Burnt Bricks

What happens when the earth beneath the ground catches fire and an entire town is forced to evacuate? You get the loose inspiration for the 1991 comedy, Nothing But Trouble: Centralia, PA.

Former State Highway 61 was rerouted when it began to succumb to the pressure below ground.

In 1962 a fire was started in the landfill of this Columbia County coal mining town, igniting an exposed anthracite coal vein and the earth beneath the town. As repeated attempts to extinguish the fire failed, the ground throughout the town of 1100 continued to smoke.

Trees line a street once lined with row homes.

Concern for the potential danger culminated in the late 70s and early 80s. An underground gas tank was found to be 172 degrees. A couple years later a 12 year old was nearly killed after the ground open up beneath him exposing a 150 foot deep sinkhole filled with carbon monoxide. He managed to hang to a tree root before his cousin pulled him to safety.

A stone wall along Park Street is lined with staircases leading up to what were once homes.

Domestic trees grow wild, tearing apart the manufactured remains of this abandoned town.

These incidents drew national attention and in 1984 U.S. Congress provided $42 million to relocate all residents to nearby towns. While the current census shows that seven residents remain, legally all remaining properties are condemned and as of 2009, all remaining residents have been formally evicted.

Centralia's South Hill shows the most obvious signs of the underground fire. The smoking ground is hot to the touch, releasing toxic carbon monoxide.

A lone staircase on Centralia's South Hill.

Besides the few hold outs on the town's small grid, signs of a once thriving small town can be found throughout Centralia's footprint. Trees have taken over sidewalks, faded stop signs mark intersections, and fire hydrants peek out above the overgrowth. The most significant sign of its former life is perhaps the stone wall with staircases marking the row homes that once lined Park Street.

Modern wind farms like the one west of Centralia can be found all around the region, perhaps signifying a new era in Pennsylvania power.

The only remaining street sign in Centralia is at the corner of Locust Avenue and Park Street.

State Route 61 takes you into Centralia. A bypass has been constructed around the original divided highway. Having succumbed to the earth settling into the burning coal mine, scarred with cracks and sink holes, highway 61 looks like it was destroyed by an earthquake. Smoke billows from its large crevasses where graffiti aptly tags it the "Highway to Hell".

In a small park at Locust and Park, a stone wall and time capsule marker are maintained.

Along Locust Avenue, or Highway 61, a stone wall is maintained surrounding a time capsule to be opened in 2016.

Centralia's blocks are marked with rows and rows of concrete and stone foundations, domestic hedges, spring flowers, and large trees that once divided lawns. At the hill on the south side of town is the heart of the underground fire. Smoke pours from vent pipes and cracks in the ground. Hot to the touch, the polluted air makes the area inhospitable to any sign of life but a bright green moss that seems to thrive in the acrid stench.

The Centralia Municipal Building houses emergency services supported by volunteers from neighboring towns.

Servicing the lone residents who have stayed in their homes, emergency services are provided by volunteers from neighboring towns, using the former municipal building to house an ambulance and fire truck. Atop the surrounding landscape are a strip mined mountain top to the west and modern windmills to the east; Centralia's forgotten contribution to powering America's early industry wedged in a small valley may continue to burn for the next 1000 years.

On the hill to the north opposite the smoke and poisonous gas, a small church watches over the few residents who choose not to leave Centralia and their homes.

The Next Great City...still?

Philadelphia was pegged "The Next Great City" four years ago in 2007, and we're still embracing the label.

I just want to offer my humble opinion, maybe it's time to either become the Great City or move on to a new platform.

It's certainly better than "The Sixth Borough" or "Philadelphia Isn't as Bad as Philadelphian's Say it is," but I think we can do even better.

Second Chance for the Church of Assumption

The Church of the Assumption on Spring Garden has received another stay of execution. Well, not exactly. Today's decision was passed off to Department of Licenses & Inspection. L&I's unsympathetic reputation towards historic buildings (and disregard for legal protocol) is disconcerting enough in itself. But Siloam, the agency that currently owns the historically significant property clearly wants nothing to do with the building. When initially given an estimate of $1.5 million just to stabilize the church, Siloam saught to demolish the building for a parking lot.

They have since hired consultants to point out the potential hazards in the dilapidated icon of Spring Garden.

Yeah. We know it's in rough shape. Do something with it or sell it.

Besides, no independent assessments of the building's condition have been made. Total estimates of more than $5 million allegedly required for the building's total restoration were made by consultants picked by Siloam.

During its maneuvering, Siloam has had 75 inquiries and 15 visits from prospective buyers, yet claims no serious offers have been made. The property is valued at less than $600,000, which will fetch you a modest McMansion in Cherry Hill. And not one serious offer has been made?

The goose with the golden egg will testify when the hearing continues on March 28th. The Clay Studio in Old City is looking for new home and would be eligible for credits towards the building's restoration. Representatives from the studio visited the property but were deterred by its imminent demolition.

In short: They want the building, not the property. So why, if 15 prospective buyers were shown the property, did Siloam claim that all prospective buyers were uninterested? Because if Siloam is allowed to move forward with their plans, the state is prepared to cover the cost of its demolition, and speculatively, Siloam wants its parking lot.

Yeah, Callowhill needs more parking.

SEPTA Goes Green...er

As Forbes uses Philadelphia to wipe its butt with seemingly weekly national rankings, the city hasn't allowed the nation's negative impression to dampen its innovate spirit. Perhaps that's because we're used to it.

Recently ranked the nation's most toxic major city, Philadelphia is silently leading the way in alternative energy uses.

While the West Coast's feel good factories charge their yuppies big bucks for a sense of self satisfaction and "green" gimmicks promise to save the earth, here we don't always have the most altruistic motives behind our innovations. We're prompted by the nudge most historically proven to succeed: Money. Whether saving it or making it, we're slowing finding ways to make alternative energies worth their weight in recycled cans, and they could one day save our cash strapped city.

I'm not talking about marketing hybrids and low flow toilets to hipsters. I'm talking about using experimental green technology to actually save money. It's been the dream of idealists for years. Renewable energy should theoretically be cheap, but the technology has always made it a luxury most economically diverse cities couldn't afford.

But not necessarily any more. Not only might Philadelphia be home to the first self sustaining sports complex in the word, SEPTA is now working with Viridity Energy to turn our 100 year old subway system into a fuel efficient hybrid.

The Pennsylvania Energy Department Authority has given SEPTA and Viridity Energy a $900,000 grant to install a regenerative breaking system along the Market-Frankford line generating 1.5 megawatts of power.

The power can use used by accelerating trains, stored for future use, or even sold to the city's power grid. SEPTA is expected to save $500,000. If the technology were applied to the entire system, SEPTA's energy use could be cut by 40%.

Back in the Top 5!

The numbers are in and for the first time since the 1940s, we've grown! At one time the second largest city in the British Empire, Philadelphia began declining in the 1950s from over 2 million people to an all time low of just above 1.5 million in 2000.

But today it's been made certain, we have grown by .6% to 1,526,066, securing our spot in the 2010 census as the fifth most populous city in the United States. Although Phoenix grew by 9.4% and was expected to replace Philadelphia's two decade spot at number five, the economy and politics took a toll on the Sunbelt's sprawling metropolis, and it fell short with 1,445,632 residents.

.6% may not seem substantial, but in a city scarred by the loss of more than half a million people, small growth is significant. Think about it this way: In the past 50 years, Philadelphia has lost 554,055 people, more than the population of Atlanta. Even at .6%, the fact that Philadelphia is growing after losing a quarter of it's residents is cause for celebration.

New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago still hold the top three, with Houston at number four.

Philadelphia's Metropolitan and Statistical Area is at number five as well, at 5,968,252, just behind Dallas-Ft. Worth, both trailing New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago.

Philly.com

Nightmares in the Attic

I lived in my rental trinity for several years before realizing it had at attic. That's because the door had been sealed behind a shower stall. I saw it once when the landlord made repairs on the bathroom and I did everything in my power not to pick off the remaining drywall and sneak a peak inside.

I later found peace from the horrors of a locked and abandoned room when a neighbor told me that she had seen her attic. She suggested that all the attics in the five house complex were connected. Great. So she's seen my attic, my landlord's seen my attic. It's clean, and most importantly, no bodies.

Well apparently my neighbor's sweeping glance of her attic wasn't that clear. As my third floor ceiling continues to leak dark water from 210 years of deteriorating cedar planks, my landlord informed me that there was, in fact, no way to access my attic. In fact, the door was sealed shut when plumbing was installed in what was once home to a pair of servants indentured to a wealthy family on Vine Street.

Two years ago when a plumber removed the shower stall to replace a leaky basin, I was unaware that we stood closer to the blackness that sat above my bedroom than anyone had in half a century, perhaps more. Three inches of drywall and a faded cabinet door were all that remained between me and a dark space sealed shut and forgotten.

My landlord's eyes grew big when I told him I had once seen the door. It prompted me to ask, "What is up there? Why was it sealed shut?" I got a vague response that was little more than a shrug. The shower could have easily been added to the south wall of the room, but instead the attic door knob was removed, and the shower stall was placed in front of it, holding the door shut and keeping it's secrets secret.

The home's 210 year history has seen slaves, servants, immigrants, prostitutes, and bohemians, all of which may have accessed and used the mysterious space above the third floor. These are the kinds of spaces where people hide that which they hold most sacred, from others but also from themselves, locked in an attic for posterity, lost to time.

What demons does this attic hold? Loot, letters, maybe a body? Perhaps it's just a couple inches of brown water and black mold. Whatever sits behind that shower, knowing that it hasn't been opened in 50 years has made me even more eager to see what's behind that door.

Eraserhead

It seems like everyone has been catching David Lynch's cult classic, Eraserhead, On Demand. After hearing that this neighborhood was often referred to as the Eraserhood because of Lynch's residing here in the 60s and 70s, and as a Twin Peaks fan, I figured I'd see what all the fuss was about.

Like a lot of his stuff, it seemed weird for the sake of being weird. A lot of very interesting and eerie stills that might make better photography than cinema, and a story that probably only makes sense to him, if even.

Still, like most of David Lynch's more avante garde films, it's unusual visuals make for good conversation. It's an interesting bit of local flavor too. Lynch has stated that the movie was inspired by his nights in the Callowhill neighborhood in the 60s and 70s.

I would love to see the Callowhill Neighborhood Association organize a public showing of this, perhaps in one of the vacant lots or parking lots around the neighborhood. Maybe even up against the locked entrance to the viaduct.

So many Callowhill residents are always talking about the hidden potential in the Reading Viaduct, but in the mean time rarely go outside. Even if the neighborhood association wasn't interested, I can't imagine it would be that difficult to clean up a lot and power up a projector.

The entrance to the viaduct is used for nothing more than a dog park and could easily be cleaned up for an outdoor mixer. It would be a great way to get people out to meet each other. Most Callowhill residents seem to drive straight to their parking space, go home, and lock the door.

Even if one wouldn't be interested in David Lynch's nightmares, wandering out in the evening and opening their doors to migle with their neighbors would be a welcome change to a neighborhood that's been hiding in its own shadows since long before David Lynch ever set foot here.