Photo: Ken Finkel | Upon seeing these chimneys in 1973, Louis Kahn declared that “that is what a city should look like.”

• Over at the Philly History Blog, Ken Finkel recalls a conversation that he had with Louis Kahn back in 1973. The architect mused upon what a rhythmic, livable city ought to look like. Basically, Kahn’s answer was more chimneys, less cars.“A living city needs both … a dance above and below [the skyline]. It’s about life, movement, form and synchronicity up there, but we also need it down here [on the street].”

• The Associated Press looks at the preemptive battle to save the Roundhouse, now on the Preservation Alliance of Greater Philadelphia’s list of endangered properties. Preservationists’ task is both simple and daunting: it’s a public perception problem, in that while the building is notoriously unworkable within in current role as law enforcement HQ, the building could easily be re-purposed, saving an important link to Philly history in the process.

• The Daily News follows the redevelopment of Tioga, as its forgotten and dilapidated factories are given new life. For one, what was once the Stanley Blacker suit factory at 19^th& Alleghany will be, by year’s end, a $5.6 million senior retirement community called the NewCourtland LIFE Center. And various strategies have been explored, like last year’s “‘Developers’ Tour,’ … that brought potential investors to the area on a trolley-bus and in a couple of vans.”

• The LeBow School of Business on Drexel’s campus at 32nd & Market should be ready for the fall term, says Naked Philly.“Kudos to Drexel for replacing a worn-out old building with a handsome and contemporary new one. Hopefully, this new building will provide a place to educate business leaders of the future for decades to come.”

This was an actual slogan in the early 1970s, posted on a billboard along the Schuylkill Expressway by a booster group called Action Philadelphia as part of a campaign to promote the city.

I read Brad Maule’s article, “I Like To Be Here When I Can” describing his return to Philadelphia and was comforted that Brad realized what he was missing after he moved to Portland, and that he had genuinely pined for the certain something that Philadelphia has. Then I read the reader’s comment that began with “I wish I could concur…” Words and phrases in that comment include: toxic, hostility, ignorance, and lack of civility.

This got me thinking about the complicated relationship Philadelphians have seemingly always had with their city. The negative views of Philadelphia by its own people are not new. They are even older the slogan on the famous billboard along the Schuylkill Expressway put up by a booster group called Action Philadelphia as part of a campaign to promote the city in the early 1970s: “Philadelphia isn’t as bad as Philadelphians say it is.”

In fact, the habit of Philadelphians to denigrate themselves and their city harkens back at least to the 1720s (when Philadelphia was barely Philadelphia), specifically to a landowner named Sam Mickle. As Benjamin Franklin wrote in his autobiography:

There are croakers in every country, always boding its ruin. Such a one then lived in Philadelphia; a person of note, an elderly man, with a wise look and a very grave manner of speaking; his name was Samuel Mickle. This gentleman, a stranger to me, stopt one day at my door, and asked me if I was the young man who had lately opened a new printing-house. Being answered in the affirmative, he said he was sorry for me, because it was an expensive undertaking, and the expense would be lost; for Philadelphia was a sinking place, the people already half-bankrupts, or near being so; all appearances to the contrary, such as new buildings and the rise of rents, being to his certain knowledge fallacious; for they were, in fact, among the things that would soon ruin us. And he gave me such a detail of misfortunes now existing, or that were soon to exist, that he left me half melancholy. Had I known him before I engaged in this business, probably I never should have done it. This man continued to live in this decaying place, and to declaim in the same strain, refusing for many years to buy a house there, because all was going to destruction; and at last I had the pleasure of seeing him give five times as much for one as he might have bought it for when he first began his croaking.

This sort of local self-denigration likely stems from the Quaker tenet of avoiding prideful boasting. Such super-modesty inflected the local parlance from the get-go and was strong enough even to survive the coming positivism of Franklin himself.

William Birch, Views of Philadelphia, 1800

The “croaker” reputation evolved into an inferiority complex that many Philadelphians indeed came to believe, and which developed into a pessimistic attitude toward the city. In a 1980 article, “The Origins of Philadelphia’s Self-Depreciation,” historian and librarian Edwin Wolf, of the Library Company, traced the complex to 1797, when New York passed Philadelphia in export business. “Was the city like a prize fighter on the downgrade who loses his will to fight long before his ability to do so?” he asked.

And then: “What was it that turned the ebullient, successful colonial city, the glamorous Federal city, into a self-depreciating town that saw itself perpetually clad in Quaker gray long after the Quakers no longer dominated? What were the urban traumas that were peculiarly Philadelphian? How could a metropolis with multifarious cultural and educational institutions, with a rich mix of different religions, with a healthy press and a broad spectrum of industries come to see itself essentially as Sidney George Fisher did in 1839: ‘Returned to Philad: as I always do, with the conviction that dull, monotonous & humdrum as it is, it is the most comfortable & desirable place for a residence in this country.’

“Yet,” noted Wolf, “Fisher was somewhat more generous than Nathaniel Burt writing a century and a quarter later. Speaking of self-depreciation, he went on: ‘In fact, negativeness itself is typical. What Owen Wister called the “instinct of disparagement” that makes Philadelphians run everything down, specially things Philadelphian, is a form of this negative. This has the advantage of modesty; it also is a blight on creative effort, on reform, on any new enthusiasm.’”

“Would an urban psychoanalysis be historically rewarding and, if the metaphor holds, might it be the first step toward a cure of the city’s inferiority complex,” Wolf wondered still. He sought clues in the constant, manic mood swings between Panglossian boosterism and dour croaking–both felt false and overstated and both a part of our psyche.

Hidden City Daily co-editor Nathaniel Popkin, in the book The Possible City called this illness “a conditioned, and defensive, and ultimately incapacitating pride.”

Wolf couldn’t quite figure it out, only at the end of his essay sighing, “can this not be exorcized?”

Perhaps not. These days, while much of the Philly denigrating comes from angry suburbanites, we persist in not caring for our architectural inheritance and in ignoring our industrial and technological legacy. “What would …Philadelphia be if all the industrial buildings of her remarkable past had been rescued from the bulldozer and converted into something both respectable and right?” wondered the author Beth Kephart, in yesterday’s Inquirer.

Photo: Peter Woodall

Still, we live in a transformative time. Philadelphians across the spectrum are feeling better about themselves and their city (this has been the theme of Kephart’s beautiful, and personal, Inquirer essays. Like Brad, many of us find this place wildly fascinating, exciting, and even beautiful.

Whatever the case, we need to promote the fact that Philadelphia is anything but bad or boring, and that its so-called inferiority complex is just that: a complex. For what ails us politically and economically isn’t much different from what ails other cities of the Rustbelt. And while there is anger and a lack of civility (and much else to complain about) there is also an extraordinary depth of honesty, caring, and intimacy.

And so I am moved to submit to Hidden City readers a few of my favorite quotes about Philadelphia taken from my own encyclopedia. I have chosen those that aren’t mere boostering (and nor are they croaking), but rather those that attempt to get at a particular Philadelphia feeling.

G. K. Chesterton, What I Saw in America, 1922.
It is at least as possible for a Philadelphian to feel the presence of Penn and Franklin as for an Englishman to see the ghosts of Alfred or Becket. Tradition does not mean a dead town; it does not mean that the living are dead but that the dead are alive. It means that it still matters what Penn did two hundred years ago…. I never could feel that in New York that it mattered what anybody did an hour ago.

Struthers Burt, Philadelphia: Holy Experiment, 1945
Philadelphia is a fascinating place and one of the hardest subjects imaginable to write about. The trees are so thick, the little wandering forest byways and paths so numerous and so interesting, that it is almost impossible at times to see the forest.

Steven Conn, Metropolitan Philadelphia: Living with the Presence of the Past, 2006
And so a final caveat: in this book I shall call people in the region generally and generically “Philadelphians.” In the end, perhaps the most important contribution the city makes to the region, and thus the biggest debt owed by the region to the city, is the most ineffable and immeasurable. To say “I’m from Philadelphia” gives people a sense of themselves. It means something, and whatever that something is, it is different from what it means to say “I’m from Chicago,” or “I’m from Phoenix.” I suspect that most people in the region, when they are asked by someone outside the Delaware Valley where they come from, identify themselves as Philadelphians. After all, whatever it may mean to say “I’m from Philadelphia,” responding, “I’m from Horsham,” or “I’m from Upper Dublin,” doesn’t really mean anything at all. For better or worse, in both anger and love, we are Philadelphians.

Larry Kane, Kane’s Philadelphia, 2000
Chances are that, as you read this book, you will get an impression of Philadelphia that’s different from the one you have now. That doesn’t invalidate your Philadelphia. But this book is about my Philadelphia. My Philadelphia is a burgeoning suburban superpower, a community with a countryside of smaller communities, a city of pomp and hopeless poverty, a region where people never take yes for an answer. In this town, you either put up or shut up, and if you don’t have the goods, please don’t come to market. There are no pushovers. Philadelphians can spot a phony a mile away. As they say in South Philadelphia, money talks, bullshit walks.

John P. Hayes, Philadelphia in Color, 1983
Ah, it’s a glorious town, Philadelphia, constantly changing, ever-mindful of its future, and haunted by 300 years of history—the nation’s most dramatic and colorful history. Almost everything once happened here, or was invented here, so no city in America offers more surprises than Philadelphia. Yes, there are problems. Unemployment is high; good, moderate-priced housing is scarce; the educational system appears ready to collapse; racism frequently raises its ugly head; a burdensome bureaucracy slows political and social progress; cabs are impossible to hail; the weather is unpredictable; and safety worries residents in certain neighborhoods. But every metropolis has problems. None, however, boasts the style of Philadelphia, a gift unique to its people. A gift bestowed upon the city at birth.

James Smart, Stand Before Kings: The Story of Business and Finance in Philadelphia, 1976
A New Englander in 1771 paid tribute to the city’s stature in both culture and commerce. “The Philadelphians,” he observed reluctantly, “not only outstrip us in the liberal arts, but also in the mechanical arts.” Who could help but acknowledge the preeminence of the city that could claim to have produced among America’s first almanacs, textbooks, printing types, weekly newspapers, magazines, and domestically-printed Bibles; the city that had perhaps the continent’s earliest pottery works, glass works, wallpaper works-as well as an early brewery?

Moses King, Philadelphia and Notable Philadelphians, 1902
Philadelphia, the third in area, and the ninth in population in the world, is the staunchest city in America. Its founders, the Quakers, gave it that character, and although the Society of Friends is no longer a conspicuous element, the city continues to be the strongest in financial and commercial standing. This quality of staunchness, integrity, and even thrift has at times been designated as ultraconservatism. The history of Philadelphia is one continuous story of more than two centuries of progress.

The city’s progress during its first century, owing to the slender opportunity for comparisons, seems much greater than since, when fifty cities in the Union are contending for recognition. On the ship that brought Penn to Philadelphia in 1682 was a printing press, the first in the colonies, although Jamestown was founded in 1607, Plymouth in 1620 and New York colonized in 1623. Within a few years the first paper mill in the New World was established in Philadelphia; in half a century the first type foundry; soon afterward the first Bible; the first insurance company; the first bank; the first medical school, etc. The list is entirely too long to enumerate, and it can be matched by no other city in the country.

Frank Brookhouser, Our Philadelphia: A Candid and Colorful Portrait of a Great City, 1957
Philadelphians don’t make a habit of shouting their feelings about their city loudly. If it’s possible to ruffle a Texan, they would drive one to distraction. They accept all of the gags about their city, the ridicule, the disparagement; the fun poked at it, with a kind of benign smile. They admit that there may be substance for many of the gags and soundness in some of the ridicule. And they smile again, somewhat as though they know a secret much too big and precious to be shared with any outsider. What they are saying then, in effect; is: So what? It’s nice living here. And it is.

Philadelphia has a way about her, too, and I think primarily it is this: Philadelphia ii a small town: A big town but a small town. It appeals to its people because of its old-fashioned charm, its casual slowness and the comparative leisure which remains possible in its busy metropolitan life. Its oldness, its familiarity, even its many unchanging ways, endear it to its residents. But basically, and above all, we like it because of its small-town flavor.

Struthers Burt, Philadelphia: Holy Experiment, 1945
So there it is, the great sprawling, obstinate, tenacious, slow-moving, but steadily moving, city, lying between its two rivers. And all around it is its lovely, luxurious countryside. And in it are a hundred things that stir the heart of an American, and a hundred things that make him angry. And what will happen to it, no one knows. But this at least is certain:

Run away if they may have to; stay away as long as they will; upbraid the city often, as is the habit of Philadelphians; let the native son, or daughter, come back for a visit, or for good, and they find themselves suddenly and strangely happy and content. As they step once more into the narrow crowded streets, and smell the soft, sooty air, and see the faces of the people who pass, they are suddenly happy.

There must be some sort of magic, mustn’t there?

Flying Kite | Photo: Michael Persico

• In order to counteract the war-zone-esque feel of nighttime security gates, businessman Joseph Martin is leading an arts initiative that would make Germantown seem less intimidating, and perhaps attracting artists in so doing. Martin is attempting to convince business owners to have murals painted on the metal gates. “It’s taking what’s there, what’s grown organically from the bottom up — it’s not from the top down,” says Andy Trackman, board president of the Germantown United Community Development Corporation.  ”Especially with so many government cutbacks, I see Germantown United being able to leverage the creativity in the community to beautify the place, and that will generate economic interest,” he adds.

• Plan Philly talks to residents of the 6000 block of Webster Street in West Philadelphia, who were forced to come together and tended to the one vacant house on the street.“We just got tired of the sight of the property,” says the block’s captain. “It was bringing down the value of our homes.” “Over three days, 10 neighbors painted the façade, window grates, and iron railings. They secured the windows and doors as best they could. They mowed the lawn, trimmed an overgrown shrub, picked up trash, and planted flowers in the front yard.”

• The Inquirer reports that for a third consecutive year, the total tonnage of cargo being processed at the Port of Philadelphia has increased, 10.4% last year.

• If this year’s Flower Show has some Philadelphians thinking of getting to the UK it’s worth hearing from the Telegraph that a few Londoners may want to go on holiday in Philly. Although we lack Boston’s “quasi-British gentility,” travel writer Teresa Levonian Cole suggests that our modesty is at odds with our metropolitan holdings, namely our museums and restaurants. (But not South Street and “some parts of Northern Liberties)

• NewsWorks asks its readers what should be done to the 99-yearold Germantown High School building, which the School District announced this week would be closed.

Left: model of Broad Street Station. Right: map of Furness’ Philadelphia & Reading Rail Road stations

As though it’s not alwaysFurness Week in Philadelphia, to fashion a Furness celebration has become an annual Hidden City tradition. Last year’s, our best yet, saw related exhibitions from The Athenaeum of Philadelphia, in Face & Form: The Art and Caricature of Frank Furness, and the Streets Dept-curated show at Art in the Age, Furnessadelphia: A Street Art Salute to the Banks of Frank Furness. And, as the happy straggler you were happy to stay late at the party and chat with, the Library Company of Philadelphia’s Frank Furness: Working on the Railroads.

Working on the Railroads features hand sketchings, moldings and windows from demolished train stations, and an incredible model of Furness’ expansion of the Wilson Brothers’ Broad Street Station. (It also features some depressing maps illustrating just how many stations Furness designed for the railroad—and how few still remain.)

The Greatest Card Press Extant!! | Courtesy of the Library Company of Philadelphia

Following the close of that exhibition, the Library Company will roll out a collection of items originally created with a temporary life cycle. Curated by Erika Piola and Rachel A. D’Agostino, co-directors of the LCP’s Visual Culture Program, Remnants of Everyday Life: 19th-Century Ephemera in the Home, Workplace, and Street will bring to life graphic design from the hand drawn era, exploring its evolution through production technologies.

Collectors of all sorts take note: the ephemera exhibition features everything from business cards from business card printers to matchbooks warning against the spread of VD. It draws from sources all across America, but features heavily on Philadelphia, which is the nature of the collection.

Remnants of Everyday Life opens on Monday, May 13th. But not before “Furness Week” has run its course. Frank Furness: Working on the Railroads is on display through April 19th.

The Library Company of Philadelphia is at 1314 Locust Street.

Image: BLT Architects

In what appears to be a proactive move by the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia, a deal has been reached to guarantee the long-term preservation of the Episcopal Cathedral on 38th Street in West Philadelphia.

The deal, formed by the Cathedral, the Preservation Alliance, and the Radnor Property group, will allow Radnor to build a residential tower on 38th and Chestnut. The Preservation Alliance will withdraw its opposition to the approved demolition of two historically registered brownstones on the church’s property that will make way for the tower.

Proceeds from the development of the tower will fund the continued preservation of the Cathedral, the center of the Episcopal Diocese of Philadelphia, which was designed by prolific architect Samuel Sloan and enlarged later after a 1902 fire by Philadelphia architect Charles M. Burns.

The decision to make the agreement comes not without controversy. “Although the Alliance recognizes the good intentions of the Historical Commission in reaching its decision, it has serious reservations about the Commission’s interpretation of the law and the procedures followed in this case,” said Preservation Alliance board chair Marian A. Kornilowicz. “Nonetheless, the Alliance concluded that an appropriate settlement would be in the best interest of all parties and we were able to accomplish that. This agreement includes a detailed 50-year plan or program for the preservation and restoration of the Cathedral building as well as the commitment by the Cathedral to the Cathedral Building itself, to implementing the preservation plan, and to funding the plan including all necessary work and maintenance. It also contains a mechanism for the funding including the payment into escrow of $2.1 million to cover the immediate work and the generation of approximately $1.3 million through operations and/or financing for future work.”

Image: BLT Architects

The agreement reduces the possibility of a lengthy legal appeal of the Historical Commission’s decision to allow demolition of the brownstones for reasons of “public interest.”

It also means the tower, to be designed by BLT Architects, will be the fourth major residential tower to be planned in West Philadelphia. There is concern that the design of the tower, as Hidden City pointed out last June, live up to the architectural significance of the Cathedral and the urban potential of the major intersection of 38th and Chestnut.

Look quick, this train's high speed: Acela passes the Newkirk Viaduct Monument | Photo: Bradley Maule

Look quick, this train’s high speed: Acela passes the Newkirk Viaduct Monument | Photo: Bradley Maule

A 15-foot marble obelisk is meant to be seen, which makes the current location of the Newkirk Viaduct Monument unfortunate.

One of the oldest public artworks in a city famous for them, the spike of white marble stands in the trash-strewn shadow of the 49th Street Bridge, a four-lane roadway in the Southwest Philadelphia neighborhood of Kingsessing. To find it, hike along the bridge’s weedy sidewalk and lean over the concrete railing. Or catch a glimpse from a passing train: the obelisk sits along Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor right-of-way, by tracks that also serve SEPTA’s Airport Line.

Neither view gives the 1838 monument its due. Designed by one of America’s foremost architects, the obelisk carries detailed inscriptions on all four sides: the names of four railroad companies and dozens of their executives and engineers. Now worn by time and obscured by graffiti, the chiseled letters still bear witness to an achievement of vast importance: the completion of a rail link from the young nation’s largest metropolis to the burgeoning cities to the south.

Once upon a time the Newkirk Viaduct Monument stood proudly near the foot of its eponymous bridge near the western bank of the Schuylkill River. Now it sits in obscurity about a quarter-mile inland. What happened?

And what might we do about it?

(Here’s a Google map showing the current location.)

A crucial crossing

In the early 1830s, railroads were a newish invention of such promise that the governments of Delaware, Maryland, and Pennsylvania chartered a quartet of companies to pioneer a route from Philadelphia to Baltimore. Within seven years, their line was complete, except for two river crossings. The builders declared a truce with the Susquehanna River, where a railroad ferry would operate for nearly three decades, but they were determined to bridge the Schuylkill. They chose a well-traveled route.

For more than a century, Philadelphia’s gateway to points south had nestled in a bend of the river just below the mouth of West Philadelphia’s Mill Creek. A rope-operated ferry had operated there since 1674; by the 1740s, it was known as “Gray’s Ferry” after its gregarious proprietor, the patriot, politician, innkeeper, and landowner George Gray.

[Ed. note: Distinguishing between Gray's Ferry and Grays Ferry is often difficult. We tried to use Gray's when most appropriate in the historical context, and Grays referring to the modern nomenclature.]

1802: The southernmost ferry across the Schuylkill sat just below Mill Creek, a few miles southwest of Philadelphia’s borders. (Map: Charles P. Varle/David Rumsey Collection)

1816: A painting, “Lower Bridge on Schuylkill at Gray’s Ferry” (Joshua Rowley Watson), looks east past Gray’s Tavern to the pontoon bridge first erected in 1777.

Sandwiched between the great estates that are today The Woodlands and Bartram’s Garden, Gray’s Inn and its surrounding gardens were a popular day-trip destination for Philadelphians escaping the summer heat. (And not just any Philadelphians; history records trips across the ferry by Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, the future Dolley Madison, and, on at least four occasions, George Washington.) Of somewhat broader import, the river crossing linked Philadelphia via the King’s Highway to Wilmington, Del., and Baltimore, Md.

In 1777, British troops occupied the city. To assuage the strategic need for a southbound route of retreat, they established the first bridge at the spot by lashing together floating logs and adding a layer of planks. The rickety contraption proved so useful that the Pennsylvania government retained it after the war, replacing it as necessary after floods.

It was the Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore Railroad, formed of the four state-chartered firms, that built the first permanent bridge at Gray’s Ferry. Opened in 1838, the 800-foot covered truss carried one track and one road lane, and an unusual telescoping draw span to allow boats to pass.

1838: The Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore Railroad built the Newkirk Viaduct, the first permanent bridge at Gray’s Ferry.

The bridge was not sturdy enough to carry even the small locomotives of the day, but this mattered little, for Philadelphia did not generally permit such smoke-belching and untrustworthy contraptions past its city limits. Northbound trains stopped west of the bridge, where the cars were uncoupled and then hitched to horses for the four-mile run to 11th and Market. (The railroad would later build a grand terminal at Broad Street and Prime Street—today’s Washington Avenue—which would become the great Civil War debarkation point for Philly men headed to the fight.)

The railroad named the bridge for its president, Matthew Newkirk, a local businessman (and Temperance activist) who had long been part of the campaign to drive a rail link south from Philly. (Philaphilia has a much funnier and profane description of the bridge.)

An 1856 drawing of the Newkirk Viaduct Monument.

To commemorate their achievement, the PW&B’s executives commissioned a monument to stand at the bridge’s western approach. They did not stint in their choice of designer: Thomas Ustick Walter. Already one of the country’s most prominent architects, Walter would go on to build the dome of the U.S. Capitol. History judges him the dean of American architecture between the 1820 death of Benjamin Henry Latrobe and the emergence of Henry Hobson Richardson in the 1870s.

Walter drew up plans for an obelisk, about seven feet high, on a square base of roughly equal height. The monument cost $1,100 (nearly $23,000 today), according to Walter’s account book, preserved at the Athenaeum of Philadelphia. Of that sum, all but $70 went to Findley Highlands for “marble work, lettering, hauling, & setting.” It’s unclear why Walter, accustomed to designing mansions and banks, would have taken such a minor job, but it may have simply been a small favor for a big client. Walter had designed Newkirk’s Philadelphia mansion a half-decade earlier; he may have envisioned future contracts for PW&B railroad stations.

The monument was set up in 1838 near the western end of the bridge, and that is where our mystery begins: just where was that?

Where was it?

Clues to the Monument’s original location are not exactly thick upon the ground, but there’s a good one in an 1856 guidebook published by the PW&B. In the book, a Philadelphia-bound narrator describes the sights out his window as his train bears northeast from Baltimore. Just this side of the Schuylkill, he spies the “neat obelisk upon our left near the bridge which we are now approaching.”

Eight years later, city surveyor Samuel Smedley completed his 1863 map, which shows the PW&B mainline coming up from the south-southwest, curving to cross the 25-year-old Viaduct, and heading east toward the Broad Street terminal. The word “Newkirk” appears just outside the curve, at a spot that could fit the guidebook’s description. Might this have marked the Monument?

1863: Smedley’s Philadelphia Atlas. Red circle: “Newkirk.” Only the tan roads existed at that point; the rest were merely planned.

Over the next two decades, Philadelphia came into its own as America’s manufacturing powerhouse, and its railroads built furiously to keep pace. Nowhere was the impact greater than the once-rural area around the old Gray’s Inn. In 1863, a new shortline linked the PW&B to the Pennsylvania Railroad and other lines north and west; in 1872, the railroad built a new route to Chester with dreams of fostering a southwest version of the PRR’s upscale Main Line. (A century later, the new route would become part of Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor; the original, part of SEPTA’s Airport Line.) To serve these new junctions, the railroad built railyards, a bigger roundhouse, service facilities, and a new Gray’s Ferry station at 49th Street. By 1886, the area was barely recognizable.

1886: map of West Philadelphia (Baist). Red circle: Newkirk Viaduct Monument.

One landmark survived the upheaval. Amid the railyards and the coal chutes, Newkirk’s obelisk still stood sentinel, albeit along tracks now leased to the Reading Railroad. With the unmistakable label “MONUMENT,” Baist’s 1886 map confirms our speculation about Smedley’s map, and places the stone just northeast of the notional intersection of 48th Street and Grays Ferry Avenue.

When and why?

With the mystery of the Monument’s original location laid to rest, can we figure out when and why it was moved?

1894: Sketch by Philadelphia Dept. of Public Works shows proposed bridge at Gray’s Ferry. Red circle: the Newkirk Viaduct Monument.

It was still there in 1894, even as plans were being laid to replace the bridge it commemorated. For years, the city of Philadelphia had pushed for a broader road bridge to take the place of the old, much-repaired Viaduct. In 1894, the Department of Public Works sketched a proposal for a new double-deck bridge. The detailed drawing shows the Monument ensconced in its little cast-iron fence. (The gritty railyards have somehow become a sylvan playground, a reminder that project drawings have ever looked better than reality.)

1927: This detail of a much larger image shows the Monument in its original location. The 1901 Gray’s Ferry Bridge is at top; the roundhouse at bottom. (Dallin Aerial Survey Company/Hagley Digital Archives)

It was still there in 1927, when it was caught by the Dallin Aerial Survey company making some of the first high-quality aerial photos. The Monument sits on its embankment above the Reading line, although it’s not clear whether any remnant of its fence still surrounds it.

1927: The PB&W’s Gray’s Ferry station under the 49th Street bridge, which today spans Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor. (Dallin Aerial Survey Company/Hagley Digital Archives)

The photo also contains a clue about why the Monument was moved. If we look some 200 yards farther east, we can see a two-story, twin-gabled building in the shadow of the 49th Street Bridge. This is Grays Ferry station, built for the new Chester route in 1872. (By the time of this photo, the PW&B had become the Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington Railroad, a key subsidiary of the sprawling Pennsy system.) That station sits right where the Monument does today.

Today, no trace of the station remains, nor of the Newkirk Viaduct itself. In 1901, the city opened Gray’s Ferry Bridge, whose four-lane roadway and streetcar tracks provided a capacious new thoroughfare across the Schuylkill. The following year, the PW&B built the single-track Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad Bridge No. 1 and tore down the Viaduct. Both new bridges served until 1976, when the road bridge was replaced by today’s Grays Ferry Avenue Bridge and the railroad swing bridge, by then owned by Conrail, was locked open and abandoned to the elements.

And the Monument? It’s not clear when it arrived at its current location, though it would likely have been no earlier than the late 1930s, when Grays Ferry Station ceases to appear on PRR timetables and this map of the PRR’s Philadelphia Terminal Division.

And why? Here is where the available evidence leaves off, although the answer may be waiting among the thousands of linear feet of PRR documents held at Temple University, the Hagley Library, and elsewhere. It seems reasonable to think, however, that a history-minded PRR official decided that the Monument should be rescued from the railyards that had grown up around it. The vacant lot left by the Grays Ferry Station, along the main line, may have seemed a suitable new home.

What’s next?

This much is certain: the Monument stands for more than the completion of an early American truss bridge. It stands for railroads, which became the sinews of a young nation. It heralded the fruition of the Industrial Revolution, as represented by the myriad factories of Philadelphia. It even bore witness to the earliest glimmering of our own era’s information revolution. In 1846, copper telegraph wires were installed over the Newkirk Viaduct, completing the first telecommunications link between New York and Washington, D.C. (The wires were disconnected every time the draw opened, so that every schooner and scallop boat that plied the Schuylkill interrupted telegraph service between the nation’s capital and its financial centers.) In short, few monuments have so much bound up in them.

Today: Current, original, and potential locations for the 1838 Newkirk Viaduct Monument. (Original map: Penn Praxis/Plan Philly.)

A proposal: move the Monument back to its original location—or closer to it, anyway—as part of the proposed Bartram’s Mile public greenspace project, whose planning is currently underway. This would put the Monument along the Schuylkill Banks trail that is to be extended from the new Grays Ferry Crescent segment, and it would create a perfect centerpiece for the proposal’s industrial archaeology segment. Why just post signs about history when you can have history itself?

At last, one of Philly’s oldest and most distinguished memorials might be restored to dignity, ready to spur us once again to memory and reflection.

* * *

Rescue me: Thomas Ustick Walter’s Newkirk Viaduct Monument | Photo: Bradley Maule

For additional links and references, visit Bradley Peniston’s web site.

Pedestrians not advised: Newkirk Viaduct Monument seen across the Northeast Corridor | Photo: Bradley Maule

Having read Brad Peniston’s story, Who Moved The Newkirk Viaduct Monument, before it was published, and seeing the incredible amount of research he put into getting its full story, I knew that some contemporaneous photos were absolutely necessary. That one of the oldest pieces of public art in the city, designed by Thomas Ustick Walter no less, lies in ruin under an overpass next to the most famous railroad trunk in the country, is a little mind boggling and a lot Philadelphian.

I count myself among those who had only seen it from a passing train, knowing little more about it than what I’d read in Sara Kelly’s “I Wanna Know” column in the Weekly over a decade ago and a bar conversation about it with Necessity For Ruins penman Chris Dougherty.

Getting down to photograph it, under the 49th Street Bridge passing over Amtrak and Septa in Southwest Philly—it’s the left you make off of Woodland when you’re going to Bartram’s Garden—requires a little climbing, balance, and hope that those high flying trains stay on the tracks. (One kindly conductor even honked hello to me—how polite!) Once you’re there, you can’t help but think, “damn, this oughta be somewhere people can see it.” Like, for example, the Grays Ferry Crescent. The current Grays Ferry Bridge, which passes directly over the Crescent, is the grandchild of the crossing for which the monument was built. Though the monument was originally placed on the west bank, this east bank location seems appropriate enough. Or, as Brad mentioned, the Bartram’s Mile portion of the Schuylkill Banks is coming down the line eventually. Relocating it here would keep the monument on its proper west side, while serving as an immediate nod to history in a new park. We can all agree that either of these places seems more suitable than the current trackside plop stop.

Until either of these things happens, the Newkirk Viaduct Monument remains on the side of the railroad tracks, just under 49th Street in Southwest Philly. These photos were taken this morning, Wednesday, March 13th.

Looking down from 49th Street | Photo: Bradley Maule

Newkirk Viaduct Monument seen from the Newkirk Viaduct’s descendant, Grays Ferry Bridge | Photo: Bradley Maule

Take me to the place I love … take me all the way | Photo: Bradley Maule

Vertical photo is vertical | Photo: Bradley Maule

Look quick, this train’s high speed: Acela passes the Newkirk Viaduct Monument | Photo: Bradley Maule

Mike Toklish in Olney | Sketch: Ben Leech

When 52 year old Mike Toklish’s family arrived in Philadelphia in early 1908, more than a half century before he was born, men holding the flags of various nations greeted his relatives at the port. Once his ancestors found the man with the German flag they were asked if they knew how to brew beer. They said that did, and they were quickly sent to work in Brewerytown and were moved into a trinity on 3rd and Arch Streets.

Germans in fact had been coming to Philadelphia very nearly as soon as William Penn secured his charter from the King of England. The German Society was founded in 1764 to aid German immigrants in language and cultural assimilation as well as legal issues. At that time, about 20 percent of Philadelphians were of German ancestry. This rate increased significantly in the next century. By 1860, fully one-third of Philadelphians had been born in Germany.

But the work was brutal and as Mike estimates, 20 people lived in the small tenement house. After time, his grandparents were able to pool the money they saved from their brewery jobs to purchase a bar-restaurant on Girard Avenue just a few blocks from Front Street. Over time, the place became profitable enough that family members no longer had to work in the breweries. And after a few more years, they made the decision to move to the newly developed Olney section of North Philadelphia.

Until the 1920s, Olney consisted of farmland and estates for the wealthy. But after Fisher Park was developed out of the estate of Joseph Wharton, founder of Swarthmore College and the Wharton School of Business, and factories such as Heintz Manufacturing Company moved in, Olney became an attractive place for immigrant families, especially the Germans.

“My grandmother took the trip up to the realtor’s office in Olney near the 600 Block of Lindley Street,” explained Mike, in a very convincing German accent. “She asked the realtor ‘How much for dis house.’ The realtor says, ‘Lady, you can’t afford this house.’ ‘Very well,’ she says, ‘but how much for dis house.’ The realtor says, ‘It’s two thousand dollars.’ My grandmother looks at him and asks, ‘How much for the whole block?’ She ended up buying the whole block.”

Coal shoots | Sketch: Ben Leech

The legendary Schwarzwald Inn | Sketch: Ben Leech

Mike’s grandparents moved into the corner house and rented out the remaining properties to the rest of the family, including Mike’s parents.

With their terracotta roofs, refined façades, and functional back allies–where families could run their clothes lines–the houses are almost unchanged today. Each basement retains its coal shoot window; the shuttered coal elevator and garage where coal was stored and then transported to the surrounding houses remains across the street.

The family made a good life for themselves on Lindley Street, although it was not without its own strife. As Mike recalled, the neighborhood was under close watch as Germany began to wage war in Europe, and it was common for German immigrants to be targeted by police.

“My grandparents were enjoying a night out at a beer garden in the summer,” Mike said, of a night in the late 1930s, “when in the middle of the celebration, a group of German nationalists raised the swastika. This was the first time my grandparents had seen it in America and they were shocked. When the police came my grandparents pleaded with them that they were not Nazis and were actually Austrian by decent. But the cops didn’t listen and threw them in jail for the night. When they came home their house was completely ransacked by the police.”

In some old family photos, indeed, there are crowds gathered with the Stars and Stripes right next to the swastika and Iron Cross. But after the US entered World War II, Mike’s family was much more careful of the company they kept.

Bring on your wrecking ball? | Photo: Peter Woodall

Two historic Kensington banks may be one step closer to the wrecking ball. The Women’s Community Revitalization Project (WCRP), which owns the banks at the corner of Front and Norris Streets, has received state tax credits for its proposed low-income housing development on the site.

The project, known as the Nitza Tufino Townhomes, will receive just under $800,000 in low-income housing tax credits, and is to consist of 25 apartments and a community center with 10 on-site parking spaces. Construction would involve the complete demolition of the Ninth National Bank and the Industrial Title and Savings Trust Company, both of which were erected in the 1880s and recently listed on the Kensington Textile National Historic District.

The funding was announced by the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency (PHFA) on Thursday. In all, PHFA awarded $16 million to 17 applicants, eight of them in Philadelphia, as part of its annual funding cycle for urban areas.

Among the Philadelphia recipients, the largest was the 94-unit development at 8th and Arch Streets proposed by Project H.O.M.E. Also receiving tax credits is the Arab-American Development Corporation, also in Kensington, whose Tajdeed project at Oxford and Cadwallader Streets is entangled in an eminent domain controversy.

WCRP’s funding approval follows the Zoning Board of Adjustment’s approving a variance for the townhomes last August. The neighbors’ appeal of that decision to the Common Pleas Court is now scheduled to be heard in June.

Photo: Amy Z. Quinn | NewsWorks

• The Giovannone brothers, who took a fair amount of slack for demolishing Ridge Avenue’s Bunting House late last year, met with the concerned members of the Wissahickon Interested Citizens Association on Wednesday, assuring them that plans to attract a Wendy’s have been aborted, yet other efforts in finding another business have also failed.“We’re going to do our best to find the perfect thing for this corner,” promises Frank Giovannone.

• Inga Saffron applauds the year-and-a-half long effort to update—block by block—the zoning classifications of what is being deemed the “Central District,” the area of Greater Center City from Girard to Washington. After seeing an advanced rendition of the new zoning map (the public will first see it on Tuesday), Saffron admitted that “nothing terribly radical was proposed – unless you consider zoning that favors a dense, transit-oriented, tech-friendly, mixed-use downtown a radical notion… Essentially, planners want to contain super-tall towers within a narrow band of the city where transit is strongest. Note, the word is contain, not limit… Clustering skyscrapers makes a lot of sense because it prevents bizarre juxtapositions of scale.”

• Yesterday “the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia gathered scholars and other experts to discuss suggestions for the future of the [John Coltrane] house” so that current homeowner Lenora Early can help guide the historic home’s revitalization. Ought there be convert space—youth instruction space?

• Grid treks through Southwest Philadelphia’s expansive John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge in the search for the state animal of Pennsylvania—the white-tailed deer. Refuge officials estimate that the deer population is about nine times of what the park can reasonably sustain.

• Before SEPTA can roll out its state-of-the-art fare system next year, riders will be paying about 25% more to access public transportation, reports NewsWorks.

Caution: show stopping centerpiece above | Photo: Peter Woodall

“We wanted something especially interesting—not just condos,” says Paul Maiello, who with his partner David Belt, is developing the 27,000 sq ft space that will soon, at last, become 3rd Ward. “We figured we’d just buy it, figure it out later. We’re trying to make the neighborhood a better place.”

That’s not just a sound bite for the man who is not a developer per se, and who’s hesitant to even put his job title into a single word. “I work in the film industry,” he says, stopping short of running down the impressive list of films he’s worked on, like Twelve Monkeys, The Sixth Sense, and Silver Linings Playbook. Maiello and his wife Lisa have a vested interest in the neighborhood: they live right up the street in a former coffee roastery and are actively involved in the South Kensington Community Partners. (Lisa is the board president.)

The neighborhood’s identity is an important distinction for what is sure to become a destination for artists and makers. At 1227 North 4th Street, 3rd Ward Philadelphia is not even a block above Girard Avenue. The past fifteen years have witnessed the wild transformation of Northern Liberties from post-industry to artist haven to post-Bart mother lode. But too often, when the resources and capital come in, they stop at Girard.

“We love Northern Liberties,” Lisa says. “But we’re trying to focus on the fact that this is South Kensington, help identify the place and bring in new residents.”

This particular pocket, thanks to its location between Northern Liberties, Fishtown, North Philadelphia’s Ludlow, and the Barrio, is a mini-melting pot—just how the Maiellos like it. “We love the neighborhood because it’s diverse,” Lisa explains. “You can’t control in-population, but you can try to guide it.” With 3rd Ward, they’re hoping to take advantage of the momentum brought in by new blood and create opportunities for connection with the established neighborhood.

Looking from the former church space to the former dye shop space—and into new craftsman space | Photo: Peter Woodall

It’s a pretty visible start. When it opens, 3rd Ward will occupy a mishmash of properties cobbled into one massive space wrapping from the corner of 4th & Thompson around to Orianna Street in the rear.

Built in 1854 as St. Luke’s Lutheran Church, it changed hands in the 1880s and was converted into the Philip Hauck & Son Paper Box Manufactory. (Just next door is John T. Windrim’s ornate Engine House #29, built in 1894.) Hauck built the three story warehouse addition right onto the church, using the same foundation as the homes which preceded it. Behind the former church stood a collection of out buildings, workshops, a dye shop, and a brick fire escape standing separate from the building.

Through the renovation process, Maiello, Belt and their team, including Design Art Build Co., tried to keep as much of the existing structure as possible. Kathy Vissar, whose scagliola work with her firm Wells Vissar accentuates space from Bar Ferdinand to the Ben Franklin Room of the US State Department, replicated the original window sills. Additionally, they maintained and reused a lot of material in the buildings: refinished floors, oddly built support columns, even layered traces of the church’s paint and wallpapering.

An office among a sanctuary | Photo: Peter Woodall

As to the all too frequently asked question: wasn’t this supposed to be open last summer? “Well,” Maiello says, “when you put a lot of money into a space like this, it takes time. It needs to be right.”

Whether it’s exactly right won’t be determined until 3rd Ward opens its doors—soon. Given the work that’s gone into making the church-turned-box-factory into a massive coworking space for an established Brooklyn brand, it seems the burgeoning South Kensington landmark is on the right track.

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Don’t forget to wash your hands: reclaimed materials in the men’s room | Photo: Peter Woodall

“House with a tennis court, architecture & landscape design (currently in construction), Corning, NY” | Image: Austin+Mergold

With spring 2013 right around the corner, the winners of the 2012 Philadelphia Emerging Architecture Prize are coming out of hibernation and ready to blossom. The award, called “PEAPrize” for short, was created in 2007, and is given annually to younger firms who’ve demonstrated “high-quality design and thinking within the Philadelphia region.” The 2012 award belongs to Austin+Mergold, a multi-disciplinary firm based at 1236 Pine Street.

The PEAPrize is awarded through a juried portfolio submission. Joshua Otto, the Prize Coordinator and an architect himself, explains, “[this year's] jury appreciated the breadth of A+M’s design and research, punctuated with comments like ‘inventiveness, sense of humor, thoughtful moments, experimentation.’” One project in particular, Parkview, in suburban Carlisle, Pennsylvania, drew specific attention for achieving the developer’s goals and budget while subtly veering from typical cul-de-sac stock.

On whether or not Parkview, or any other recent projects, elevated their firm above their competition, Jason Austin explains, “our firm was founded on the premise that we would take on various scaled projects in various contextual conditions (i.e. urban, suburban, and rural) as a way of utilizing our multi-disciplinary design backgrounds—trying to understand how to best sculpt our practice—and find an appropriate market niche. As a result, we feel that understanding our collection of work is the strongest representation of our practice.”

With that in mind, a collection of their work will be on public display at the Philadelphia Center for Architecture, 1218 Arch Street, beginning Monday. The exhibition also features the work of up and comers Boxwood Architects, FISHTANK PHL, Ramla Benaissa Architects, and Stanev Potts Architects. The opening is Monday, March 18th, from 6–8pm, and features a lecture by Austin+Mergold. The exhibition runs through Friday, April 12.

For more information, and to sign up (registration is free), visit AIAPhiladelphia.org.

Photo: Andrew Baxter

Baseball people will tell you that the key to becoming an effective hitter is repetition. You have to see and swing at a lot of pitches so the bat will feel lighter and your eyes sharper. But where to do it? If you’re a kid–or a big kid–growing up in Philly, you have to drive to the suburbs to find a batting cage–or play half ball in the alley until your arms fall off.

But just for a few more days. David Gavigan, the baseball lover and entrepreneur behind Everybody Hits, a batting cage presently being completed in a storied building at Sixth and Girard on the edge of the Northern Liberties, says his $100,000 facility will be open by early to mid April. For our first story on this project, click HERE.

“I just want to get open and get people in the batting cages,” says Gavigan, 26, who developed the business plan for Everybody Hits three years ago after a stint in Americorps. He saved up cash and has been working full time to retrofit the building–with its rather storied past as public market and movie house (among other uses)–for three batting cages, each for either baseball or softball. Each cage is capable of delivering pitches at four speeds (for softball: slow pitch, 40, 50, and 60 miles per hour and for baseball: 40, 50, 60, and 70 miles per hour). A round of pitches will cost $2.25 or five rounds for $10. Teams can rent the facility by the hour and individuals will be able to join up as members; in the off-season, Gavigan will offer hitting clinics and coaching, and of course you’ll be able to rent the place for parties.

Photo: Peter Woodall

Gavigan is capitalizing on the Phillies-fed resurgence of baseball here. “It seems like a lot of people are playing baseball right now in Philly,” he says. But more so, he hopes the facility will become a kind of neighborhood gathering spot, as it has been in the past. The layers of time, he says, have been preserved in the renovation. “I’d like to highlight the history,” he says, “it really interests me.”

Photo: Andrew Baxter

In that case, you’ll be swinging for the “oysters” sign behind the screen.

Coat of many colors: the metamorphosis of Goldtex | Photo: Bradley Maule

“We have a budget, and we’re sticking to it,” states product director Josh Guelbart. This matter-of-fact assessment underscores Post Brothers’ momentous progress after the September ceasefire in the infamous Goldtex trade union standoff. “Now we’re focused on getting our building done.”

Considering the attention that’s been paid the contentious project, reaching a point nearing completion has been no small feat. And yet, Goldtex is nearly ready to rent—and on budget. While the lobby and leasing office are still being finished, tours began last week for prospective lessees at the 163-unit apartment building.

Even in its mid-metamorphosis state, Goldtex is a benchmark in the transition of the neighborhood, call it Callowhill, or the Loft District, or Chinatown North, or Eraserhood. The former shoe factory, built in 1904, is undergoing an extreme makeover designed by KlingStubbins, whose extensive local legacy includes Penn Center, Independence Mall, and more recently, the USPS’ Mail Operation and Delivery Unit at 30th & Chestnut. It’s also worth noting that KlingStubbins is the architect of the mixed use tower proposed by Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation on just the other side of the Reading Viaduct from Goldtex.

Viaduct below: the cable to the left is not a zipline . . . yet | Photo: Bradley Maule

“We love the vision for the Reading Viaduct,” Guelbart says. “If the city’s actually able to move it forward, we’re going to make a direct connection to it [from Goldtex].” As attendees of last night’s discussion on the Viaduct would attest, there is promise of that, as it’s very much a part of the City’s Philadelphia 2035 Central District Plan, released this week.

Mondrian, modified: looking south from the 2nd floor | Photo: Bradley Maule

Where the hope of the Reading Viaduct is, like New York’s High Line, spurred economic development, Goldtex may well serve as its harbinger. An as yet undetermined restaurant in the Osteria-Alla Spina-Route 6 vein of neighboring North Broad Street will occupy the ground floor. Design wise, the building’s transformation intentionally shirks its industrial past for a more contemporary layout. The 10′ tall glass panels, of multiple colors and multiple materials, are meant to mask the vertical columns typical of other loft conversions in the neighborhood.

Perhaps more importantly, they envelop the building, set out six inches from the existing structure, allowing for extra layers of insulation, a decrease in drafts and heat escape, and maximizing natural light. The glass exoskeleton is among the items on the Goldtex bullet list, which also includes 100% wind energy, locally sourced materials (the interior designs are even handled in-house), a rainwater retention system, and an enormous bicycle parking area, toward the bid to achieve LEED Silver certification.

It’s an ambitious goal for an ambitious bunch. As work wraps up at Goldtex—move-in is scheduled to begin May 1st, its roof terrace (which includes a gym, pool, and hot tub) to be completed in early summer—Post Brothers is already making plans at the Atlantic Building, which they purchased last summer, starting with a name change. At Broad and Spruce, Guelbart explains, “it’s not just on South Broad Street, it is South Broad Street. It’s going to sound like it.” While the name has not yet been decided upon, all signs indicate it’s going to embody South Broad chic.

Waitin’ on a sunny day: roof terrace under construction | Photo: Bradley Maule

One giant auto body shop to become many homes? | Photo: Bradley Maule

A zoning notice on the multitiered façade at 1221 Mount Vernon Street has announced that the end is nigh for Nationwide Auto Body Shop. The mechanics, who have been there since 1990, will soon be closing up shop, and if the Zoning Board of Adjustments gives its green light, a major overhaul will turn the 116 year old building into 40 housing units.

In March 1897 at the site of the current building, a major fire swept through the substation belonging to the Union Traction Company, killing two employees. Union, the company formed by the merger of the Philadelphia Traction Company, Electric Traction Company, and People’s Traction Company, salvaged what equipment it could and rebuilt around it that year. Union only lasted five more years before filing for bankruptcy and reorganizing as the Philadelphia Transit Company, the immediate predecessor to SEPTA. SEPTA still owns the building directly next door, on the corner of 13th & Mount Vernon, and uses it to power the 15 Trolley and the Ridge Avenue Spur of the Broad Street Subway.

The property on which 1221 Mount Vernon resides, meanwhile, wraps around the SEPTA substation, fronting on Mount Vernon and stepping back 171′ alongside Camac Street, which appears to receive very little use (and which doesn’t even appear on Google Maps). The western side of the property forms a T and goes out to a 13th Street curb cut.

The 14,000 sq ft building, due to its original nature as a power station, is largely windowless, which might be about to change. Plans submitted to the Poplar CDC by architects Harman Deutsch, whose offices are around the corner at 631 North 12th Street and whose work can be seen throughout the West Poplar neighborhood, indicate a major overhaul.

On Camac Street, not much to look at . . . yet | Photo: Bradley Maule

As the plans call for forty new units, and people generally favor living in places with natural light, the roof will be entirely removed, save for the trusses. Its replacement will feature a skylight the full depth of the building to provide that light, as well as a community corridor between the units. The new roof will also feature decks for each of the units, the existing exterior walls to stay as parapets.

Along Camac Street, new windows will be punched out of the long, brick wall, and home façades added to make it less industrial and more homey. This twist on façadism will also be applied to the public face of the building along Mount Vernon Street. The crow-stepped gable will be repointed and the oculus will remain, but the same painted steel and stucco townhouse frontage will be applied to the front. At the rear of structure, currently used for Nationwide employee parking, six additional three-story townhouses will be constructed.

Slight redo: plans for the front of 1221 Mount Vernon | Image: Harman Deutsch Architecture

It’s a significant amount of change for the former substation, which was once a pseudo twin of the existing and active SEPTA substation next door. (See this 1900 photo from the Hagley Digital Archives HERE.) The change goes before the ZBA on Wednesday, April 3rd, at 2pm.

St. John the Evangelist Episcopal being scrapped | Photo: Christopher Mote

A salvage crew was removing the pews of the St. John the Evangelist Episcopal Church in Pennsport today in advance of demolition. The building, which along with the Sacred Heart Church and school and other massive ecclesiastic buildings to the north (which have been converted to residential use), marks the distinctive cityscape of Moyamensing Avenue. The Sacred Heart School is for sale though the parish is active.

St. John closed about a month ago. The property was purchased by a developer who plans to demolish the the church for twelve condominiums, according to Hidden City sources.

Goldtex Golden Glow: in 2003 | Photo: Theresa Stigale

Brad Maule’s update at the Goldtex saga brought us a look at the progress of its transformation. Where there will soon be studio apartments starting at $1,395/mo (and penthouses going for $5,995/mo), there was—very recently—not much of anything. There were people inhabiting the building, but they certainly weren’t paying $1,395/mo.

The building, which shuttered in the late 1990s, had become a squatters haven, a popular space for junkies and graffiti writers. Theresa Stigale took a tour of the building in 2003—and her photos show it. (In the best possible way.) Her photos have a certain pixel-patina, with post-processing she describes as “Instagram before Instagram.” This is her gallery.

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Six years later, Ethan Wallace gave himself a tour of Goldtex on a sunny summer day. By 2009, four short years ago, Goldtex was as far from active use as it ever had been. As Ethan describes it, “at its lowest point,” which his gallery here illustrates. Fair warning: some of the photos are graphic.