A spray anew: the Catharine Thorn Fountain is on again | Photo: Rob Lybeck

While a neighborhood crowd of onlookers including State Representative Jordan Harris and candidate for City Controller Brett Mandel gathered in eager anticipation, the historic Catharine Thorn fountain at the 23rd & South/Grays Ferry triangle was officially turned on for the first time in years.

Originally a water trough in the late 1800′s for weary horses traveling up Grays Ferry Avenue (then a major roadway) from the south into the city, the fountain had in recent years fallen into periods of disrepair.

Thanks to efforts by the South of South Neighborhood Association (SOSNA) and a number of concerned community members, the fountain will flow freely with each new spring—and serve as an even better centerpiece for the annual Plazapalooza festival that brings live music and Grace Tavern’s liquid refreshments to the triangle.

Editor’s Note:We’re closely following efforts to restore and repurpose the John Coltrane House in Strawberry Mansion. What follows is Christopher Mote’s report on the latest developments at the neighborhood level and with planners, preservationists, and jazz historians who imagine creating a place of lasting cultural impact. For our first two articles, both by Rob Armstrong, click HERE and HERE. These stories are being published in concert with the international website All About Jazz.

Propped up, waiting | Photo: Bradley Maule

In some ways, John Coltrane’s house is like any other in Strawberry Mansion. The three-story, Dutch-gabled row home where he lived from 1952 to 1958 was seen as desirable by North Philadelphia’s ascendent black middle class, literally across the street from verdant Fairmount Park and tied in closely to the city’s burgeoning jazz scene.

After decades of decline, there are signs of renewed investment in Strawberry Mansion, a neighborhood still beset by poverty and crime. Many classic houses are crumbling; vacant lots abound. Still, the former Coltrane residence at 1511 North 33rd Street, while vulnerable to the risks of age and abandonment, endures as a symbol of the city of Philadelphia’s rich music culture. The house—a National Historic Landmark—is the focus of preservation efforts to commemorate the jazz icon’s legacy and serve as an asset to the community.

The house was the site of Coltrane’s “spiritual awakening,” according to collector and biographer Yasuhiro Fujioka, which triggered Coltrane’s quest for God and informed his most path-breaking compositions. “Fuji,” as he calls himself, discovered Coltrane 7,000 miles from Philadelphia, while growing up in Osaka in the 1960s. Initially a Beatles fan like most Japanese kids, he found himself transformed by Coltrane’s wildly iconoclastic and technically demanding playing style.

“The music hit my mind,” Fuji recalled. “I thought: ‘This I have to chase.’”

Forty years of “Chasin’ the Trane” have made Fuji the world’s foremost collector of Coltrane memorabilia: over 2,000 items make up his private collection in Osaka. He is currently on the board of directors of the Coltrane Home in Dix Hills, Long Island, where the musician lived until his death, and where many of his archives remained. While in the US to compile research for his next Coltrane book (he’s written or co-authored four others), he was in Philadelphia to participate in a planning charrette that could offer a new direction for Coltrane’s Strawberry Mansion home—and even see a sizable portion of that collection return to live in the house where Coltrane learned music and later transformed his life.

Two events in March—a community workshop for residents and music lovers in North Philly, and the charrette that joined the forces of experts from disparate fields of music and museum interpretation—marked the conclusion of an eight-month process, conducted by the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia, of sowing the seeds to a successful institution in the form of the Coltrane house.

The community workshop revealed the equal yet opposing truths in remembering John Coltrane: as a singular voice that spoke the universal language of music (one that a kid from Osaka could understand), but also as one that arose from a specific musical tradition bound up in the experience of African Americans who like Coltrane had come to the urban north as part of what historians call the second great migration.

“Music helped our people through trying times,” said one participant. “For us, music is a means of survival, a way of escape, away from oppression.”

The workshop was held at the Martin Luther King Recreation Center on Cecil B. Moore Avenue, the former Columbia Avenue, which once boasted dozens of jazz haunts in the 1940s and 1950s, some of them witnesses to Coltrane’s presence. Neighbors at the workshop acknowledged jazz as an acquired taste whose history was in danger of being forgotten, due in part to cuts to music programs in neighborhood schools.

“When you teach young people music, it changes them,” said Veronica Underwood, a professional singer who runs a music school at her home a half-mile up 33rd Street. “Music has its own etiquette for how to interact with others. That’s something that young musicians today don’t understand, the camaraderie; it’s up to the older generations to introduce that to them.”

John Coltrane House, circa 2005 | Photo: Bradley Maule

In addition to stories and testimonials and an impromptu performance by Underwood herself, attendees were invited to vote on how they wished to see the house preserved. “Museum,” “community center,” “performance hall,” and “music school” were some of the most popular choices. Near the end of the workshop, the house’s owner, Lenora Early, stopped by to review the community input.

“I was pleased to see the pieces put in place for the neighbors to be able to give their feedback,” said Early, the founder of the nonprofit John Coltrane House, which also owns the house next door and is considering how to incorporate it for community purposes. Early, a retired school teacher, is an organizer of the annual Odunde Festival on South Street.

After moving to New York, Coltrane continued to rent the Strawberry Mansion house to his cousin, Mary Alexander—the inspiration and namesake of one of Coltrane’s best-known numbers, “Cousin Mary.” The house transferred to her after Coltrane’s death at age 40 in 1967.

Early’s husband, Norman Gadson, a jazz enthusiast who also worked in real estate, bought the home from Cousin Mary in 2004, but passed away a few years later, leaving Early to continue the preservation initiative. While her original plan was strictly to save the house as a private residence, she soon became interested in the benefits of preserving much more than just the physical structure.

A mural of John Coltrane in his former back yard peeks over neighboring fences | Photo: Bradley Maule

It was Cousin Mary’s advocacy that led to the house’s listing as a National Historic Landmark—one of only 67 such sites in Philadelphia—in 1999. Early sees her ultimate goal as the product of the work that Cousin Mary continued in the spirit of Coltrane, including the backyard garden that she kept up as a gathering place for outdoor concerts. (Now 85, Alexander has been in an assisted-living facility since being incapacitated by a stroke in 2005. She was among those honored by Mayor Michael Nutter at Jazz Day 2012, a celebration on the Coltrane house block last April.)

But first there remains the task of stabilizing the 1904 row house, to save it from the same decay that plagues many houses in the neighborhood. “The house looks decrepit from the outside, but it’s not falling down, although it needs that extra vigilance,” said Early, who is overseeing a staff of volunteers to handle maintenance issues. “Homes like this were built with integrity; they said a lot about how people thought in those days.”

Parallel to Early’s endeavors, the Preservation Alliance has coordinated the focus groups through a Planning/Preservation Grant from the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage. The Alliance’s task is to devise set of guidelines that the nonprofit John Coltrane House can work with to begin implementing a feasible plan.

“Professionals and residents alike have been very willing to share their thoughts,” said Melissa Jest, the Preservation Alliance’s neighborhood preservation program coordinator. “It is because of this impressive level of public participation that the Alliance is confident it will be able to provide the owner and stewards of the Coltrane house with useful and insightful recommendations.”

During his years in Strawberry Mansion, Coltrane perfected his style on tenor saxophone that jazz critic Ira Gitler famously described as “sheets of sound.” He recorded with a who’s-who of jazz legends including Thelonious Monk, Sonny Rollins, Jimmy Smith, and Miles Davis. By 1957, Coltrane was a bandleader releasing records under his own name.

It was the same year that Coltrane, having kicked a heroin addiction that was crippling his productivity, experienced the spiritual awakening that would motivate him to the end of his short life, and which he credited as the inspiration for his masterpiece, 1964′s A Love Supreme. His devotion to Eastern musicians like Ravi Shankar was especially ahead of its time, as “Fuji” Fujioka noted, eclipsing his beloved Beatles by several years. (Rubber Soul, the first Beatles album to feature the sitar, came out the same year of the birth of Coltrane’s son, Ravi, whom he named in Shankar’s honor.)

The legacy of John Coltrane looms large in Strawberry Mansion; this mural is five blocks north of his former home on 33rd Street | Photo: Bradley Maule

At the charrette, the experts assembled spent the day harmonizing optimistic visions for the house with the undeniable challenges of making them happen. Franklin Vagnone was one of those who found it necessary to provide a few reality checks.

“The thing you always hear at these events is, ‘Well, we have something unique’,” said Vagnone, representing the Historic House Trust of New York City which administers 22 house museums. “Everyone thinks that what they have is going to be different. The question is, is it unique enough? The challenge is how it’s going to pay for itself.”

Dennis Montagna, from the Philadelphia office of the National Park Service, added that many museums struggle because they forget about the entertainment factor: “They approach it in a self-referential way when really, the kids are looking to go see stuff.”

“We think of the educational aspect,” agreed Vagnone, “but for everybody else it’s a fun day. Those kids are out of the classroom making memories that will stay with them throughout their lives.”

Montagna also commented on the difficulty of coexistence between historic house sites in close proximity to each other, especially in an economic downturn. “You don’t want to have to compete,” he said. “You have to be looking for the tide that’s going to raise all the boats.”

In spite of the challenges, there was progress. Tanya Bowers from the National Trust for Historic Preservation was on hand to facilitate the process.

Tucked in a makeshift alley on the wall of the house two doors down, a collaborative mosaic by the Coltrane Society and Network Arts celebrates the chronology of John Coltrane’s catalog, referencing My Favorite Things, Blue Train, and Kind of Blue, the seminal Miles Davis album on which Coltrane played tenor sax | Photo: Bradley Maule

“This was an extremely productive day,” she said. “Definitely the experts we have here complemented each other well, and we now have the beginnings of a blueprint for how the mission of the Coltrane House can be realized.”

So what shape might that plan take? Not even Michael Cogswell, a jazz musician turned musicologist who now directs the Louis Armstrong House Museum in Queens, could say for certain. Each house has its own formula for success, he said. But that was no cause for worry.

“I don’t want to sound too mystical,” he said, “but this is my view as a museum director: the house will tell you how to interpret it. The answer is right in front of us. It’s like Michelangelo’s belief that every block of stone has a sculpture inside, that it’s up to the sculptor to chisel it out. The answer is already there, in the house, and we have to discover what that is.”

Most crucial to interpreting the house will be the history that lives within the members of the community. “It’s the intangibles that matter, the stories, the neighbors who remember, who interacted with Coltrane,” said Bowers. “These people are still with us, but they won’t be forever, which is why this needs to happen now.”

South Broad Street, from a then-new Kimmel Center, 2002. Citizens Bank Park is under construction next to The Vet in the distance. | Photo: Bradley Maule

Last week, while walking north along the short stretch of South Broad Street that separates my home and office, I realized: I have short-term memory when it comes to place. Although I’ve lived in South Philadelphia for the past five years, I failed this test of urban memory: I couldn’t quite recall what preceded 777 South Broad, Symphony House, the Kimmel Center, or the Wilma Theater.

So, what was there anyway? I put the following images and text together to chronicle the histories of the four major sites that have been developed in the past twenty years–perhaps to help us all remember South Broad’s more recent, but seemingly forgettable past.

Wilma Theater, Broad and Spruce

By the 1990s, South Broad Street was virtually obsolete. Gone was the bustling thoroughfare that had been lined with the stuff of cultural capital; left in its place was a strip dotted with underutilized buildings and vacant lots. In 2007, Ed Rendell told a New York Times reporter, “On a Saturday night in 1991, you could walk the mile from City Hall to Washington Avenue and you wouldn’t have seen 100 people.”

Where the Wilma Theater stands was a Philadelphia Parking Authority-operated surface parking lot. The lot was opened in the in the 1960s, when the entire block was cleared in accordance with the prevailing redevelopment principles of the time. The principles held that old buildings were agents of blight; private developers would naturally prefer to build new. The properties demolished included a two-story commercial building topped by billboards at the southern end of the site (where the Wilma stands) and the storied Hotel Walton at the northern end.

The first step toward redevelopment took place in 1991, when developer Norman Wolgin of Lobro Associates purchased the lot. City officials had struggled to sell the property for eight years until striking a deal with Wolgin, who planned to build a home for the Wilma Theater and an attached parking garage for the adjacent Hershey Hotel (now the DoubleTree Hotel).

The Hotel Stenton and the Broad Street Theater in 1929. Photo: PhillyHistory.org

One year later, the hotel had been replaced. Photo: PhillyHistory.org

After demolition of the Hotel Walton in 1967. Photo: Free Library of Philadelphia

Kimmel Center, Broad and Spruce

Beginning in the 1980s, city planners envisioned a new symphony hall for the west side of Broad Street at Spruce. Venturi Brown Associates was to design the hall. When finally funds were raised much later on and a different architect chosen for what would be the Kimmel Center, the project was heralded as the beginning of a new era for South Broad.

Ten row houses and a park had to be cleared from the two blocks bound by Spruce and Delancey, Broad and 15^th to make room for a performing arts center. The homes, which mirrored those across the street on Spruce, included the last home of architect John Notman (1810-1865). Notman was a founding member of the American Institute of Architects and is credited with popularizing the use of brownstone. In response to the loss of the historic (but undesignated) buildings, Philadelphia Historical Commission preservation officer Richard Tyler conceded, “Any building is a loss. But weighing balance here, which is part of what we do, I would go back to the concept of public good. The creation of an orchestra hall overrides that loss.”

The park, named Arco Park after the company that commissioned it (the Atlantic Richfield Company, whose pre-merger inception as Atlantic Refining had its headquarters across the street at Broad & Spruce), was designed by the last adherent of the Bauhaus, Herbert Bayer (1900-1985). For a short series of photos of Arco Park, click HERE.

The block in 1926, just north of the Pennsylvania Museum School of Industrial Art. Photo: PhillyHistory.org

The 300 block of Broad Street in 1978. Photo: PhillyHistory.org

Symphony House, Broad and Pine

Symphony House, the high rise that dominates the northwest corner of Broad and Pine Streets, replaced nothing more than a decades-old gas station and parking lot.

The lot at the Broad and Pine Streets came into being in the 1930s, when a block of four-story, two-bay brick row homes was cleared to make way for a drive-in gas station. This was not uncommon. Throughout the early 20th century, speculators hoping to seize on a fledgling market took advantage of weak land use policies, establishing car-related businesses on what had been pedestrian oriented avenues.

The lot remained in use 2004, until it was sold to developer Carl Dranoff. Having recently completed the conversion of the GE building at 32nd and Walnut Streets into the West Bank, Dranoff proposed what would be the 163-unit luxury condominium Symphony House.

The block in 1928.

The gas station in the 1930s. Photo: AllPosters.com

The site prior to construction of Symphony House. Photo: Dranoff Properties

777 South Broad, Broad and Fitzwater

As recently as the 1980s, the block bound by Fitzwater and Catharine Streets to the north and south and by Broad and Watts Streets to the west and east was still home to a privately-owned institution known as the Broad Street Hospital.

The Broad Street Hospital encompassed three buildings: a historic four story hospital (originally the Women’s Southern Homeopathic Hospital), a 1980s addition, and a small office building.

In 1988, the hospital and nursing home were closed. According to its owners, doctors Nicholas Canuso, Raymond Silk, and Eugene Spitz, it had fallen victim to delayed insurance reimbursements and discontinued support from commercial lenders. Although the owners planned to sell the facility for reuse, no buyer emerged and the site remained vacant.

After almost two decades of uncertainty and failed development proposals, developer Carl Dranoff, with his recent success at nearby Symphony House, stepped in with a plan to replace the hospital with a luxury apartment building. In accordance with that plan, the constellation of vacant properties, including 10 row houses along Watts Street, were demolished in June of 2008. The hospital had been demolished sometime before.

The block shortly after the hospital’s opening. The building on the left is the hospital and the building on the right is the convent of St. Theresa of Avila, which closed in 1972. Photo: The American Institute of Homeopathy

Prior to breaking ground for 777 South Broad. Photo: Dranoff Properties

Originally Eagleville Dispensary and later hospital offices, this building was the last to be demolished. | Photo: Flickr user strayolive

Present-day view of 400 S. 40th Street | Photo: Aaron Wunsch

Somehow, amid the decade-long argument over the fate of the Levy-Leas House at 400 South 40th Street, the historical significance of the building has receded from view. That obscurity deepened over the last six months, when hours of testimony before the Licenses and Inspections Review Board focused on the validity of the Historical Commission’s May 2012 “hardship” ruling, which supported the University of Pennsylvania’s demolition plans. Bombarded by legal and financial data, attendees could be forgiven for forgetting why the building at the eye of the storm mattered in the first place. But that would be a shame. The grand, mistreated structure at the southwest corner of 40th and Pine Streets has, after all, been on the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places for forty years and on the National Register for almost as long. Its story deserves to be told.

Before heading down that path, we should acknowledge the obvious: 400 S. 40th Street is not an easy building to love, at least not at first sight. Cinder-block additions, made to accommodate a nursing home, confront pedestrians at eye level. Even as one gazes upward, broken windows and peeling paint stand out. But beneath these blemishes lies an early and important work of suburban architecture. To understand its history is to catch a glimpse of an antebellum city in flux, an industrial fortune in the making, and a vision for a new neighborhood that both defied and replicated older patterns.

* * *

Portrait of John Patterson Levy | Image courtesy of Independence Seaport Museum

By the early 1850s, John Patterson Levy (1809-1867) had had enough. Once the captain of commercial ships that plied the Atlantic Seaboard, he had survived terrifying storms off Cape Hatteras and a near-fatal bout of yellow fever—events that brought him back to the shipbuilding business for which he had trained in his youth. But it was domestic travails that weighed on him now. Living near his Kensington shipyard, Levy felt oppressed by close-quartered, mixed-use neighborhood he had helped to industrialize. There was a large household to consider; it included Levy’s wife, four children, three in-laws, and two servants in 1850.

And there was the pull of religion. Levy’s brother, Edgar, was a noted Baptist minster whose preaching John admired. Edgar’s church stood in West Philadelphia, then a blossoming commuter suburb whose Hamiltonville section (roughly today’s University City) was especially appealing. “The rural beauties, the elegant cottages, surrounded by handsomely laid out grounds, the pure air, the freedom from the bustle and noise of the central part of the city, and yet within [a] thirty or forty minute drive of his office”—these were the factors that, in Edgar’s memory, lured his brother to a new home across the Schuylkill.

The area to which the Levys decamped was in fact a hive of activity, albeit of a non-industrial sort. [Map.] Grand “villas” and more modest “cottages” were springing up on land that, until recently, had been part of the vast holdings of bon-vivant botanist William Hamilton and his heirs. Hamilton had died in 1813 and his house now formed the centerpiece of Woodlands Cemetery. To the north, developers Nathaniel B. Browne and Samuel A. Harrison subdivided other parts of Hamilton’s property, creating wide streets and house lots for would-be commuters such as Levy. Many of these houses were designed by Samuel Sloan, an ambitious carpenter-turned-architect who was receiving a barrage of local commissions. One of them was almost certainly the house John P. Levy purchased in November of 1853. Erected on speculation by plasterer Thomas Allen (a known Sloan collaborator), it resembled the published designs for Italianate villas that were earning Sloan a national renown at the time.

Left: “A Plain Villa,” Samuel Sloan, The Model Architect, 1852; Right: “A Suburban Villa – No. 2,” Samuel Sloan, Sloan’s Homestead Architecture, 1861 | Images courtesy of the University of Pennsylvania Fisher Fine Arts Library

Dining room of 400 S. 40th Street | Photo: Aaron Wunsch

Much of what we know about Levy’s house comes from photographs and documents that post-date his occupancy. By the time the building appeared in Moses King’s Philadelphia and Notable Philadelphians (1902), for instance, it had been fashionably remodeled by leather manufacturer David Porter Leas. Leas added a Colonial Revival porch and made some interior alterations—most notably around the main staircase and an adjacent parlor (pictured at left). Still, King’s photo and a 1913 insurance survey make clear how much of the original house remained: its brackets, quoins, and cupola; its north-facing bay window and south-facing sun porch; in 1913, even its stable.

This was the sort of house that took shape on blocks developed by lawyer Nathaniel B. Browne and his associates—blocks that included the one with Levy’s house. Browne himself lived in West Philadelphia and, in the words of an admiring biographer, “aimed to introduce a better style of building” in the area. But the emerging suburb was a patchwork, not one man’s vision. The villa district that grew up in Hamiltonville included clusters of row houses, and these multiplied in the Civil War era. Larger concentrations of such housing appeared in adjacent working-class neighborhoods: Maylandville to the south and Greenville to the north. Often, it was only the inclusion of porches that distinguished these “suburban” structures from their counterparts near the city’s core.

We tend to think of households like Levy’s and those of contemporary working-class families as inhabiting separate worlds. And in a sense they did. Certainly, compared to their old neighborhood in Kensington, the Levys’ new community showed greater signs of class sorting. But John P. Levy’s own biography reveals the sorts of connections that sometimes existed among West Philadelphia’s disparate enclaves. When Levy’s brother, Edgar, moved his ministry to Newark, New Jersey, John resolved to perpetuate their shared faith by erecting the Berean Baptist Church on Chestnut Street west of 40th. [Map.] To provide income for this new institution, he also built the adjacent Berean Block on Oak (now Ludlow) Street. A group of modest Italianate row houses, they carried the telltale frame porches that signaled their suburban if down-market character.

Remnants of the Berean Block | Photos: Aaron Wunsch

It was as an industrialist rather than as philanthropist that John P. Levy became famous. Reaney, Neafie & Co., the shipbuilding firm he joined in the 1840s, prospered wildly in the following decades, becoming Neafie & Levy in 1861. Levy brought capital and management skill to the job, leaving engineering work to other partners. Chief among them was marine engine expert Jacob G. Neafie. Together these men grew their Penn Steam Engine & Boiler Works at Beach and Palmer Streets into a large enterprise that specialized in propeller engines. Over 200 such engines had left yard by 1857, prompting a contemporary chronicler to declare the firm “the Propeller builders.” When the business closed in the twentieth century, Philadelphia Electric, which bought the site for its Delaware Station, was keenly aware of its predecessor’s legacy. A plaque facing Penn Treaty Park bears witness to that local memory.

Lithograph of Neafie & Levy shipyard, 1893 | Courtesy of Independence Seaport Museum

No plaque adorns the Levy-Leas house, much less the Berean Block. Indeed, were it not for ship-building buffs and odd bits of text on the internet, Levy and his story might have passed into oblivion. There are worse tragedies. Civil War era Philadelphia was lousy with captains of industry and, in this roster of old, dead, white men, names like Baldwin, Disston, and Stetson surely deserve higher billing. But Levy’s mansion is another matter. At the time of its construction, the building was part of a string of grand houses that ran along 40th Street. Almost all of them were designed by Samuel Sloan, and almost all of them are gone. To get a feel for this sort of fabric, one should turn instead to the 4000 block of Pine Street. After the construction of Levy’s house, others like it sprang up to the west. They stand today as an extraordinary ensemble—the best-preserved cluster of free-standing suburban villas in West Philadelphia and among the best in the nation. Levy’s mansion anchors that streetscape in a way no replacement could.

The task of repairing the building and returning it to active duty is not herculean. Despite the acrimonious struggle between Penn and Levy-Leas’ neighbors, there are implicit areas of agreement: the house can be reused under the right conditions; other parts of the lot may be developed to generate revenue. Nor need one look far afield to find creative rehabilitation of such structures. Drexel’s Smart House in Powelton Village offers one sort of model. Another, more pertinent one, may take shape at 3509 Spring Garden Street, where Drexel has again taken the lead with its Dana and David Dornsife Center. With any luck, Penn and preservation-minded neighbors will begin talking again. The community cares deeply about its past. And since that community may be said to include Neafie and Levy, both buried at Woodlands Cemetery, there’s a double incentive to get this one right.

At Woodlands Cemetery: Neafie Monument (left)—note the propeller screw, a biographical emblem; Levy Mausoleum (right). | Photos: Aaron Wunsch

Opening remarks at the Shawmont to Montgomery County portion of the Schuylkill River Trail; L-R: Michael DiBerardinis, Deputy Mayor for Environmental and Community Resources and Commissioner of Parks and Recreation, Mayor Michael Nutter, State Representative Pamela DeLissio, City Councilman Curtis Jones | Photo: Mike Szilagyi

A ribbon-cutting Thursday morning formally opened a one-mile stretch of Schuylkill River Trail, between Shawmont and the Montgomery County line.

Funded with federal stimulus dollars, the $1.4 million project widened an older section of trail from a narrow 8 feet to a much more suitable 12 feet, and opened a new segment of trail between Port Royal Avenue and Shawmont Avenue.

Councilman Curtis Jones was instrumental in negotiating with property owners, some of whom had extended their back yards onto the abandoned Pennsylvania Railroad track-bed now owned by Philadelphia Electric Company. The compromise that was hammered out allows adjacent property owners to continue to use half the track-bed, with the trail placed on the other half. A new 10-foot high privacy fence divides public from private space.

Constructed in 1883, the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Schuylkill Division was abandoned in the 1970s. A study now being conducted will determine the feasibility of extending the trail east from Shawmont Avenue one and one-half miles. This would connect to the Ivy Ridge Trail and on to the Cynwyd Heritage Trail now being constructed across the iconic Manayunk Bridge.

The trail that opened today and its projected extensions will form key links in The Circuit, the region’s emerging network of multi-use trails.

A Pennsylvania Railroad train passes through what is now (with slightly cleaner air) the Schuylkill River Trail between Spring Mill and Shawmont

Mitchell and Hilarie Morgan Hall, Temple University | Photo: Peter Woodall

• Another arson fire was reported Wednesday at Temple’s Morgan Hall, a student housing high-rise now under construction. Unlike the previous six incidents, Wednesday’s occurred in a garage. “It’s another annoying fire that we believe the same individual or individuals are doing,” said Campus Safety’s Captain Edward Woltemate. “When they do get caught, they’re going to be charged and arrested, probably at the federal level.”

• The Philadelphia Housing Authority yesterday approved this coming year’s budget plan that aims to help offset the cuts it has experienced due to this month’s federal sequester cuts. It will unload another $4 million worth of scattered housing—“mostly stand-alone rowhouses and vacant lots,” says the Inquirer. “The agency will reduce overhead through savings on its insurance policy, $2.6 million, and reductions in administrative costs, $6 million.”

• Inga Saffron argues for a paradigm shift in how and what the federal government and states fund to facilitate mobility.“Transportation advocates hate to compare transit and road projects, since they’re financed from different pots of money,” she says. “But this schizoid approach has cost us dearly. No highway project has ever made a city a better place to live, while transit projects improve our quality of life in a variety of ways, and are better for the environment.”

• Plan Philly recently talked casinos with Deputy Mayor for Economic Development Alan Greenberger. His endorsement for a second Philly casino was lukewarm.“Casinos are economic drivers in the sense that they provide a lot of jobs and tax revenue to the governmental entities that sponsor them. I haven’t seen them generate local economic development. Yet. But one of the [proposed six] could. Some might, some might not.”

Before & after? 1332-34 South 3rd Street. Left: St. John the Evangelist, photo by Bradley Maule; Right: proposed townhomes, image by Harman Deutsch Architecture

A ripple of architectural destruction appears to be moving swiftly through Pennsport. Some people are putting their faith in preservation efforts and some are taking their faith elsewhere.

St. John’s under lock and key | Photo: Joseph G. Brin

The days are numbered for the Episcopal Church of St. John The Evangelist, 1332 S. Third Street, at the intersection of Moyamensing and Reed. The building was constructed in 1867, architect unknown. It is not on the city historical register and a demolition permit has already been granted to Harman Deutsch Architecture. A demolition date has not been scheduled yet, but Gama Wrecking, in neighboring Queen Village, is named as the contractor on the permit. Last Friday, pews were being removed from St. John’s for salvage.

Project architect Rustin Ohler of the firm Harman Deutsch states, “we went door to door in the neighborhood seeking support. It seems like everyone is in favor…we haven’t received much, if any, opposition.” It was deemed too expensive to gut and rehab the existing structure, and instead, 12 four-story townhomes have been designed, with parking. Ohler points out that the interior was “dated” and there were “structural issues with the south wall.”

St. John’s rectory, next door to the church on Third Street, will also be demolished in the process, Ohler confirms.

St. John the Evangelist Church (middle) and its Parish House (right, with red door) will soon be demolished and replaced with townhouses | Photo: Bradley Maule (view: 3rd Street)

Rendering of townhouses planned for 1332-34 South 3rd Street | Image courtesy of Harman Deutsch Architecture (view: Reed Street)

St. John’s life was extended for some years when the congregation of Emanuel Lutheran Church on Fourth Street near Washington Avenue, sold their landmark church to a Vietnamese Buddhist congregation and joined with Episcopals for five years. But subsequent congregational changes point up how difficult it is for church groups to maintain membership–and their houses of worship. When the arrangement with St. John’s faltered, the Lutherans went on to share space with Old Swedes Church. That too failed. Now, Emanuel Lutheran is back on Fourth Street, in their original neighborhood (but a new temporary location) and St John’s faces the wrecking ball.

* * *

Two and a half blocks east of St. John the Evangelist, the future of the former Engine 46 Steakhouse remains unclear. Earlier this week, the Passyunk Post reported that a demolition permit was posted on the building at 1401 South Water Street, and later removed. There are no demolition permits actively filed for the structure, originally built in 1894.

Michael Schreiber, who sits on the Queen Village Historic Preservation Committee, observes, “the building is quite striking and relatively unique in Philadelphia; during the years that it functioned as Engine 46 Steakhouse restaurant it served as a model of how historic buildings could be restored and recycled for other uses.” He also noted that the firehouse has not been placed on the city historical register, which severely limits the strategic options of any campaign to save it.

Schreiber contends, “both of these buildings are prominent landmarks in the neighborhood, and both of them, especially the firehouse, are quite beautiful. Losing them will be major blows to the cause of historic preservation in Philadelphia.”

Engine 46 Firehouse | Photo: Joseph G. Brin

Taking the wide view in Ambler | Photo: Dominic Mercier

Ambler’s recent revitalization has been a textbook example of how to transform a sleepy town into a thriving suburban destination. Until recently, however, an industrial hulk has lurked just across the tracks from Main Street, apart from the rejuvenation.

The Ambler Boiler House, built in 1897, served as an asbestos plant for the Keasbey & Mattison company until the company was ravaged by the Great Depression. The 48,000 square foot building was eventually left vacant in the 1970s, declared a brownfield, and subjected to remediation by the Environmental Protection Agency. For decades, it served as little more than an eyesore and a draw for urban exploration enthusiasts and budding graffiti artists.

But after nearly 10 years of setbacks and another crushing financial crisis, the Ambler Boiler House has risen from its industrial ashes, reborn as a multi-tenant office building that employs an outline of smart, modern design features—alternative financing, substantial green features, historic preservation, transit-oriented design, and brownfield development.

Welcome back: the entrance to the revitalized Ambler Boiler House | Photo: Dominic Mercier

Despite significant challenges, Summit Realty Advisors saw major commercial potential and purchased the property in the early 2000s. It’s a stone’s throw from Ambler’s SEPTA Regional Rail station and situated in what Philadelphia Magazine called one of “10 Awesome Neighborhoods to Call Home” in 2010. The greatest challenge was financing its $16 million price tag, the last portion of which was acquired in 2011 in the form of a $2.5 million low-interest loan from the regional EnergyWorks program.

Heckendorn Shiles Architects led the renovation, which was recently awarded LEED Platinum status from the US Green Building Council. Principal Matt Heckendorn says the firm’s goal was to create harmony between an existing industrial shell and the envisioned sophisticated office space for five to seven tenants, two of whom are already in place.

Core States Group, an engineering, architecture, and project management firm, is among those who’ve opened offices in the Ambler Boiler House | Photo: Dominic Mercier

“Overall, the design objective—and challenge—has always been the marriage of this remarkable vestige of Amber’s industrial past with the needs of a Class A office space,” Heckendorn says.

The project has the hallmarks one would expect in a LEED Platinum project: reclamation of the masonry shell and roof truss system, a geothermal heat pump with 53 wells, low-VOC interior finishes, bike racks and changing rooms, and a grey water system. While it would be easy to single out any of those features, it’s the combination of all of them that makes the project special, Heckendorn says.

“I think, perhaps, the more interesting sustainable aspect of this project is the very nature of the project,” says Heckendorn. “We redeveloped a deteriorating and graffiti-strewn brownfield, adaptively reused a beautiful and historic industrial shell, and provided a new workplace within a two-minute walk of the SEPTA train station.”

That walk is just long enough to take a good look at the old structure epitomizing Ambler’s new vitality.

This is transit oriented development | Photo: Dominic Mercier

Allegheny Station, doors opening—at the Flomar Building | Photo: Bradley Maule

Nearly every neighborhood in Philly has its own Divine Lorraine. A standing specimen of built environment, once a shining beacon but now abandoned, blighted, underused, or abused. Mount Sinai Hospital in Pennsport. The Beury Building in North Philly. The Markley Building on 52nd Street. This might have been Kensington’s version. Once endangered, this unique Kensington Avenue highrise has been brought back to its original prominence.

Northeastern Title and Trust combined properties, 1925 | Source: Athenaeum of Philadelphia

The Northeastern Title and Trust Company, founded in 1920, spent their first 8 years working out of five adjacent properties just south of K & A that faced the 3100 blocks of both Kensington Ave and Potter Street. With an urge to grow, they devised a plan for a new headquarters on the site of their combined properties. While other banks around K & A were building low-slung Neo-Classical stone castles, theirs would be a brick highrise. This new building would be not only be an ostentatious megalith representing their success, but could also be an income generator through the leasing of office space to other companies. It would be magnificent: the first (and last) high-rise office building on Kensington Avenue, looming above the El at nine stories. Construction began in early 1928.

The Northeastern Title and Trust Company Building was completed by the start of 1929 with all offices leased. Northeastern shared the building with the Personal Finance Company of Philadelphia, the Argyle Business and Load Association, and the offices of the United Engineering and Tool Company.

Architects Davis, Dunlap, and Barney crafted the Northeastern’s design, extending the building’s stone entrance well above the level of the El to remind passing transit riders who’s boss. A façade of brown bricks leads the eye up to the embattled crown. Three hundred tons of iron from Bethlehem Fabricators, Inc. hold the structure in place.

Northeastern Title and Trust didn’t last very long after their wondrous new HQ was completed. On November 12, 1930, they merged with the Industrial Trust Company of Philadelphia and took on their name. The building would be known for the next three decades as the Industrial Trust Building. In the early 1930s, the primary tenant became the Bond-Barclay Syndicate, who wrote and distributed miscellaneous filler stories for newspapers around the country and provided recipes for all kinds of publications under the name Recipe Service Company.

Uncanny Tales, 1952. Drawn by Joe Maneely on the Fifth Floor of the old Northeastern

The building later provided advantageous office space for the directors of a number of nearby factories and mills. Offices for W.C. Plunkett & Sons, Jowell Mills, Inc, and the Printers Label & Tag Service all shared the highrise through the late 1930s and 40s. Milton Roy Pumps put their first office in the old Northeastern Building in 1939. This company, started by a father-son team in a nearby rowhouse, grew so fast that they moved on after one year. The same company is now a world-wide mega-corporation.

In the late 1940s, some local commercial artists formed an art studio at the old Northeastern. Among them was a young Joe Maneely, who drew Golden Age comics on a freelance basis for a pre-Marvel Comics Stan Lee while working in that space. Through the early 50s, that little group of Hussian School of Art graduates shared the building with the back offices of local textile concerns and an advertising agency. Maneely eventually left Philadelphia for Marvel Comics’ predecessor Atlas Comics, where he was a staff member until 1958, when he died at the age of 32 in a tragic accident.

The building was later purchased by the Flomar Corporation. This relatively obscure company immortalized itself by emblazoning its name into the stone façade, inducing a name change from to the original Northeastern Title and Trust Company to the new Flomar Building. Their questionable management of the ground-floor retail space led to a lawsuit that went all the way to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Flomar Corp. v. Logue has been often cited in landlord/tenant dispute cases for nearly 50 years.

In the early 1970s, the old Northeastern became leased by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. After a short stint as the district office of the Pennsylvania Council on Alcohol Problems, the building spent the next two decades as the Community Legal Partners Northeast Law Center. This organization provided free legal services for the neighborhood’s poor. A non-profit called Friends of Farmworkers also worked in the building, doing the same for immigrant farmworkers, many of whom were also neighborhood residents.

Building Status: Saved! | Photo: Bradley Maule

By 1998, the building’s dilapidated condition forced every last office tenant out. It became a tower of blight in an area already well in possession of it. Impact Services, a local non-profit, took interest in rehabbing the building but couldn’t get the funds together. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s FY2003 budget allocated $1 million to them for the purchase and rehab of the structure. They commissioned YCH Architects to redesign and re-energize the space as a modern office with ground-floor retail. Urban Technology, Inc. replaced the electrical, mechanical, and plumbing systems.

In December 2007, with the lower floors restored, the building reopened as a new home for the Esperanza Health Center, which provides bilingual faith-based medical services for the local community. The non-profit Hispanic Community and Counseling Services also occupies space there. Esperanza intends to expand into the vacant upper floors, which are under renovation.

The Flomar Building, as it’s been known for the past 50 years, has regained the importance it had when it was first built over K & A. It serves as an example of how a towering would-be eyesore need not be a neighborhood burden, but a neighborhood benefit. With any luck, the Divine Lorraine and Beury Building will follow its example.

Below Broad Street looking west | Friends of the Rail Park

After changing its name to Friends of the Rail Park, the non-profit advocacy and planning group previously known as ViaductGreene has completed an ambitious plan to transform the underground section of City Branch railroad west of the Reading Viaduct into a submerged park. The new plan, commissioned by Friends of the Rail Park through a Community Design Collaborative service grant, calls for a grand civic entrance to the below-grade park on North Broad Street, in front of the School District Administration building, and active connections–above and below–to the campus of Community College of Philadelphia.

“We asked for a very strong civic connection at Broad Street to the park below,” said Leah Murphy, a Friends of the Rail Park board member (and senior associate at the planning and urban design firm Interface Studio) who oversaw the planning process. “That was the primary question we asked of the planning team. And that’s what the plan does really well.”

The new plan, which was formulated by Richard Roark of the landscape architecture firm OLIN, architect Frank Grauman of Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, Rob Schaeffer and Julie Wiley of the engineering firm CVM, and Chongba Sherpa of the cost estimating firm VJ Associates, with input from a 40-person community task force, is a thoroughly detailed, extensive, and carefully constructed vision for the rails-to-trails conversion, which would cost about $29 million. At Broad Street particularly, the design presented is substantial.

The proposed park meets the elevated Reading Viaduct just east of and directly below Broad Street at the section of the railway known as the SEPTA Spur. The 1/5 mile long, elevated Spur–which will undergo an $8 million transformation into a park beginning in 2014–together with the City Branch, which is also owned predominantly by SEPTA, would constitute a two mile long linear rails-to-trails park, connecting the Callowhill neighborhood to Fairmount Park. The rest of the railroad viaduct heading north from the SEPTA Spur is owned by the Reading Corporation. The firm, based in California, has demonstrated little interest in selling the Viaduct to the City of Philadelphia.

The Broad Street Bridge, 1891 | Drawing: Frank Cresson Schell, Harper’s Weekly, January 1891

The new below-grade park would extend from two points at the east end: the connection to the SEPTA Spur, where the rail viaduct dips under Broad Street (which is a bridge over the railway) and at Broad and Buttonwood in front of the School District Administration building. A key to the plan is the planned reconstruction of the Broad Street bridge, owned by PennDOT. Planners hope to convince the agency to install see-through railings and to puncture the bridge with light towers that are to be installed in the center of North Broad (lighting the space above and below). The parking lot now in front of the School District building would be replaced with a multi-level public space leading to the park.

One obstacle to this design is an annex to the School District building–formerly the Inquirer’s Rotogravure plant–that blocks the railway just west of Broad. The striking Rotogravure building was designed by Albert Kahn in 1948, but Rail Park advocates say the annex, used for predominantly for storage, was not part of the original design. Removing it is key to the rail park, creating an accessible public space immediately adjacent to the Inquirer building, which real estate developer Bart Blatstein hopes to turn into the Provence casino.

The front of the School District Building, looking west from the east side of Broad, directly above the City Branch. The “pit,” an open air section of the City Branch owned by Blatstein’s Tower Investments, is just beyond the low concrete wall at the sidewalk. | Photo: Leah Murphy

Westward view of Park from above at Broad Street | Image: Friends of the Rail Park

Blatstein, who is listed as a member of the plan’s task force, is supportive of the idea of developing of the City Branch. His firm, Tower Investments, owns a section of it in this area. “I’m on the sidelines,” Blatstein said of the process thus far. “I’m open to discussion for the below-grade portion; there have been some great ideas, but there needs to be a consensus,” he said, citing transit proposals as alternatives.

“We have a lot of realities we have to keep in mind,” said Murphy. Indeed, the rail park plan faces a set of interesting challenges, most predominantly calls by the City Planning Commission and transit advocates to return the City Branch to transit. SEPTA, which participated on the plan’s task force, wants to be careful not to preclude the future use of the City Branch for transit.

“When are we going to get another dedicated transit right of way that SEPTA owns in Center City? That’s a huge asset–the kind of asset we could never acquire again,” said Jennifer Barr, a planner at the transit agency. “It’s kind of location, location, location–that’s what makes it a huge asset.”

Barr indicated that other transit expansion projects have a greater priority for the agency. The City Branch will require detailed ridership modeling and figuring out of route points. Bus Rapid Transit, she said, could make sense as an interim use.

The draft of the Planning Commission’s Central District plan makes no mention of establishing a rail park. Instead it supports a Bus Rapid Transit line to take riders west to Fairmount Park and beyond. “Why not seize the opportunity in the meantime,” said Murphy, “and if BRT comes, the two uses could exist side by side. We’re hopeful that the idea of a linear park for the City Branch can be brought into the Central District Plan as an alternative vision or an interim use.”

Aerial view of plan with Broad Street in the left corner foreground | Image: Friends of the Rail Park

Planners had hoped to have the School District, whose building front would be significantly altered according to the plan, at the table as well, but attempts at outreach failed.

At Community College of Philadelphia, looking east | Image: Friends of the Rail Park

Nevertheless, Murphy said that focusing the plan on this initial section of the City Branch was valuable. Compared to areas further west, there was little historic infrastructure to contend with. “We saw great potential for a total transformation,” said Murphy. West of 15th Street, this has meant engaging with Community College of Philadelphia, integrating the new park within the campus and creating a new access point at 18th Street. In addition a railroad trestle between 16th and 17th Streets will be restored to allow a visual connection to campus. It’s a tremendous opportunity to integrate the park into the campus,” said Murphy.

Bradley Maule contributed reporting to this article.

“Hungry Hungry Hippo,” by STV Incorporated, winner of most cans | Photo: Dominic Mercier

Joining the fight against hunger in Philadelphia for the seventh year, the city’s architects, engineers, and contractors have teamed up to create colossal structures out of canned food for Canstruction, the unique design/build competition sponsored by the Associates Committee of AIA Philadelphia.

A foundation of the Society for Design Administration, Canstruction is held across the nation each year, turning public spaces into sculpture gardens. Since its inception, Canstruction has seen over 17.5 million pounds of food donated to food banks local to the competition cities. Teams are given just 12 hours to defy logic and gravity to create their structures.

After the exhibition, the food is donated to Philabundance, the region’s largest hunger-relief organization. The structures, with clever names, recognizable images, hunger and city-based themes, are on view in the Rotunda of the Shops at Liberty Place, 1625 Chestnut Street, through Sunday, April 21.

“Knock Out Hunger!” by NELSON, winner of best use of labels | Photo: Dominic Mercier

Telling fish tales: Captain Bell aboard his Schuylkill bound vessel | Photo: Theresa Stigale

Every Wednesday night, Charlie McCammon, Art Bell, and Steven Narbus meet at the Corinthian Yacht Club in Essington and race their sailboats on the Delaware River. It’s tradition. But last summer a Wednesday night race led to a whole lot more than just competitive camaraderie. The three self-confessed “water nuts” started talking about modern maritime industry.

The conversation drifted upstream from the Delaware to the Schuylkill. There was a short lived riverboat cruise, they thought, but it stopped operating. “The Schuylkill could surely use one; why don’t we start one together?” The sort of conversation that never makes it off the dock. This time somehow, the idea set sail.

Fast forward to present day and the three men have formed a partnership called Patriot Harbor Lines. Its first boat? The Patriot. She’s—for lack of a better word—Fitzgeraldian. She looks like she sailed in from times past—and she’s supposed to. The Patriot is based on a commuter boat design from the Roaring Twenties, but beneath the flapper exterior lies modern wood and fiberglass construction, as well as a 21st Century engine.

Anchor’s dropped on The Patriot | Photo: Theresa Stigale

With room for just 35 people, Art Bell says The Patriot is meant to be “an intimate experience…for a more upscale crowd.” The first official ticketed outing will be on May 12th: Mother’s Day.

The $30 tour, between the Walnut Street Dock and Bartram’s Garden, lasts three hours and includes the entrance fee to the Garden. Initially, it’s scheduled to run every Saturday and Sunday. There are also plans for an evening cocktail cruise along the Schuylkill which would pick up and drop off at the Waterworks, at the foot of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

“We want people to take a break from the hustle and bustle of Philadelphia while remaining in the middle of Philadelphia,” McCammon says of the intended cruise experience. That, plus a learning experience. The Schuylkill River Development Corporation has partnered with Patriot Harbor Lines to provide tour guides for the river cruise.

Feel the breeze on the starboard side | Photo: Theresa Stigale

Putting a riverboat back on the Schuylkill River could have a huge residual effect. SRDC founder John Randolph notes that the land portion of the river is already really well developed; the Locust to South boardwalk is under construction, the Grays Ferry Crescent is already online, and Bartram’s Mile is in planning. Randolph is pleased with the progress, but recognizes the work ahead. Twenty years ago, he spearheaded efforts to turn the then post-industrial riverfront into a greenway. Today, the Schuylkill Banks is used annually by over a million joggers, cyclists, walkers, and more. The river itself is another story altogether.

Randolph believes The Patriot could help activate the river itself. “The boat is the only way you can see the river,” he says. The return of a cruise adds another layer of vibrancy not just along the Schuylkill, but on the Schuylkill.

It’s another part of the grand vision to return the ancient industrial riverway back to its pulsing arterial roots—something Philadelphia can be proud of and use. “This river can grow up,” Randolph says.

The growth continues with The Patriot’s first official river outing on May 12th, Mother’s Day.

“Mike at Diversified Metal Products” | Flying Kite

• Next City stops by NextFab Studio on Washington Avenue, a 21,000 square foot co-working space whose “mission is to reinvigorate the city’s culture and knowledge base for design, fabrication and manufacturing,” says founder Evan Malone. For $129 a month, members can utilize the warehouse’s state-of-the-art equipment, hands-on training, and obvious proclivity towards collaboration. And in so doing, NextFab hopes to revigorate, to some extent, the storied “workshop of the world.”

• Flying Kite shows that small-scale manufacturing is alive and well in Fishtown as well. While the riverside neighborhood’s “industrial glory days may have withered … they left a sturdy skeleton,” with denim Jeans, metal furniture, rubber, and soap all being shipped out.

• The updated Master Plan for the Navy Yard adds greater focus to bolstering its technology business community.Technically Philly looks ahead, as various companies begin ambitious projects in the next year. For one, the Energy Efficient Buildings (EEB) Hub wants “to be the premiere place in the country for any company who’s innovating in the building technology space,” says executive director Laurie Actman.

• SugarHouse Casino will pay $650,000 in order to settle claims that it dumped “dredged and/or fill material” into the Delaware River during the complex’s construction back in 2009-2010. The casino is currently proposing an expansion.

A golden glow on the Parkway | Photo: Bradley Maule

As a mammoth modernist apartment building at 22nd Street and Pennsylvania Avenue prepares to turn 60, its celebration seems appropriately opportune. Designed by the partnership of Elizabeth Fleisher and Gabriel Roth, the Parkway House opened in 1953, the first major Philadelphia building to be designed, in part, by a woman.

Thanks to comments made by legendary architect Denise Scott Brown at an Architects Journal luncheon, female architects are a current topic of conversation. Scott Brown, who has had an integral role in the development of post-modernist architecture and theory, stated that she should be retroactively recognized for the Pritzker Prize her husband and partner Robert Venturi won in 1991. This has re-ignited the debate of women’s recognition in the field, even inspiring a petition, supported by former recipients Rem Koolhaas, Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, demanding acknowledgment of Scott Brown by the Pritker Prize.

The role of female architects has famously gone overlooked, particularly in Scott Brown’s home city of Philadelphia. Georgina Pope Yeatman was the first female architect to become registered in the state of Pennsylvania in 1930. Anne Tyng, a master of form, was Philadelphia’s first prominent female architect, and was one of the first females to graduate from Harvard’s architecture school. Elizabeth Fleisher, a fellow Philadelphian and predecessor in the profession, was not allowed to attend Harvard, where her husband Horace studied landscape architecture, did not admit women at the time.

Born and raised in Philadelphia, Fleisher received her Bachelor of Arts from Wellesley College in 1914 and her Master of Architecture in 1929 from the Cambridge School of Architecture, then associated with Smith College. In 1934, she became the fourth woman in Pennsylvania to obtain an architecture license. She returned to Philadelphia to work at the firm Simon & Simon, where she remained until 1931. After that, Fleisher took on research in building economics and housing, which brought projects under the firm names of Fleisher, Janney & David, Fleisher and Stephens, and Fleisher, Stephens & Fleisher. In 1941 she partnered with Gabriel Roth in forming the firm Roth & Fleisher, where she would remain until her retirement in 1958. With Roth, she worked on theaters, factories, and residential buildings; most notably the Parkway House, for which Fleisher was the design architect.

The quintessential Philadelphia roof deck | Photo: Fatima Olivieri

Finished in 1953, the Parkway House was one of the first postwar luxury apartment buildings in Philadelphia. Located adjacent to the Rodin Museum, Ben Franklin Parkway, and Philadelphia Museum of Art, its communal roof deck has become a prime spot to observe the city’s many festivities. In 2012, the building was a backdrop for the two day Made in America concert and the Open Air light installation.

Although very much a Modernist design, the 14-story brick clad concrete and steel building contains elements of both the Art Deco and International styles. Its ziggurat-like form responds to its context by stepping in at each floor towards the east and west, allowing for private terraces and expansive views towards the city skyline and PMA. The first floor serves as a public plinth on which the residential floors sit. Although most of the first floor has been converted into residences, the original design included both residential and public amenities. Prior to this conversion in 2012, a notary, a pub, and a deli all provided services to the building’s tenants and neighbors. The glass entry fronts a private driveway and a communal terrace that faces recently renovated Von Colln Memorial Field.

Bays above | Photo: Fatima Olivieri

Fleisher included semi-circular bay windows to decorate the façades along Pennsylvania Avenue and 22nd Street. These windows give depth to an otherwise flat composition and allow large amounts natural daylight into the most desirable spaces. The north façade along Spring Garden Street has a simpler design approach. The stark brick wall is interrupted only by punched openings which grow in height at upper floors, accommodating more generous ceiling heights and northern views. This northern form also jogs in at multiple corners, creating additional corner units with wide sweeping views.

Her research in economics and housing allowed Fleisher to develop a variety of residential unit types. The 231 units range in scale and size from small studio apartments to two story multi-bedroom units with square footage ranging from 350 sq ft to 5,000 sq ft. The communal roof deck, a take on Le Corbusier’s Five Points of Architecture, allows residents that don’t have one of the private terraces to enjoy 360° views of the skyline.

With the Parkway House, Elizabeth Fleisher had an intrinsic hand in the evolving fabric of the Ben Franklin Parkway. In November of 1989 the American Institute of Architects Philadelphia designated the building a Philadelphia Chapter Landmark, recognizing both Roth and Fleisher. The commemorative plaque is visible in the lobby, a testament to the role of women architects in Philadelphia.

In-school sentiment: a sign at Bok Tech laments the inevitable | Photo: Katrina Ohstrom

On March 7, 2013, the state-charged School Reform Commission, citing massive budget shortfalls, voted to close 23 of Philadelphia’s public schools, shuttering about 10 percent of buildings within the district. Edward W. Bok Technical High School, at 8th and Mifflin Streets in South Philadelphia, is among the 23. (With the SRC’s decision this week to spare the Beeber Middle School, the list was reduced to 22. For a comprehensive report on the impact of these school closings, click to a special report at AxisPhilly HERE. For Hidden City’s comprehensive map of school and church closings, click HERE.)

Built in 1938, Bok Tech is one of the only school buildings in the city entirely financed and constructed by the Works Progress Administration. More of a limestone castle than an ivory tower, Bok is one of the last remaining schools designed by Irwin Catharine and one of only four schools within the district that offers vocational training to its students.

“Right sizing” of the School District calls for up to 64 schools to be closed by 2017. Many of them are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The first wave of closings last spring saw three schools shuttered. This year 23 will close, 13 of them listed on the National Register of Historic Places, nine of those designed by Irwin Catharine, including Bok Tech (a listing on the National Registers confers the owner of a building the possibility for access to tax credits for renovation/reuse, but doesn’t protect the building from demolition).

Waiting for the bell at Bok | Photo: Bradley Maule

Over the years, the career and technical education programs that Bok has offered its students have changed substantially. At one point there were two television studios, a cosmetology program, and a screenprinting workshop, among others.

More recently, alongside a core academic curriculum, students have been able to study accounting, bookkeeping, carpentry, health/medical assisting services, commercial/advertising art, computer systems networking and communications, engineering technologies, and culinary arts.

Robin Ricca-Bouden, a culinary arts instructor at Bok Tech for the past four years, agreed to speak with me about her program, which she says is entirely different from the traditional home economics. “The students work in a restaurant setting both in the kitchen and in the front of the house or at the cafe,” she says. “The students learn all aspects of how a real restaurant is run by developing culinary skills, restaurant management, and hospitality. I teach both a hands-on experience along with book work from a variety of texts.”

Ricca-Bouden stresses that career and technical training is important because not every student is destined for college. Many students learn best with a hands-on approach and the experience gained while still in high school gives them an opportunity to learn a trade and enter the workforce right after graduation. Some of her students have found part time jobs in their fields before graduating.

“The skills that the students learn are in need every day. Where would we be without any carpenters, nursing assistants, electricians, auto repair technicians, or culinary artists?” she asks. “So many careers are started in schools like Bok. Not only are they working, they are supporting themselves, and some of them are even supporting their families.”

Before and After the Depression

Remnants of the 30s in the auditorium | Photo: Katrina Ohstrom

The combination of a liberal arts education and a technical apprenticeship, vocational education rose to prominence during the first World War when the nation needed trained, skilled workers to support the war effort. Immediately after the war, an economic and industrial boom resulted in growing demand for skilled workers, and new vocational schools were built to train new generations of wage earners.

The schools were so prosperous in fact, that it took until 1932 for the depression to fully hit them, as battered banks demanded repayment of loans and successfully lobbied for cuts both to programs and teacher salaries to compensate for budget deficits.

As a result of these austerity measures, class sizes increased, schools closed and funding for programs including vocational education all but dried up as the anemic schools were stripped down to the the bare academic minimum.

As the depression trudged along, local financing of schools evaporated. Many people didn’t have the money to pay their property taxes and large numbers of citizens simply refused to. Tax revolts became a popular form of protest as thousands of “tax leagues” sprung up around the country, demanding cutbacks of federal spending and lobbying for a smaller, leaner, more localized government.

State governments stepped in and attempted to fill the gap in education budgets. This led to both standardized curricula and financial practices, as often times the funding came in the form of foundation grants, which distributed money equally among individual districts (and had the unfortunate side effect of perpetuating the inequality of education between poor and more affluent districts).

The Roosevelt Administration got minimally involved with some initial financial assistance. The Federal Emergency Relief Administration paid some $14 million in teacher salaries to help keep schools open, and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation helped with some of the massive debt that districts owed to banks. It also leveraged federal funding for non-educational projects against states who threatened to cut funding for schools.

Traditional mindsets regarding the federal government’s hands-off relationship with public education eventually won out, however, and the majority of New Deal support ended up being delivered not as direct financial assistance, but rather through the Works Progress Administration, the National Youth Administration, and the Civilian Conservation Corps, which focused on employment and infrastructure improvement rather than institutions and organizations.

In addition to physical improvements to infrastructure, public education underwent a paradigm shift as it was demonstrated that poor children could be successful if they were provided with the proper tools and not handicapped by their circumstances. This sort of radical egalitarianism didn’t sit well with traditional educators, as it served as a bold challenge to the elitism and traditional power structures that had been the status quo for as long as anyone could remember.

By the late 1930s the economy had begun to recover. Steadily improving private sector employment caused the WPA to change course and focus on vocational training, preparing students for factory jobs. Labor unions had been fighting this for some time (in fear of an oversaturated jobs market) but with the advent of the Second World War, unemployment virtually disappeared and the country saw a resurgence of popular support for vocational training, as skilled civilian workers were needed to support the war effort yet again.

What next for food prep? | Photo: Katrina Ohstrom

Lost by the Great Recession

Concerned about what will happen after Bok Tech closes this spring, Ricca-Bouden says, “many of my students are not going to attend a culinary program next year and I have some great students that have opted to go to a comprehensive school instead of a Vo-Tech school. I’m hoping they won’t get lost in the shuffle of the school district. Many of the students that come to Bok say that if it wasn’t for their shop classes they would have no interest in coming to school at all.”

Senior Jacquelyn Palillero, age 17, says that her favorite things about Bok Tech are the vocational classes and credits the culinary program with giving her the “advantage of learning many things and a great teacher to teach you hands-on.” Palillero adds that Bok “has made a huge impact in my life by helping me choose the right industry to pursue.” Next year she will be attending college for culinary arts.

It’s easy to romanticize schools that are slated for closure, particularly when they are housed in beautiful and historic buildings, but the decision of the SRC to shutter Bok Tech–ham-handed as it may be–was not entirely arbitrary. An aging building is expensive to maintain and operate even when it is operating at full capacity, but when enrollment drops, per pupil cost skyrockets.

Many schools have been operating under capacity (many at less than 60 percent), for years, as charter school enrollment has steadily increased, siphoning students out of their neighborhood schools. A detailed analysis in 2011 revealed that there are over 70,000 empty seats district-wide.

The 2011-2012 school year saw Bok operating at less than 60 percent capacity, with only 914 students between all four grades. The building is huge and with steadily declining enrollment, the per pupil cost to maintain and heat has steadily increased. The top two floors of the building have been sealed off for years (to comply with fire code), and cannibalized for replacement floor tiles and lighting fixtures to maintain the lower floors. Without a librarian to staff it, the library has also been closed for years.

The empty classroom | Photo: Katrina Ohstrom

According to School District data, more than 21 percent of students at Bok have disabilities; more than nine percent are English language learners and nearly 94 percent are economically disadvantaged. All of these factors increase average education cost per pupil.

Despite these challenges, Bok Tech ranks quite a few notches above the District average in achievement and significantly higher than South Philadelphia High School, where many of students will move next year. Bok has a 74.4 percent graduation rate compared to the district’s 57.4 percent, and South Philly High’s 42.1 percent. Bok’s dropout rate is 2 percent compared to the district’s 4.1 percent and South Philly High’s 13.2 percent.

The decision to close Bok Tech will have other ramifications. Southwark Elementary, just across the street, shares Bok’s boiler. Even empty of students, Bok can’t be decommissioned (and put to another use) until Southwark has an independent heating system. This seems unlikely given the dire financial straits of the district. Bok will quite possibly sit vacant for years to come.

Michael Bryant | Inquirer

• In order to realize the full potential of its collections, the Rosenbach Museum and Library will merge its collection into the Free Library of Philadelphia, says the Inquirer. At the heart of the mater are shifting trends in the city’s philanthropic community. “Foundations have grown less likely to give general operating support (grants unrelated to one-time programs), and those that do require more paperwork, which demands staff time the Rosenbach no longer has the resources for.” The merger should be complete by June 30, upon the nominal approval of various stakeholders.

• First District Councilman Mark Squilla last week introduced the legislation needed to create the Central Delaware Overlay.Plan Philly reviews several of the last minute changes in the bill, as the Central Delaware Advocacy Group (CDAG) had a chance to comment on proposals.

• On Monday, some 200 advocates for charter expansion protested outside the headquarters of the School District. This year, 21 charters are requesting a combined 6,000 new seats from the District. Yet it’s not so easy, says Donna Cooper, the executive director of the advocacy group Public Citizens for Children and Youth. “We don’t have a printing press for cash. So we need to…look at the state and say, ‘restore the cuts that were made, and then we can turn around and have this discussion about expansion and more quality seats.’”

• An apartment complex under construction in South Kensington—D3 Real Estate’s Oxford Mills—will offer discounted rates for Philadelphia public, charter, and private school teachers, reports CBS Philly.