling hills, Mustin Park will funnel runoff waters into a canal, which in turn will hold it until releasing it into the Delaware at a controlled access point.

• Mayor Michael Nutter has declared the old method of property assessment dead, confident that city residents will adjust and learn to appreciate a fairer system of assessing home values. While there have been hiccups (his own house was undervalued by $60,000 by assessors), a protocol is in place to effectively correct any misinformation.

• Stan Smith, the owner of Germantown’s Flying Horse Center, fights graffiti with graffiti. Tired of having his red brick building defaced, Smith commissioned local artists to paint tag-style murals.

• NEast Philly reports that now with Councilman Brian O’Neill forsaking a zoning code amendment that would require approval for community gardens, Parkwood residents may expect a self-sustaining, year-round community garden.

John C. Anderson Apartments | Image: WRT

Construction is underway on what will be only the nation’s second affordable housing project geared to LGBT seniors (the first is in Hollywood, California), the $19.5 million John C. Anderson Apartments, on 13th Street near Spruce in Washington Square West. The 56 one bedroom unit multi-use project, developed by Pennrose Properties in conjunction with the Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld Fund, and Gay News publisher Mark Segal (president of the Hirschfeld Fund’s board), will be open by the end of the year. The building, designed by architect Joe Salerno of Wallace Roberts and Todd, replaces a parking lot and maintenance facility owned by the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority.

“There were not a lot of models for this–there really weren’t,” said Pennrose project director Jacob Fisher about LGBT-friendly senior housing. “It feels like we’re living in an age when this kind of project can happen. We can see the change happening before our eyes and this is an exciting icon that people will see and talk about.”

A gay man, John C. Anderson was one of Philadelphia’s most highly respected and energetic leaders and a member of City Council in the early 1980s. He died at 41 of a chronic lung disease in 1984.

“This has been a long-range project,” said the 60 year old Segal. “I started looking at senior issues in the 1990s, trying to find out the needs of LGBT seniors. The first issue that was raised, and it really surprised me, was housing. I was blown away by the sense of need.”

Gay and lesbian elderly, often without children and grandchildren to care for them and now priced out of the neighborhood that’s been the center of the city’s gay life for decades, are the target for the apartment building, which is open by law to anyone.

“I’ve been trying to look into LGBT history, especially our pioneers,” said Segal. “I discovered that these people who had done all that work didn’t have a decent place to live. That probably was the strongest push making this project happen. It’s the community taking care of its most endangered.”

One region’s most experienced developers of affordable housing, Pennrose has built some 4,400 units of senior housing in past three decades and a half. The project, which was initially to be built on the property of and connected to the William Way Center, was funded largely by tax credits through the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency. It also includes a 1,900 square feet of retail or community non-profit space on 13th Street. Pennrose’s management division will own and manage the building, once it’s open.

John C. Anderson Apartments under construction | Photo: Nathaniel Popkin

“From the neighborhood point of view, we’re excited to see life on block,” said the Washington Square West Civic Association’s zoning committee chair Carl Engerle. “It’s been a difficult block–the Parker Hotel next door is one of the biggest sources of problems in the neighborhood–and the parking lot provided zero activity.”

“The neighborhood has been so helpful, so forthcoming,” said Segal. “It’s been an incredible experience–I’ve never had anything like it: the neighbors, the City, the State, the federal government, everyone working together in such a focused way.”

While the Redevelopment Authority stipulated as a condition of the sale to Pennrose that the project would contain retail space, the civic association actively pressed for a use that would increase density and enhance the street vitality of the neighborhood (the civic association has raised some $120,000 to install pedestrian lighting on half the neighborhood’s blocks, and more is to come). They also strongly supported the project’s contemporary design, which is characterized by large windows (with low sills to allow residents to see easily to the street below) and an assemblage of variegated orange prefinished cement fiberboard panels. The four story panel assemblage, which will sit three feet off of the front wall of the building, is meant to help mediate the building’s scale in relation to its neighbors.

“It’s going to make that block look contemporary and alive,” said Segal.

Camac Street front | Photo: Nathaniel Popkin

With frontage also on tiny but busy Camac Street, the building scale steps down to meet the intimacy of the street. Metal panels patterned after other neighborhood buildings designed by the architect Cecil Baker, who serves on the civic association’s zoning committee, frame the top story and the roof line.

In addition to the ground floor retail–Fisher said he’s open to ideas for it–the building will have a green courtyard, a partial green roof, and use five percent renewable energy. It will be given an Energy Star 3 rating, meaning it meets the US Environmental Protection Agency’s latest specifications for energy use.

Salerno said the exterior’s contemporary palette and materials are pulled through to the building’s interior spaces. “The intent was to make this much more contemporary than you would do in a typical senior housing project. It’s trying to be clean and modern and I think everybody feels good about that.”

Some of the green design stems from requirements of the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency, which also sets the size and configuration of apartment units and the size of the communal spaces. “PHFA standards are generally good ones, we wouldn’t reach Energy Star without it,” said Salerno. “The bad things you get with PHFA is that they set size of units and they’re not generous in any way. Their rules are aimed at trying to be sure people are not building what’s inappropriate for what the government is spending on. They also determine how quickly a project has to be put into service.” The tax credits, which were purchased by Wells Fargo, have to be used by the end of the year, meaning the project will be completed start to finish in 17 months.

“As an architect you get a lot of not so good projects over the years,” said Salerno. “It is an interesting and dense urban design challenge. This has really been great–it could be my swan song.”

Proposed rendering of project at Broad and Wharton | Image Landmark Architectural Design

Residents of South Philadelphia were treated to a presentation Tuesday night on a plan to bring new density to a crucial stretch of South Broad Street, albeit through a development that likely spells the end of a historic military building.

The 1898 Third Regiment Armory at Broad and Wharton Streets, whose history can be traced to Benjamin Franklin, will be fully demolished and replaced with a six-story apartment building under the preliminary plan proposed by developer Michael Carosella and architect Vincent Mancini of Landmark Architectural Design. The new L-shaped building would have 50 units and a courtyard entrance along Broad Street, with room for 52 parking spaces on the surface level behind and under the building. According to Mancini, there would also be racks to accommodate 17 bicycles and a green roof deck.

Carosella, who has recently torn down two Graduate Hospital churches for residential development, is negotiating to acquire the armory from the Tolentine Community Center and Development Corporation, which has struggled to maintain it with limited operating expenses and onerous legal burdens. Until recently, Tolentine was blocked from reselling the property as a condition of acquiring it from the State of Pennsylvania. During its ownership, sections of the building’s roof and at least one floor have collapsed, producing a string of citations from L&I.

From the start of the community zoning meeting held by the South Broad Street Neighborhood Association in the Morgan Conference Room at Methodist Hospital, demolition of the armory appeared to be fait accompli. The presentation focused largely on how the design for the new building allowed for more open air by occupying slightly less than half of the full parcel and included deep enough setbacks in the rear to placate neighboring residents. Some attendees objected to the lack of retail in the development. Also raised as a point of contention was the keeping of the retaining wall that divides the site from residential properties on Titan Street immediately to the south. Despite these concerns, the design of the project was met with a generally positive reception.

On the question of reusing the original building, Mancini highlighted the architectural challenges posed by restoration–among them the fact that the current building’s ground floor is set halfway below ground level, creating a sense of detachment from the street for residential use.

Third Regiment Armory, Broad and Wharton St. | Photo: Peter Woodall

Carosella said that he had surveyed the inside of the armory and deemed restoration to be impossible. Though he considered ways to salvage the facade while tearing down the rear shed, he ultimately concluded that only new development would be feasible.

“We looked at how we could restore it,” he said, “but with the damage and the money needed to fix it up, it won’t work. So then the question becomes, how do we go about creating something that has the best impact for the area, to serve as a gateway for that section of South Broad Street.”

Although they will be rentals, the presenters touted the size of the units, which will include two bedrooms and two bathrooms, and the availability of parking as essential to encouraging long-term occupancy.

While sentiment for the armory’s history was palpable among the crowd, the opinion that it was well past its prime resonated more strongly. “That building is falling down,” one attendee declared.

Located at the intersection of the Passyunk Square and Point Breeze neighborhoods, the armory was used by the Pennsylvania National Guard before Harrisburg began renting the premises in the 1980s to Tolentine, which bought the whole building in 2003. State Senator Larry Farnese introduced legislation last year to lift the no-resale clause to spur redevelopment.

The preliminary hearing will be followed up with an updated presentation once the project is set to go before the Zoning Board of Adjustment. Construction activity may commence at the site before the end of the year.

1930 Victor Records Advertisement for Stokowski/Philadelphia Orchestra recording of The Rite of Spring (Le Sacre du Printemps)

Tomorrow night, the Philadelphia Orchestra performs Igor Stravinsky’s landmark “The Rite of Spring” (Le Sacre du Printemps) in a new stage interpretation featuring dancers, video projection, and theatrical lighting. Such an adventurous production is very much in keeping with the innovative spirit of the Orchestra’s visionary early twentieth-century conductor Leopold Stokowski, who gave the American premieres of the concert and staged versions of “The Rite of Spring” with The Philadelphia Orchestra in 1922 and 1930, respectively. This year is the centennial of both the world premiere of The Rite of Spring and Stokowski’s first season as Conductor of The Philadelphia Orchestra. Watch the orchestra’s music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin discuss the production HERE.

“The Rite of Spring” was originally a ballet production. Its world premiere in Paris on May 29, 1913 was an epochal event in the history of the performing arts. Audience reaction to the groundbreaking piece was tumultuous, with a near riot breaking out in response to the challenging music and provocative dancing. Igor Stravinsky’s musical score to the ballet eventually came to be regarded as a masterpiece, one of the most influential compositions of the twentieth century. “The Rite of Spring” is now most often performed as a concert piece and as such has become a staple of the orchestral repertoire.

Leopold Stokowski and The Philadelphia Orchestra gave the American premiere of the concert version of “The Rite of Spring” on March 3, 1922 at the Academy of Music. Stokowski gave an introductory talk from the stage prior to the performance, explaining that the music was meant to be accompanied by dancing and stage sets depicting Russian peasants celebrating the arrival of spring, culminating in the sacrifice of a young maiden. He said that he did not expect everyone to like or be comfortable with the challenging music, but that it was important that they experience this significant modern work. Critical reaction in the press was varied, with some reviewers recognizing “The Rite of Spring” as an important new form of musical expression and others denouncing it as so much primitive noise. Most critics agreed that the music suffered from not having the dancing and stage design elements that it was meant to accompany.

Coverage of US premieres of The Rite of Spring and Die glückliche Hand in Musical America, April 1930 Philadelphia Orchestra Archives

Leopold Stokowski and The Philadelphia Orchestra recorded “The Rite of Spring” for Victor Records in 1929, a recording made in the Academy of Music. On April 11, 1930, they gave the US premiere of the full staged ballet version of the piece. Produced in collaboration with the League of Composers, a New York-based organization, the program also included the American premiere of another modern musical theater work, Arnold Schoenberg’s “Die glückliche Hand” (The Hand of Fate). The Academy of Music, the Orchestra’s home venue, was not well suited for such a large-scale production so performances were given in Philadelphia’s Metropolitan Opera House at Broad and Poplar Streets, with subsequent performances in New York City’s Metropolitan Opera House.

Stokowski was intimately involved in “The Rite of Spring” 1930 stage production, from discussing aspects of the work with its composer Igor Stravinsky to helping choose the young, then relatively unknown dancer Martha Graham for the central role of the sacrificial maiden. The performances in Philadelphia and New York drew nationwide attention and critical reaction was almost uniformly positive. It was a triumph for Stokowski and The Philadelphia Orchestra, one of many during his 1912-1941 tenure.

New York Times, April 12, 1930

Leopold Stokowski and The Philadelphia Orchestra gave the American premieres of other musical theater pieces by Stravinsky and Schoenberg in the 1930s, as well as those by Alban Berg, Sergei Prokofiev, and others. Most of these performances were in the Philadelphia Metropolitan Opera House, making this monumental building on North Broad Street an important center for new music in the early twentieth century.

DEC Center | Photo: Nathaniel Popkin

When Ronald Kander, who was a director of the James Madison University School of Engineering, where he had integrated the engineering and business curricula, was being recruited by Philadelphia University to be the executive dean of a new integrated and cross-disciplinary College of Design, Engineering and Commerce, he was hesitant. Why should he leave a great job for a fledgling educational experiment? “Do they really have a stake in the ground on integrated teaching or not?” he wondered. Many universities, after all, have given lip service to cross-disciplinary pedagogy and research, but very few have effectively institutionalized it.

But when Kander arrived on campus in 2010 for an interview, there was his proof. Architects from the Boston firm of Shepley Bulfinch were driving stakes in the ground to mark out the footprint of the new college’s building.

Photo: Nathaniel Popkin

The DEC Center, a bold and light-filled paean to mechanical design, which opened to students last month, is intended to be the physical manifestation of the new college’s cross-disciplinary curriculum, one of the first of its kind in the nation and a winner of a design education award from the design industry website Core77. “Breaking down institutional structures and working collectively through the institution to reimagine and reconfigure this curriculum is evidence of an institution determined to leapfrog,” said the CORE77 judges.

“In my 21 years in academia, this was first time I’ve been able to design a curriculum first and then design the building,” said Kander.

The curriculum integrates 1,500 undergraduate students in 15 majors–more than half the student body–into a sequence of collaborative courses meant to force students and faculty out of the silo of their disciplines to draw on a broader and more critical way of thinking. “When you have the courage to get out of your discipline that’s when you grow your mind,” said the university president Stephen Spinelli, who has pushed for the new pedagogical approach since arriving in Philadelphia from Babson College in 2007.

Philadelphia University President Stephen Spinelli | Photo: Peter Woodall

“But we had to put infrastructure around the idea,” said Spinelli, a founder of Jiffy Lube International. “So we hired cool leaders who believe in transdisciplinary education and built a wonderful building that’s completely flexible. We’ve done all that at lightening speed.”

“As we built the curriculum,” said university provost Randy Swearer, a former dean of the Parsons School of Design, who Spinelli recruited to Philadelphia in 2009, “we had to figure out concretely how people in different disciplines were going to collaborate. Designing the building became the way to do that.”

The DEC Center is the third campus building designed by Shepley Bulfinch. It forms a kind of triangle with the other two, a 1990s library and the 2006 Kanbar Student Center, but it also stands alone on a relatively undeveloped part of campus marked by an old creek bed. The Shepley Bulfinch team, led by principal Janette Blackburn, who also designed the student center, picked up on the technological and industrial history of the area. The building’s chief exterior architectural feature is a perforated metal solar screen that wraps the principle rectangular box. The edges of that screen were rendered in such a way as to resemble enormous water mill wheels, which helps give the building resonance and a sense of movement.

Inside, the entirely flexible spaces are meant to allow improvisation. “The relationship between the collaborative spaces and the break out and informal spaces–which students just occupy–this has been so powerful to see them do their work and collaborate together,” said Swearer.

Photo: Nathaniel Popkin

The 40,000 square foot space has only five permanent offices and none of the teaching rooms have built-in technology–professors and students are to bring their own, as needed. All chairs have wheels and all tables fold up. Room dividers are also white boards. “I have no idea how rooms will be configured when I walk in the building,” said Kander, the dean. “We’re really screwing up human behavior. You’re allowed to move things around. You have permission to change the space–even students.”

University officials say DEC is a prototype for changing the entire university’s curriculum. We’re a small and nimble campus,” said Kander, “and we’re doing this at the right time–the apple cart is already being upset.” But, “it’s really hard. I see why other institutions aren’t doing it.” In fact, while academic administrators talk often about integrative learning and multi-disciplinary classrooms, few institutions, notably small ones, have gone as far as Philly U.

Photo: Nathaniel Popkin

If the university is successful it will be very much the result of the backing of Maurice Kanbar, a 1952 graduate, who made a fortune inventing and marketing products, most notable Skyy Vodka. Kanbar has given $25 million to the university in recent years to underwrite the new college, which bears his name, its building, and the student center. “A gift from God,” said Spinelli, “he’s our biggest investor, and I treat him that way.”

Kanbar’s investment has propelled the school, which was still seeking direction a decade after changing its name and focus from Philadelphia College of Textiles and Science, into unknown academic territory. This makes Spinelli, who seems driven by possibility, ecstatic.

“It’s been a wild ride. I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Swearer, the provost. “Where else can you do this? It’s a very ambitious plan.”

Rendering of 10th & Ridge

• Plan Philly reviews the Planning Commission’s latest neighborhood plan for Callowhill-Chinatown North, which will help guide the Central District plan of the City’s comprehensive Philadelphia2035 aspirations. The road system is to be both limited and expanded (more bike lanes, bifurcated “superblocks”), while “a mixed-use gateway would be created at Spring Garden, Ridge, and 12th, where currently three of six corners are vacant.”

• The Philly History Blog looks at how the City Beautiful movement of the early 20th century demanded architecture grandeur from even gas stations. The Atlantic Refining Company hired Joseph Kuntz to design sixteen Grecian gas temples around the city by 1922. “These polychromatic terracotta “temples” appeared like beacons on the boulevards. They flattered and pandered to the new urban driving breed.”

• Powelton Village Community Association’s monthly meeting on Monday, residents voiced their concerns of Drexel University’s ambitious goal of expanding its student body by 10,000 within the next decade. Specifically, many are skeptical about the university’s proposed 24-story dorm tower at 34th & Lancaster, widely regarded as entirely too dense for the area.

• Germantown developer Ken Weinstein will purchase a third church in order to rehab; the historic St. Peter’s Episcopal Church at Wayne Avenue & Harvey Street will be renovated so that the Waldorf School of Philadelphia can move into a space that would allow for greater interaction with the Germantown community than its current location offers.

photo: David M Warren

• Temple and Drexel are attracting more students to live on their campuses with flat screen televisions in high-rise dormitories says the Inquirer. It’s hoped that by consolidating and increasing the number of students around certain “upscale” hubs of activity, the universities can mitigate any town-gown grievances in North Central and Powelton Village.

• The Philadelphia Center for Architecture will honor Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper tonight as this year’s recipient of the Edmund N. Bacon Prize, “bestowed annually on an accomplished figure who has achieved outstanding results in urban planning, development, and design through conviction of vision, effective communication, and commitment to improving their community.” You can order tickets HERE.

• The ongoing subterranean work at Dilworth Plaza is making the passageways of SEPTA’s 15th Street Station a bit more leaky and congested than normal, reports Plan Philly. Paul Levy, head of the Center City District, which is spending some $50 million on the extensive renovations of the public space, says the inconvenience will last another four to five months.

• NewsWorks previews the Philadelphia Orchestra’s next season, which will in include a production of Richard Strauss’ “Salome,” as well as a “micro-festival” with commissioned pieces for the principal musicians.

Courtyard view of Levy-Leas mansion, 400 S. 40th

Tomorrow at 2PM, the Board of L&I Review will rule on the appeal of the demolition permit for the Church of the Assumption at 11th and Spring Garden Street. That ruling will be announced without testimony taken and is based on the Historical Commission’s own finding of economic hardship for the owner, John Wei, who wishes to tear the historic church down. There is still an appeal pending on the case in the Commonwealth Court; lawyers for the Callowhill Neighbors Association, disputing demolition, will likely then appeal the case to the Court of Common Pleas. Read the latest on that case by our reporter Christopher Mote HERE.

After that ruling comes down, the Board will hear the final arguments (45 minutes each for and against) the University of Pennsylvania’s plan to tear down the historic Levy Leas mansion at 400 S. 40th Street in order to build graduate student housing. Read about that case HERE and HERE.

In both cases, the Historical Commission has granted hardship to the owner to allow demolition.

The hearing will take place at the Board of L & I Review Hearing Room, 1515 Arch Street, 18th Floor. It is open to the public.

Our Lady of Sorrows, 48th and Lancaster | Photo: Nathaniel Popkin

In light of budget shortfalls and the aging population of priests, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, which controls a vast portion of the city’s religious and educational property, has begun a sweeping restructuring of its physical presence in the city, announcing the closing of 10 churches and 20 schools in the city last year. Many more Catholic religious and educational facilities are in play as part of another round of changes coming this spring.

The downsizing has meant merging and closing congregations from Our Lady of Blessed Sacrament in West Philadelphia to St. Hugh of Cluny in North Philadelphia, and selling properties that have long stood as cornerstones of neighborhood life.

But as Hidden City has learned, there is no clear strategy for decommissioning the buildings and marketing them for sale to qualified buyers. For the next year, at least, it remains to be seen what will happen to the 2012 announced closings. And even as the Archdiocese forces the consolidation of parishes and parishioners travel the extra distance to Sunday mass at their new churches, it has yet to formulate a clear plan for the disposition of associated convents, rectories, and schools.

And church officials seem nowhere close to making any serious decisions about the fate of the next set of churches.

“Many of these buildings could be around for many years to come,” says Monsignor Arthur E. Rodgers, the lead coordinator of the restructuring process.

St. Hugh of Cluny, 2nd and Tioga | Photo: Nathaniel Popkin

But preservation advocates and observers caution that once deaccessioning begins, prospects for sustainable reuse are poor. They cite St. Boniface, which the Norris Square Civic Association demolished last year, and the threatened Church of the Assumption and St. Bonaventure Church as examples of the difficulty of finding a suitable–and financially capable–buyers for the churches.

Archdiocese officials say that few of the churches on the 2012 closure list have closed completely to the public. In most cases, including the four churches absorbed by mergers in the last month, a portion of their facilities will remain as temporary “worship sites,” where congregants may hold special events such as weddings and baptisms. They have indicated that only when a church is in a dangerous state of disrepair, such as the Ascension of Our Lord Church in Kensington, will immediate closure take place.

Critics caution that the “worship site” label is merely a convenient way for church officials to delay final closure, while the congregation dwindles further. And they say the worship site strategy only reinforces the ad hoc nature of the archdiocese’s response. Furthermore, according to a close observer of church preservation issues we spoke with, because each congregation is responsible for maintenance and upkeep of the church building, delaying almost certain decommissioning only exacerbates issues of deferred maintenance.

St. Francis of Assisi, Greene and Logan, Germantown | Photo: Nathaniel Popkin

Planning over the next year, says Rodgers, will entail evaluating each church individually. If the community still depends on the worship site for its spiritual needs, the Archdiocese will try to retain at least some portion of the building indefinitely.

But the churches themselves amount to only a fraction of the Catholic ecclesiastic facilities that are being left behind. There are also rectories, convents, and schools that comprise the Catholic Church’s vast institutional and physical presence in the city, many of them part of church complexes that fill entire square city blocks. “You can’t just talk about the church itself. The church may still be there but the adjunct buildings could be put on the market and sold,” says Rodgers. “In many of these cases, where the parishes merge, perhaps just the rectory would be placed on the market.”

The Archdiocese will be actively trying to market and sell those portions of their holdings as it proceeds with the rest of the restructuring over the next two years, according to Rodgers.

These buildings have generally been emptied of all church-related equipment and will more quickly be put on the market because, in part, they are easier to reuse. However, even these properties are difficult to repurpose, as the conflicted case of the transition of the Nativity BVM School in Port Richmond to elderly housing demonstrates.

St. Hugh of Cluny, 2nd and Tioga | Photo: Nathaniel Popkin

In what may be a sign of a more strategic approach to the issue, the Archdiocese has recently begun to develop a relationship with the Partnership for Sacred Places, a national organization headquartered in Philadelphia that helps religious congregations find new ways to raise money and draw the interest of the community. A major facet of this is finding innovative uses for underutilized adjunct buildings.

“Most reuse, actually, is not the full building,” says Bob Jaeger, president of the organization. “People tend to focus on the crises where a whole building is empty, but what is much more typical is that a portion of the building is empty because the church is declining. So one of the big things we can do is help them find a use for that portion of the building that brings them revenue.”

The Partnership has completed some dozen deals around the country and in Philadelphia with arts groups to utilize church property. At the Center City First Baptist Church, Partners has connected the congregation with two local dance troupes, giving a long under-utilized Sunday school facility new life and public value.

To encourage this kind of space sharing for its own buildings, the Archdiocese has provided the Partnership with a comprehensive list of empty convents in the city. Jaeger says that the inventory is big step in developing a relationship with the Archdiocese and that this kind of access to a denomination’s resources is crucial to drawing outside help for church facilities.

St. Francis of Assisi, Germantown | Photo: Nathaniel Popkin

Meanwhile, the restructuring process is already in full-swing and the stock of churches caught in limbo is growing.

By Rodgers own admission there is no over-arching strategy, or consistent metric, as to how the Archdiocese will decide who to sell to or whether to maintain a facility, other than the “spiritual needs” of the community. He did express a “preference” for uses that preserved the external architecture of the buildings and were also not contradictory of Catholic doctrine–say a bar or a strip joint, for example–but stressed again that each church would dealt with individually.

But Rodgers has refused to clarify whether past decisions to off-load iconic Catholic churches to groups without the capacity to maintain or upgrade them and without adequate plans for their reuse would impact present cases. How much due diligence on potential buyers will Rodgers’ planning group do? Whose responsibility is it if the Archdiocese sells churches to groups without the capacity to pay for basic maintenance? How much will short term cash needs dictate the process?

So far, the Archdiocese has applied most of its analysis and outreach to the initial survey that determined which churches would be recommended for closures or mergers. This survey, begun in 2011, measured attendance levels, facilities’ state of repair, whether the parish was growing or shrinking, and whether the ministry could meet its financial obligations.

St. Francis of Assisi | Photo: Nathaniel Popkin

Rachel Hildebrandt, a program and membership associate at the Partnership for Sacred Places (and a Hidden City Daily contributor), points out that these factors don’t tell the whole story. Denominational authorities need to also consider less traditional metrics, she says, like a congregation’s economic impact on the surrounding neighborhood or its potential for space sharing and community partnerships.

The Partnership has piloted of a strategic planning program for clients to help them better understand and interpret the traditional metrics of a congregation’s health and apply these additional ways of measuring the long-term sustainability of a parish.

“This approach is designed to encourage religious leaders to fully consider the potential of congregations that don’t stand up to traditional metrics but could thrive with some specific intervention,” says Hildebrandt.

As of now, there is no way to tell if the designation of worship sites is a serious attempt to articulate better metrics and planning for the future uses of these buildings, or simply a delay of the inevitable messiness of cases such as St. Bonaventure and the Church of Assumption.

The Philly Church Project, a local blog that advocates for church preservation and greater community outreach, has watched the mergers unfold and similarly sees the traditional metrics as inadequate. The blog’s curator, Chris Hildebrandt (actually a distant cousin of Rachel) says that parishes need more time between when the closings are announced and when they take effect.

Our Lady of Sorrows, 48th and Lancaster | Photo: Nathaniel Popkin

He notes how the recent West Philadelphia closings took place just three weeks after the announcements. “With more time and more transparency, maybe some of these parishes may be able to find a way to ‘rally the troops’ and come up with a viable plan to avert a closing,” says Hildebrandt.

He also stresses that churches, generally, are very rooted in the city’s sense of place, which is why this process has been so jarring for the effected communities and even onlookers who appreciate the architectural and cultural significance of these buildings.

Our Lady of Blessed Sacrament, 63rd and Callowhill | Photo: Nathaniel Popkin

“You hear a lot of language about how the church is more than a building. And that’s true, ecclesiastically speaking,” says Chris Hildebrandt. “But I can tell you that people, by and large, feel very connected to these places. They seem them as living history, as part of their family. They don’t see them as disposable.”

rendering via Passyunk Post

• According to the Passyunk Post, the Broad Street Armory will be demolished. The developers for the hitherto planned reuse of the Broad Street Armory say the building is just in too bad a shape to justify the renovations. Instead, South Broad Street will see 50 apartments in its place, in a “modern building that would rise six floors to 79 feet.”

• Philly is fast becoming a mecca of comedy, reports the Inquirer. Comedian and Paoli-native Todd Glass caulks it up to the opening of Helium Comedy Club at 20^th& Sansom in 2006, having by now establishing itself as a nationally respected venue. “From day one,” says Glass, “that club taught audiences how to behave – not heckle, but pay attention to comedians.”

• Philadelphia Real Estate Blog offers something of a silver lining of the controversial Actual Value Initiative: “A bigger tax break for buyers of new and renovated homes.” Noting that such real estate investments will still benefit from the City’s decade-long tax abatement, “house values in the affected neighborhoods [may be sustained] and possibly even [rise] in neighborhoods like Francisville and Old Kensington that are only now experiencing significant waves of new construction.”

• A few other blogs are talking about Philadelphia’s iteration of “Click That ‘hood,” a site that asks you to name the city’s supposed 155 neighborhoods. While it may be a tad nit-picky (I wouldn’t necessarily separate Germany Hill from Roxborough as a whole, for one), it’s good fun—and good training.

“Abraham Lincoln,” Randolph Rogers, 1871 | Photo: Nathaniel Popkin

With Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner’s “Lincoln” up for twelve Academy Awards this Sunday, I am reminded that Lincoln lives with us every day in form of, among other things, two monuments to the Emancipation Proclamation. While the film ‘Lincoln” seeks to place the passage of the 13th Amendment–the ratification of the Proclamation into law–in the frame of rather vulgar political horse trading, the monuments respond to the hopefulness and courage of Lincoln’s act.

Most people are probably familiar with Randolph Rogers’ “Abraham Lincoln,” located on the southeast corner of the Kelly Drive and Sedgeley Road intersection in East Fairmount Park, near Boathouse Row and the entrance to the Fairmount Water Works. Dating from 1871 but proposed weeks after his assassination in May 1865, it is one of the earliest memorials to Lincoln in the country. It is also one of the earliest pieces of public art erected anywhere in the city. Indeed, it predates the founding of Philadelphia’s Association for Public Art (formerly the Fairmount Park Art Association), the nation’s first public art organization, by one year. You can hear audio about the Lincoln sculpture as part of the Association’s Museum without Walls program HERE.

“Abraham Lincoln,” Randolph Rogers | Photo: Nathaniel Popkin

According to the sculptor, Lincoln is “holding in one hand the Emancipation Proclamation, and a pen in the other, his eyes are turned towards heaven, asking the Almighty his approval for the act. This was the great event of his life.”

The monument was sculpted in Rome in 1869 and cast in Munich the following year. In 1871, over 50,000 people attended the unveiling, including General Meade, victorious general of the Battle of Gettysburg, Philadelphian and one of the first commissioners of Fairmount Park.

Since then, the monument has mostly occupied a traffic circle on Kelly Drive, adjacent to its current location. After automobiles were introduced to Fairmount Park drives around 1900, with no crosswalk to access it, park users had little chance to interact with the piece. Today, after being relocated by the Philadelphia Streets Department in 2002 to ease traffic movement along Kelly Drive, it is more easily accessible .

“Emancipation Proclamation Fountain,” Gerd Utescher | Photo: Rob Armstrong

While “Abraham Lincoln” is certainly the most visible monument to Emancipation in Philadelphia, there is a little-known piece hidden in plain sight at the entrance to the subway Concourse on the northwest corner of 15th and Market. Thousands pass it daily. This is Gerd Utescher’s 1964 “Emancipation Proclamation Fountain.” Standing on the former grounds of the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Broad Street Station, it was erected as part of the redevelopment of this area after the demolition of the Station in 1953. While stylistically quite different from the Lincoln statue, this piece explicitly references the freedom of Emancipation, calling out to the office worker, the student, the shopper, and the tourist to look up to the sky and remember and reflect on the meaning of freedom.

400 S. 40th Street in 1963 | Photo: PhillyHistory.org, a project of the Philadelphia Department of Records

The Philadelphia Historical Commission has postponed its discussion of the proposed changes to its rules and regulations. The discussion, which was on the agenda for Friday’s meeting, will be tabled owing to the absence of Chairman Sam Sherman, who is out of town because of an “urgent personal matter,” as announced by Commission director Jonathan Farnham Thursday morning. For our news report and analysis of the proposed change, click HERE.

The proposed changes to the rules affect the Commission’s financial hardship ordinance and could effectively give the Commission more leeway in approving demolition of historically listed properties.

Port Richmond Books, located in the former Richmond Theatre | Photo: Theresa Stigale

“This whole block here—every building was a store,” says Connie Jesiolowska, a lifelong Port Richmond resident, of Richmond Street. “It was a Center City type street. You came here for everything.”

Port Richmond Books is a repurposed relic of the neighborhood’s heyday. Originally built as a silent movie theater one hundred years ago, the bookstore is one of the rare establishments in the neighborhood providing an outlet for culture and entertainment in a clubhouse atmosphere.

Greg Gillespie at entrance to Port Richmond Books on Richmond Street | Photo: Theresa Stigale

Greg Gillespie opened Port Richmond Books in 2005, after property taxes skyrocketed on the South Philadelphia storage location he shared with Jay and Dee Kogan of the Society Hill Playhouse. The staggering 200,000 volumes in Gillespie’s current collection span several rooms with charmingly haphazard organization, conducive to exploring, getting lost, and getting spooked—Gillespie has reported several instances of paranormal activity. It’s Port Richmond’s answer to the Library at Alexandria, if in Alexandria, bibliophiles drank whiskey while handling rare first-editions.

But just as notable as the sprawling, maze-like shelves and towering stacks of books are the details of the building itself.

Built by architect E. Wilson Allen, designer of the Philadelphia homes of John Coltrane and Paul Robeson, the Richmond Theatre opened in 1913. From the street, “RICHMOND” is carved into the concrete façade, still solidly intact. The theater held 1,026 seats, arranged in deeply sloped, stadium-style seating. In what is now the main library and reading area of the bookstore, the curved arch that would have framed the original stage and movie screen now dramatically frames an alcove filled with books. The original Moeller organ, which was used to accompany the silent movies, lies dormant in the musty basement—the theater’s former orchestra pit—smothered under rubble.

Because the prevalence of nitrate in the film reels greatly contributed to the threat of fire, the Richmond equipped the movie screen with a flame-retardant asbestos curtain. This curtain also held a dual purpose: advertisements for local businesses were sewed on–a 1940s version of today’s pre-preview commercials.

The former projection room, accessed by a rickety, unlit staircase, is a deteriorating enclave with peeling concrete walls and boxes of old tools scattered throughout. There’s beauty in the dilapidation up here—peeking through the projection windows, the vast space of the former auditorium below is striking. The contrast between the labyrinths of books and skyscraping ceilings of the old theater is magnificent.

Original theater auditorium with indented area setback for film screen | Photo: Theresa Stigale

Frank Dougherty, a retired Daily News reporter, grew up a few blocks from the Richmond Theatre, where two of his aunts worked in the box office. Doughtery remembered a childhood full of double features and 16-cent movie ticket fares. So vivid were his memories, Dougherty could recall the first “adult” movie he saw at the Richmond: “King Solomon’s Mines,” a 1950 film starring Deborah Kerr and Stewart Granger. More importantly, patronizing the Richmond Theatre was an expression of neighborhood pride.

“With the neighborhood theaters, you had a territorial imperative about it,” Doughtery says. “You wouldn’t go to other neighborhoods. You held stock in your local movie house.”

The Richmond was by no means the only movie theater in the neighborhood. Dougherty rattled off the names of several Port Richmond theaters of his youth: The Allegheny, The Iris, The Clearfield, The Belgrade, The Midway, and The Wishart. Today, none of the theaters are operational, and few of the original structures are even standing. All of the theaters closed between the late 1950s and early 1970s, and were either completely torn down and replaced with fast food joints, or born again as far less glamorous chain stores.

The Richmond Theatre closed in 1953. Dougherty believes that the closing of the Richmond was a casualty of the democratization of television in American homes. While the Richmond was one of the first movie theaters in the neighborhood to go, the others weren’t far behind.

After the Richmond closed, Blue Ribbon Vending moved into the building to store pinball machines, cigarette dispensers, and jukeboxes—many of the vinyl records from the Blue Ribbon products are still in the basement of the building.

Bookstore entrance in former theater lobby and site of alleged ghost haunting | Photo: Theresa Stigale

In the mid-1960s, Fischer Hardware Company bought the building and used the space to sell their products wholesale. When Gillespie came in 2003, he tried to get rid of most of the leftover hardware by donating it to Habitat for Humanity, but the space was so packed, boxes of old hardware still collect dust among the stacks.

To many neighborhood residents, Port Richmond Books represents the return of something that was lost on Richmond Street after the construction of I-95 was completed in 1968. Jesiolowska owned Szypula Bakery, located across the street from the bookstore, from 1985 until she was forced to close in spring of 2012. Now, the space operates as a thrift store. She recalled the consequences of I-95’s construction: the bulldozing of an entire street, the impeded access to the Delaware River, and the increased prevalence of shopping malls that took a toll on smaller local businesses.

Bookstore owner Greg Gillespie displays a rare original edition of James Joyce’s Ulysses | Photo: Theresa Stigale

“I-95 destroyed the neighborhood,” Jesiolowska says. “Before I-95, there were just more people. We’re on the edge of the neighborhood now… As far as Richmond Street—it wasn’t the same. It just lost a big chunk of something.”

But now, there’s something uplifting, and symbolic, about Port Richmond Books’ existence in a space that once brought so much life to the neighborhood, because it might have the power to do so again.

“The people who Greg brings in here are as interesting as the book he sells,” Dougherty says. “There’s a common denominator of everyone who hangs out here, and they’re born of a natural curiosity.”

Tap that app: Field Trip takes you where you are

For the last six months, Android users have been privy to an app tailor made for Hidden City: Field Trip. Stands to reason, given that Google is its developer. Now, it’s available to iPhone users, too, and we are happy to be a partner.

Field Trip is a free app that allows you to explore your surroundings, customized by your interest: architecture, architecture, historic places & events, art & museums, and more. You can set it to run in the background and notify you when you’re near an item of interest, or you can run the app manually yourself. It draws from sources such as the Historical Marker Database, Arcadia Publishing (publisher of the Images of America series), Zagat, and… Hidden City Philadelphia!

For all our stories that are geotagged, you’ll see an icon—a card—which you can tap to go to one of our stories. It’s a pocket tour guide that bypasses pesky index pages for your phone’s GPS homing button. Best of all, it’s free in the App Store (iPhone) and Google Play (Android).

South Street Schuylkill Sunset (Click to enlarge) | Photo: Bradley Maule

A new take on an old standard… a last light for a Last Light, if you will. It’s pretty wild to stand on the new South Street Bridge at sunset, gazing out across the Schuylkill River and the construction equipment on its banks, picking up the little new things, like the river trail’s footbridge across the railroad tracks, the massing of 2116 Chestnut, how bright PECO’s LED sign is. And there as ever, from the most spectacular postcard view in town, stands the Philly skyline, bathed in its urban alpenglow.

With the exception of the annual long-weekend visit home, I’ve spent the past three and a half years in Portland, Oregon. It’s a beautiful place, to be sure. The trees are tall, the seafood is sensational, the beer is plentiful. The cars and the bikes coexist in peace. They put birds on things. And while I wouldn’t say that the grass is greener, it’s definitely cheaper.

It’s all very nice in the Northwest, and I really enjoyed my time there. Maybe it just takes me longer for things to sink in, but at a certain point, I realized something was missing. Home is where the heart is, after all, and my heart was longing for a cigar on a bench in Rittenhouse Square. The sound of 45,000 people roaring “CHOOOOOOCH.” The beads of condensation rolling down the side of a Prima Pils when it’s 95 in the shade. That big maple tree on the Belmont Plateau, decked out in its orange fall splendor, the Philly skyline glistening in the distance.

So hey. Nice to see ya, Philly. It’s great to be back. And it’s an honor to be working with a team as dedicated to finding—and understanding—Philadelphia as Hidden City is.