Music Fund Hall

The Music Fund Society of Philadelphia was established in 1820 and is the oldest, continuing musical organization in the United States.

Its Music Fund Hall at 808 Locust Street in the Washington Square neighborhood was converted into the largest musical auditorium in Philadelphia by William Strictland in 1824.

The building was renovated by Napoleon Le Brun in 1847 and expanded by Addison Hutton in 1891.

The building was the location of the first Republican National Convention in 1856.

The Music Fund Hall in 1976 during the revitalization of Society Hill and Washington Square

After moving the Society's concerts to the Academy of Music, the building entertained a number of uses including a boxing arena and a tobacco warehouse. The auditorium was demolished to convert the space into condominiums and the remaining facade was removed from the list of National Historic Landmarks. It still holds a place on the National Register of Historic Places.

Music Fund Hall today

Horticultural Hall

The original Horticultural Hall

The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society was founded in 1827. Its most well known home was designed by Frank Miles Day in 1894 and demolished in 1917.

Frank Miles Day - Horticultural Hall

An earlier incarnation was designed by an unknown architect and served as the society's hall until it was destroyed by the fire of a nearby church on February 1st, 1881. It was later replaced by the Day design, both located next to the Academy of Music on South Broad Street.

Horticultural Hall c.1881

One of two permanent buildings constructed for America's first World's Fair, the Centennial Exposition in 1876, was Horticultural Hall, designed by Hermann J. Schwarzmann. It was influenced by London's Crystal Palace. Horticultural Hall was demolished in 1955.

Horticultural Hall - Centennial Exposition

Although none of the society's original buildings remain, their legacy lives on as the Horticultural Center in Fairmount Park, which was built on the site of the Centennial Exposition's Horticultural Hall for the Bicentennial celebration where it remains today.

North Horticultural Drive and Montgomery Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19131

Display House: Open Daily 9am - 3pm, except holidays
Horticulture Center Grounds : Open Daily, except holidays
November 1 - March 31 - Hours 8am - 5pm
April 1 - October 31 - Hours 8am - 6pm

Rothschild Building

The Rothschild Building at 12-14 South Broad Street once stood at the current site of Dilworth Plaza. It was demolished for the expansion of the Arcade Building, torn down in the 1960's to make room for the plaza. The Rothschild Building was designed by Yarnall and Goforth.

The Granary

Pearl Properties proposed converting The Granary at 20th and Callowhill into a mixed use high rise by adding twelve stories of modern apartments to the top of the silos. While the plan was ultimately denied, and subtly criticized by Inga Saffron, it could open a debate over how and why to preserve historically significant buildings that no longer serve a practical purpose because of elements that serve its historical significance.

The Granary was built by the Reading Company in 1925, and is historically significant because it represents an era that once dominated this neighborhood, an era represented solely by The Granary.

But is it architecturally significant? One can hardly argue the right angles to be design. In fact there really are no artistic elements to this building. It is purpose-built practicality throughout. However, the building's aesthetics are so staunchly preserved that in order to reuse this building, Granary Associates occupies a bevy of windowless floors in order to maintain the gray, concrete facade.

That's quite a sacrifice, to deny architects a view of their city to save a barren wall. Would it really be a preservative sin to allow the few large windows to be replicated on each floor? As something architecturally significant, I can understand this tedious preservation, but as an historical representation of a bygone era, the history lies in its presence and location, not in the detail, or lack thereof.

This building preserves an era that's ending made it impractical. As it stands the Granary stares over our Champs-Élysées, a white elephant amongst meticulously designed museums and parks, but an artistically designed addition could allow it to continue to serve as an historical reminder of a bygone era while adding architectural significance to the location.

Pennhurst Asylum

Eastern Pennsylvania State Institution for the Feeble-Minded and Epileptic, better known as Pennhurst Hospital, in Spring City, PA was opened in 1908 to serve as a state school and hospital for the region's mentally and physically disabled.

In 1987 the hospital was forced to close following allegations of abuse. During this time many of the nation's largest state mental hospitals began releasing their patients and closing their doors to the public.

In recent years there has been movement to redevelop the grounds of Pennhurst with sensitive memory to its history. Unfortunately this idealistic move to preserve its memory as a landmark of suffering has insured its ultimate demise.

Currently the property is being operated as a Halloween attraction called Pennhurst Asylum, stirring up mixed emotions and causing me to question throwing parties or even residing in a 209 year old indentured servant house. Ultimately I believe history is history. You can preserve a building with a history of suffering without making everyone who wants to see the building suffer in the process.

Pennhurst opens the discussion of how to reuse architecturally and historically significant properties when the most feasible way of sustaining a property might possibly insult its memory, particularly in a city as old as Philadelphia and a region as old as ours, where our most historic landmarks are from a different place and time.

When activists project a 21st Century opinion on landmarks dating back decades, and even centuries, people wind up protesting events we cannot possibly comprehend and demonizing 15th Century explorers from monarchies that don't exist anymore.

In a time of increasingly irrational political correctness, significant landmarks continue to decay and history is being lost at the hands of overactive sensitivity.

Ghosts of Fairmount

My first time at Eastern State Penitentiary was in 1994, not long after the decrepit prison was opened to the public for the first time since 1971. The decay was so fresh that guests were required to wear hardhats. I had never heard the term "Preserved State of Decay" until my first tour of Eastern State. It conjures up images of rusted industrial equipment frozen in time and abandoned churches that still stand as a testament to respectful communities. In all, it represents what I love about Philadelphia. While many cities would choose to restore even their most sinister landmarks, and employ marketing strategies to build their urban landscape around the appeal of the status quo, Philadelphia routinely chooses to embrace it's grit. We've never been clean, we've never been polished, and that is reflected in the choice to retain Eastern State as it is.

From its creation in 1829, it was a dark institution where every criminal was forced into solitary confinement. As the first of its kind, the famed prison attracted a visit by Charles Dickens, who wrote of it, "I hold this slow and daily tampering with the mysteries of the brain, to be immeasurably worse than any torture of the body." Outside their cells the inmates wore masks and were not allowed any contact with the world, not even with other inmates or guards. The Quaker philosophy of the prison prohibited physical abuse, so the prison became creative in its psychological punishment, often withholding necessities such as food or warmth, or employing even more bizarre tactics that would make Marie Antoinette blush.

Today Eastern State looms over the Fairmount neighborhood above Center City Philadelphia. The granite stained with almost 200 years of industry, blight, and rebirth. From outside the walls one may expect a museum that recites the history of the institution, offering tourists a five minute lock-in, and impeccably restored cell blocks. That wouldn't be very Philadelphian, and it certainly doesn't befit the history of Eastern State Penitentiary. Instead, what you will find is a handful of restored cells, several markers explaining what you are seeing, constantly changing art exhibits mostly inspired by the macabre surroundings, and lots of rotting wood, peeling paint, dust, rust, dirt, and nightmares. Even the cell that once held Al Capone, with the exception of the luxuries representing those brought to him by corrupt guards (including plush furniture and a radio), the room itself has not been touched or cleaned.

But it isn't all a dreary reminder of crime, abuse, and abandonment. One of my favorite art exhibits, and perhaps Eastern State's only permanent fixture is Linda Brenner's Ghost Cats. For 28 years, Dan McCloud cared for Eastern State's only inhabitants during it's decades of abandonment. As the shrubs and trees began to eat away at the stone and concrete, and nature began to reclaim its own, three times a week McCloud would go to the prison and feed a colony of stray cats that had begun to call this land their own. Brenner's Ghost Cats consists of 39 simple sculptures throughout the grounds all in uniquely feline poses, paying homage to McCloud and his cats.

The normal yearly tour will take visitors on an audio journey recorded by Steve Buscemi, in which you may explore the ruins at your own pace. Once complete, visitors are free to roam the grounds on their own, exploring nearly every nasty cranny of the hauntingly peaceful edifice. The winter tour is limited to small groups led by tour guides and because of the weather, all guests must remain with the tour guide. If you choose this, go when it snows and bundle up. And of course, every Halloween Eastern State Penitentiary hosts Terror Behind the Walls, consistently ranked as one of the country's best Halloween attractions. It's fun scary, not gross scary, and certainly worth your money. Although if one chooses to visit Eastern State on Halloween, I strongly suggest returning for the self guided tour. Even if you don't see any ghosts or goblins, you will be haunted.

Third National Bank

Once in the middle of Dilworth Plaza, on the corner of West Market Street and a now defunct portion of South Broad Street at 2 South Broad was the site of the Third National Bank. Built in 1892, it was designed by James Windrim & Son. Alterations were designed by Baker & Dallett in 1911 and John Torry Windrim in 1921. The last incarnation of the Third National Bank was demolished with the Arcade Building in the 1960s to make room for Dilworth Plaza, which shifted all southbound Penn Square traffic from South Broad to 15th Street.