Promising Changes for the Hale Building

The Divine Lorraine isn't the only Willis G. Hale masterpiece to be passed around from developer to developer, begrudgingly prompting the phrase "I'll believe it when I see it."

The Keystone Bank Building, otherwise know by its' architect as The Hale Building, at Juniper and Chestnut has been an uncertainty since its unremarkable Valu-Plus closed a few years ago.

The bizarre building, which has been hacked up and altered about as many times as it's changed hands, is a pedestrian favorite amongst both locals and tourists. For years its upper floors served as a gay bathhouse. Hidden City showcased a spectacular walkthrough photographed by Michael Burlando, offering us a glimpse at what so many wonder: "What the hell is up there?" 

Turns out, quite a bit of odd history but not much worth anything to developers. When scaffolding flanked the sidewalk, many had hoped that work had begun. Unfortunately the crumbling building had spawned fears in the city's office of Licenses & Inspections, and what looked like a construction site was just a safety precaution to keep concrete and stone from falling on passing by Instagrammers. 

But if all goes according to plan, the Hale Building will be bought by Brickstone Realty Company, it's upper floors converted into offices with two restaurants on the ground floor. 

Sure, as is the case with the Divine Lorraine, we've heard this all before. But Brickstone Realty isn't just one of the more experienced developers in the region, they also have a knack for acquiring uniquely historic properties and salvaging what makes them so special. 

To put that into perspective, Brickstone renovated the Wanamaker Building and Lit Brothers on Market East. 

Jacob Adelman of the Philadelphia Inquirer put together a great retrospective on the building's genealogy of tenants, a family tree that reads like a history of modern Philadelphia, all of which tell the kinds of stories that could write their own film noire. 

With Chestnut Street's redevelopment and emergence as a shopping destination and Market East being rebranded for the first time since the Gallery at Market East opened, the Hale Building - modest in size - has always been a no-brainer. It's just been silently laying in wait for the right developer with the right ideas. 

#thisjawnmatters

If VisitPhilly.com didn't completely kill the term "jawn" with it's "There's No Jawn Like Home" billboards, My Fox Philly sure did. The ad campaign is actually cute, and like a lot of what comes from VisitPhilly.com, the group doesn't just know the city, it loves it.

But like "hizzy" and "flippity floppity floop," suits tend to ruin slang. But that hasn't stopped the word from going viral a good decade or two after its first utterance. 

In the latest, "aww, how cute" moment, Young Friends of the Preservation Alliance have hashtagged "thisjawnmatters" to encourage pedestrians to look up at the built world around them. 

The group's Facebook page is insatiably hip.

Most recently the group gathered to decorate the infamous Hale Building at Chestnut and Juniper, the former location of Drucker's Bellevue Baths and Valu-Plus, designed by the Divine Lorraine's Willis G. Hale. 

The campaign cute.

The building, on the other hand, is a monolith of iconoclastic architectural elements that forebodes, inspires, and terrifies anyone willing to crane their next to the slightest degree. 

In short, #youbetyourassthisjawnmatters.

Construction paper hearts were draped across the gate of the shuttered Valu-Plus with phrases like "Save Me," "Look Up," and of course, "#thisjawnmatters". It's refreshing that the city's youth (god I hate writing that) have taken an interest in our architectural heritage, and it's nice that the Preservation Alliance has embraced them.

Still, being cute only gets you so far. It sells tickets to shows, cupcakes, even condos...it works for VisitPhilly.com. But when it comes to abandoned blight, it's going to take more than the end result of an Etsy party to save the Hale Building. And anyone in a position to save it, already knows that it's there. 

Impossible not to look up

Engaging the cities hippest works (somewhat) with campaigns like Unlitter Us, it creates community gardens, and it can even corral a few votes here and there. But the Preservation Alliance isn't necessarily in the business of being hip, nor should it be. Their catalog of threatened properties need costly intervention. 

Pop-media attention doesn't hurt, in fact it might encourage the Historical Commission to take their jobs a little more seriously. It might.

Whatever the case, it's delightful to see Millennials engaging in preservation - in their own way. It's one more party, many of whom are new to the city, proving that Philadelphia is more than just a place to live, but a living and evolving resident made of bricks and mortar.