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Four Germantown Landmarks and Others Added to the Local Register
At its meeting on November 10, the Philadelphia Historical Commission added five properties to the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places, amended an earlier designation, and declined to withdraw another. Its deliberations were occasionally punctuated by procedural questions. Two separate, historically-related parcels in Germantown were reviewed. The Sallie Watson House at...
Cultivating an Asian Oasis in Fairmount Park
As visitors enjoy the bike paths, hiking trails, and greenery of Fairmount Park, they are also invited to explore the historic houses that dot its landscape. East Fairmount Park has an array of Colonial and Federal-style mansions, but there is a house of a different style tucked away in West Fairmount Park behind the Please Touch Museum. Shofuso, a 17th-century style traditional Japanese guesthouse has been in the park since 1958. Even longtime locals are often surprised to learn that Shofuso exists. While the gardens offer a peaceful respite from the bustling city, Shofuso is more than a pretty picture. It is a unique architectural gem, a site of cultural exchange and education, and a community space for Japanese nationals and Philadelphia’s Japanese American community.
$1 Million Grant Program Launched to Help Black Sacred Spaces
A new grant program will aid Philadelphia’s Black houses of worship in maintaining their historic buildings and serving their communities. Partners for Sacred Places, in collaboration with the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia, has received $1 million from the William Penn Foundation to create the Philadelphia Fund for Black Sacred Spaces. For this first round of applications, they anticipate funding five to seven projects. “That number is small because we want to give out big grants. This gives a church a chance to do it right,” explained Reverend Betsy Ivey, the director of the initiative. “These buildings are old, so $30,000 would not do much.”
Mütter Museum Seeks Feedback With Future Visioning Project
On October 17 the Mütter Museum launched its first ongoing two-year open town hall meeting. Titled “Postmortem: A Future Visioning Project,” these community meetings are being held by the museum in response to recent changes in how biological specimens, including human bones, skeletons, organs, and tissue samples, are publicly presented and interpreted.
Historic Bank Building on Germantown Avenue Readies for Reuse
Most television bank commercials are the same. Worried parents at the kitchen table become smiling parents as they talk to a bank manager. Kids run through some grass. A dog wags its tail and tilts its head. Cue, “We’re more than just a bank,” and the commercial fades out. But are they though? In Mt. Airy, just maybe.
New Book Examines Philadelphia’s Appetite for Corruption
The hit sitcom Abbott Elementary is set in a Philadelphia public school. In the pilot episode, the idealistic first-year teacher Janine Teagues is frustrated in her quest to get a new classroom rug from School District authorities. Veteran teacher Melissa Schemmenti, a proud South Philly resident, explains how things work.
Ghosts Signs of Philadelphia: Machines and Bread in Olde Kensington
A walk around the two buildings on the southwest corner of 5th Street and Montgomery Avenue reveals an exquisite collection of ghost signs with a varied history. The largest wall on the north side of 500-506 W. Montgomery Avenue was clearly built as a canvas for painted business signs and advertisements.
Manayunk Canal, Once Relegated to History, is Getting a New Life
Once there was nothing but a free-flowing river amongst the trees. Then came a quick splash of industry: boats carrying coal, timber, and foodstuffs. But eventually, all went to ruin. And now, to renewal. That’s the story of a little pocket of Philadelphia hugging the banks of the Schuylkill River...
Art Gallery Emerges from Obscurity in Rittenhouse Square
Few buildings are as intimidating to enter as The Barclay at 237 S. 18th Street, which explains why most people have no idea that the gallery of the Center for Emerging Visual Artists (CFEVA) is hidden away on its third floor. There is no exterior signage indicating the presence of an art gallery, just a bronze sign that reads “Private Residence” that is meant to deter interlopers. Then, there is the matter of getting past the doorman. That is about to change thanks to the CFEVA’s new executive director, Juliette Cook.
A Tale of Two Gardens
Editor’s Note: A version of this story was published in the Fall 2023 issue of Extant, a publication of the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia. It’s easy to drive along Lindbergh Boulevard in Kingsessing and not realize you’re anywhere near a river, let alone that making one simple turn could land you in the peaceful oasis of Bartram’s Garden, one of the most notable early gardens in America, with its terraced, riverfront landscape of blooms, trees and sparkling schist buildings. It’s the kind of first-time experience that guarantees a joyful surprise. “Even to this day, native Philadelphians often don’t know this place,” said late Bartram’s Garden curator and historian Joel Fry, “but when they come here, everyone–even people who deliver packages here or people who get lost and come here by accident–go[es], ‘Wow, what is this place? I didn’t know this was here.’”
Places to Save: Fall 2023
Editor’s Note: A version of this story was published in the Fall 2023 issue of Extant, a publication of the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia. At the turn of the 20th century, as Girard Avenue west of Broad Street was becoming one of Philadelphia’s most sought-after addresses, William Lightfoot Price designed this French Gothic Revival house at 1609 West Girard Avenue for Ferdinand Keller, a significant importer of antiques to Philadelphia. Price, by then well-known for his suburban residential work in Wayne and Overbrook Farms, also received commissions for grand mansions due to his early training under Frank Furness and Addison Hutton. His design for this fashionable urban mansion features a loggia-style porch beneath a prominent segmental arch with a limestone-trimmed facade.
Unlisted Philadelphia: Home of Roy Campanella
Editor’s Note: A version of this story was published in the Fall 2023 issue of Extant, a publication of the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia. Born in Philadelphia in 1921, baseball legend Roy Campanella, the child of a white Italian immigrant father and an African American mother–a difficult lineage on the mean streets of Nicetown–grew up in this two-story brick rowhouse. But he earned respect on the diamond at Simon Gratz High School and, by age 16, in the Negro National League.
Restoration Role Model: 2000 Spruce Street
Editor’s Note: A version of this story was published in the Fall 2023 issue of Extant, a publication of the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia. CosciaMoos Architecture worked with City Living Philly to elegantly restore an 1860s brownstone in the Rittenhouse-Fitler Historic District to its former glory. Once John Wanamaker’s private residence, the building has undergone extensive renovations and demolitions in the course of a century and a half. Project architect Sergio Coscia spoke to Extant about the challenges and rewards of an eight-year renovation process.
Demolition Permit Issued for Armour & Company’s Stock Depot in Callowhill
In the mid 1800s the advent of ice-cooled train cars transformed the meat packing industry. Before then, trains carried livestock to various cities, where butchering was done by local firms. When it became possible to transport partially-butchered, or dressed beef, the major meat packing companies, many of which were based in Chicago, established branch locations in other cities and grew to national prominence.
$250M+ Redevelopment Brings Hope to Bartram Village in Kingsessing
In the long and rich history of Southwest Philadelphia, one of the bleakest chapters involves a 22-acre parcel on which the Bartram Village public housing development now sits. What once was Lenape land, then home to Swedes and wealthy colonialist landowners, then a bustling corner of industrialized America, is now...
The Future of Oakwell Takes a Turn as Advocates Continue to Rally
In October 2022, the mood in Lower Merion School District (LMSD) was tense. On one side, it was forcing the owner of Oakwell, an historic, 35-acre estate in Villanova, to sell his mansion to the school district by eminent domain and was threatening to clear cut the estate’s forest of heritage trees the following May to make way for an auxiliary middle school playing field. On the other side, residents, students, and conservationists were fighting to save what they viewed as a community treasure. However, on August 21, a meeting held by LMSD had an air of optimism. What has changed? Plenty. For starters, May came and went and not a single tree was removed.
Cultural Landmark in Byberry Added to the Philadelphia Register
The Philadelphia Historical Commission added one property to the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places and provided supportive comments to three local buildings nominated to the National Register of Historic Places at its meeting on September 8. The Byberry Store is located at 12965 Townsend Road in the crossroads community of...
Ministering to Mariners in Old Philadelphia
Philadelphia was one of the busiest ports in North America throughout most of the 18th century and 19th century. That brought a steady stream of sailors from all over the world into the city, laying over for several days or a week while their ships unloaded and reloaded cargo. This...
Philadelphia’s Movie Theater Maven Sets Her Sights on the Sedgwick
Architect Daniela Holt Voith, founding principal and director of design at Voith & Mactavish Architects, has approached the renovation of Sedgwick Theater at 7137 Germantown Avenue as a homecoming of sorts. “I grew up in Mt. Airy and have an incredibly strong memory of going to the Sedgwick when I was six or seven with my grandmother, who lived very close to us,” Voith explained. “She and I walked up and it was a matinee of The Three Stooges.”
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Hidden City Philadelphia of CultureTrust is dedicated to exploring Philadelphia’s urban landscape in all its complexity through journalism and public history.
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