Can Preservation Be Proactive?

To look at Philadelphia from the river, we look like any other successful city. Office buildings dominate the skyline, historic steeples complement glassy towers, and from University City to Market East, the city continues to be redefined architecturally. 

But step inside and it's another story. We aren't a city that moves quickly. If New York and Chicago build like the Autobahn, Philadelphia's development climate can be summed up by the Schuylkill at 5PM any time of day.

We are a culture that caters to bureaucracy and neighborhood organizations that miss the mark, and it scars the landscape. As a city home to perhaps the nation's largest portfolio of architectural history and heritage, the fight to save our most beleaguered landmarks is often lost to decades of squabbles. What's worse, some of the most careless developers know this and use it to their advantage.

If you want to tear down a crumbling church for a parking lot or suburban strip mall, all you have to do is wait it out. No site in Center City knows this better than the historic Church of the Assumption on Spring Garden Street.

After years of on-again off-again bickering between developers, owners, the Historical Commission, and advocacy groups, a demolition permit has been issued to the building's current owner, John Wei. Considering all of the city's historical losses in the past forty or fifty years, placing a site on the city's Register of Historic Places almost seems like it ensures a building's inevitable demolition.

The current state of the church means it will almost certainly be demolished despite any appeals. It's just too costly to repair, at least in terms with what you could actually get out of such a space. Were it habitable, it would make a nice gym, theater, or nightclub. But its condition is not a technicality. It's falling apart.

The Church of the Assumption is unique. What happened to it, unfortunately is not. And I'm not just referring to the loss of a landmark. I'm talking about how it was lost. Call it what you want, but what happened to the Church of the Assumption boils down to a dysfunctional dinner table argument full of family members only tethered to each other by blood. While Grandpa was complaining about cell phones, the parents announced their divorce, and the daughter Tweeted the whole ordeal...the dinner rotted and ended up in the dog's bowl.

But this is a lesson Philadelphia's historical advocates are routinely offered but never learn. And it's going to happen again. The Spruce Parker Hotel was recently shut down after a small fire. It's not a historically designated building, nor should it be, but it's a beefy building on a prime corner. Without an eager buyer willing to upgrade the modest hotel, it will begin to deteriorate and we'll wind up with another surface parking lot in Center City.

Around the corner, the renovation of the Lincoln Apartments appears to have stalled. It may simply be that the logistics of rebuilding an aging structure from the inside out is too complex to show quick signs of progress. But it may also be that the effort has proven more complicated and costly than first thought. Old City recently learned the cost of letting a building drift into disrepair. As the Shirt Corner closed and promised a handsome 3rd and Market, it's twin burned leaving the corner with a vacant lot and a prime corner looking worse than ever.

So what's the point of this rambling rant? Well, for starters, true advocates need to be proactive, not reactive. It's understandable amongst community organizations. Members don't have time to be on top of every effort. They have jobs. But those charged with protecting history, being on top of the effort is the job. Fighting a fight at the eleventh hour rarely works, and this has been made painfully apparently time and time again. 

The Church of the Assumption will be torn down whether or not anyone wants to admit it. It's unfortunate, and I'm not being negative. I'm suggesting we looking for the next Church of the Assumption: Robinson's Department Store, The Roundhouse, The Health District Center. Start the fight before it's a fight. Proactively seek tenants not just with the means to preserve these landmarks, but with the desire for landmark properties. 

The Other Church of the Assumption

Spring Garden's Church of the Assumption still stands, largely gutted, facing an unfortunate and familiar fate. Despite a fate as crumbling as the building itself, its steeples still stand proudly...and straight.

Another landmark church, the Emanuel German Lutheran Church on South 4th Street does not appear to be as lucky. But its fate is the result of neglect instead of litigation.

As of 2010, the Vietnamese Phat Quang Buddhist Temple was hopeful about the church they occupied, but four years later the structure remains a little more weathered, and when I drove by this morning, its steeple seems to be leaning eastward.

 Knowing that two of the biggest obstacles in saving the Church of the Assumption came from restoring the two towers which served little active purpose to potential tenants, the construction headaches in an even larger tower and steeple that has begun to significantly sag, will unlikely be tackled.

Whether or not preservationists revisit the Emanuel Lutheran Church on South 4th Street, the tower seems to be a cause already lost to the elements.

The Boyd Theater: What's Next?

Despite an anonymous offer to purchase the Boyd Theater from its current owners, the Historical Commission has agreed to let Live Nation demolish the historic theater. Why is entirely up for speculation. The purchase price of $4.5M didn't come with any guarantees. In fact, one very possible outcome from saving the Boyd's auditorium at the behest of advocates could have resulted in it sitting vacant for another decade, ultimately leading to the loss of the entire building. iPic Theaters has agree to restore the façade.

However given the Historical Commission's job performance, that doesn't mean the city had the theater's best interests in mind. The commission has allowed a number of properties that they deemed historic to crumble in the hands of slum lords and property hoarders, ultimately approving them for demolition.

The Historical Commission's namesake is a bit of a misnomer, and it's questionable whether anyone in the agency understands what constitutes history or why. It's a poorly funded city agency that reviews nominations for historic properties, then I assume they choose the prettiest and slap an arbitrary historic sticker on it. After that, private developers are saddled with the financial burden of restoring a crumbling relic. The commission does nothing to ensure the safety of its historic properties. Many, such as the Church of the Assumption, slowly become undesirable or even unusable pieces of property.

But the loss of the Boyd doesn't have to be a complete wash. This forgotten theater generated more awareness surrounding preservation in one of America's most historic cities than some of Philadelphia's most notable abandonment. There are lessons that have been learned and the commission's flaws exposed.

Sites like the Divine Lorraine and the SS United States are well known because their presence is so prominent. Their fate is unsure because they've sat vacant and stripped. But there are dozens of other sites in the city which, much like the Boyd, are completely usable yet unknown or unappreciated to those passing by.

Instead of dwelling over the demise of the Boyd, the momentum and public awareness it generated needs to be used to move on to the next threatened property: The Roundhouse, Robinson's Department Store, The Department of Public Health, The National Building. These are strange buildings, notable architectural examples that represent unique historic eras. They also sit on prime property ripe for redevelopment.

Maybe it's difficult for those vested in the past to look at the future. But all too often preservationists come to the aid of our historic properties the very moment it's too late. Let's not wait for the wrecking ball to come to The National Office of Big Brothers Big Sisters before we decide it's worth saving. And while we have the attention of the media and the public, let's take the Historical Commission to task for neglecting its sole responsibility: protecting our city's history.

Don't Stop the Music

Philadelphia isn't known as a nightclub kind of town. It's somewhat sad. If this were the 90s, in any other city, saving Spring Garden's Church of the Assumption would be easy. Turn it into an amazing nightclub. Serve up signature Blood of Christ cocktails from chalices while sushi is rolled across the Abs of Christ atop the crucifix.

Have those comments weeks before Jesus's birthday secured my place in Hell? Don't worry, I'm already well on my way.

I'm not young enough to enjoy the Adderall popping unicorn farts the nightlife scene has become, but I'm not old enough to wax poetic about my glory days.

But I'm going to anyway.

Back in my day, the Roaring 90s, in a distant land of Olde DC, there was a place called Tracks. It was in a terrifying neighborhood, which in 1995, was most of Washington. It's now the site of the Expos Stadium, sorry, I mean the Senators, er, the Nationals. Whatever that sorry excuse for Disney Baseball nostalgia decided to brand itself.

Tracks DC

You know what was nostalgic? A sandpit volleyball court next to a hamburger grill where you could enjoy some mozz sticks, a Potomac polluted cocktail, and jump into a volleyball game with a frat boy, lesbian, goth chick, and a drag queen digging her size 13s into the sand in the shadow of the US Capitol Building. It was a performer being lowered onto the roller rink sized dance floor atop a ten food wide disco ball.

It was fantastic. No, it was fabulous.

Unfortunately I didn't move to Philadelphia until 2003, right around the time that the cast of Friends started marrying each other and the cast of Sex and the City forever ruined the urban experience.

You see, in the 80s and 90s the only people with the balls to live in any American city were those who never left and gay people with nowhere else to go. Despite the routine ignorance that abound the American suburbs, before Ellen came out of the celluloid closet, and the very notion of gay marriage was even conceived, America's cities were something of an anomaly.

They weren't places for convention. Convention found its way here to work and promptly left at five. Daring suburbanites who crossed our bridges and tunnels to dance were too afraid to express any prejudices, or too excited to hold them.

Before Y2K and the War on Terror transformed optimism into fear, America's urban experience was a lawless fantasy. It was Bladerunner, The Fifth Element, it was under the Thunderdome. All those dangerous, terrifying, but wild dystopic futures predicted for the 21st Century have already happened. And they were amazing.

Philadelphia, even with its quant Colonial charm, before Helmut Jahn defied the city's Gentleman's Agreement, was not immune to the Strange Days of the late 20th Century. Today's nightlife scene is largely relegated to Penn's Landing, with few places to dance within the grid of Center City.

But not too long ago, Philadelphia's nightlife didn't end with Dave & Busters or cocktails mixed by the latest celebrity chef at another five star restaurant. It was an experience with no expectations. Not because our standards were low, but because we really just didn't know what to expect. Some of that still lingers in the small streets of Washington Square West and concert venues around Spring Garden.

I saw the Scissor Sisters at the Electric Factory a couple years ago, and despite the fact that it didn't smell like cigarettes and Zima, it felt a whole lot like 1997.

But beyond the venues that remain like Silk City and Voyeur, the positive transformation the city has made with its wonderful restaurants, hotels, and coffee shops, there are relics that linger amongst the streets of Center City. No, I don't mean that 37 year old who just wasted your time regaling you with his glory days.

A few years ago, a friend of mine living in the Adelphia House made an exciting and unexpected discovery in the basement. Most of you know the Adelphia House. Many who regularly follow my blog probably live there because you're cheap and want to live in Center City. I know I've considered it.

Despite the purple carpet that Philadelphia Management Company puts in all of its apartments, it's become a fine building. (But seriously though, what is up with that carpet? Did they buy like a billion square feet of it at a remnant sale twenty years ago?)

The building does have a reputation, though, and that reputation is deserved. In the 80s the Adelphia House, and numerous other defunct hotels in Center City, were synonymous with the Spruce Parker Hotel. They were flop houses. Rent was negotiable, and often by the day, week, or month, sometimes by the hour. Most large cities still have one or two of these hotels, particularly in the Pacific Northwest.

But today, the Adelphia House is just another apartment building on Midtown Village's up and coming Chestnut Street. With the exception of one dusty secret. There's a nightclub in the basement.

Beneath the lobby's banal renovation sits what remains of the city's once infamous East Side Club. Just to the right of the lobby's entrance is an inconspicuous door leading down to the remains of Philadelphia's New Wave Studio 54.

After the East Side Club closed it became Kurt's, a gay dance club, and another club after that. Today the space partially remains, or at least it did a few years ago when one tenant accidentally stumbled upon it, its dance floor used primarily for storage.

It's not the only relic of Philadelphia's dormant last days of disco. A couple years ago Michael Borlando published a series of photos on Hidden City inside the mysterious remains of Chestnut's Hale Building.

Michael Borlando

As with much of Chestnut Street's lingering blight, the Hale Building has gone from housing budget retail to abandonment. Once the site of Drucker's Bellevue Bathhouse, a gay sex club, the remaining interior is more than just a target for urban spelunkers that have largely left the building alone, it's an essay to a bygone era.

Clinging to the past is a futile effort to cling to youth. My wild nights at Tracks, like any young Philadelphian's night at East Side Club or Kurt's, were largely a product of naïve wonderment. I've been to Voyeur. The music is still the same, the smoke filled atmosphere is the same, the only thing that's changed is my perception. Once an experience I never wanted to end, dancing until the sun came up, today, it would be absolute Hell.

Likely for the best. Successful cities change, and like cities, so do our relationships with our cities. I still enjoy a night of dancing, but it ends in my bed around midnight, not at Midtown Diner as the sun comes up.

Whatever the future holds for the Hale Building, the basement of the Adelphia House, and the city's nightlife scene, people will always find a place to dance as long as the music never ends.

Historical Commission: Time for a Performance Review

Philly.com

Philadelphia's sole surviving movie palace, The Boyd Theater, is charging headfirst at the wrecking ball. Our city's agents charged with protecting worthy landmarks treat historic status as a mere suggestion in favor of flashy, disposable design. Developers write their own hardship causes with no input from challenging independent audits.

So how is Spring Garden's Church of the Assumption still standing? It's baffling, a little bit sad, and its recently revoked demolition permit somewhat bittersweet.

The church's historic status is undeniable with or without a formal designation. The Roman Catholic Saint, Katherine Drexel was baptized there. In a state of disrepair, architect Patrick Charles Keely's unique temple shines on Spring Garden's otherwise boring streetscape.

Although a Commonwealth Court judge declared the demolition permit provided by the Historical Commission invalid, the judgment does little to save the church.

Developer John Wei will need to apply for a hardship waiver and prove restoring the landmark is cost prohibitive to obtain a demolition permit.

But he did that once before. Siloam, its previous owner, did it as well. Nothing in the court's judgment stops the Historical Commission from granting another permit, it only suggests that the previous permit was poorly written.

If iPic's Hamid Hashemi can prove that redeveloping the fully functional Boyd Theater as a theater is cost prohibitive, there's nothing standing in the Commission's way of declaring a crumbling church in an iffy part of town a lost cause.

Of course it's too easy to paint developers as Monopoly champions dragging around large bags stamped with dollar signs because that's exactly what they are. They build us theaters and apartment buildings and are largely responsible for our amazing skyline. Developers are the reason we have landmarks like The Boyd to fight over.

The problem is much larger than individual examples of developers paving over historic sites for parking lots. At the source is a broader scope responsible for every loss, our city's reluctance to save sites the city itself once deemed historic.

But can we? It's hard to watch Philadelphia auctioning off its schools and then ask the city to help save a theater or a church. But the city does it all the time.

We funnel money into private projects because they stand to profit the city and create jobs. Unfortunately the city doesn't hold its historic sites in the same regard, or perhaps our politicians just haven't though about it.

This city has spared no pork when it comes to political photo ops. We've spent millions on design studies for the Delaware Waterfront, Parkway improvements, and Dilworth Plaza. When it comes to intervening in history, the Historical Commission leaves crumbling sites exclusively to their own devices and at the mercy of their owners.

Philadelphia is a global tourist attraction, an attraction rooted in history. If any politicos should understand the significance behind landmarks like The Boyd or the Church of the Assumption it would be ours'. But they don't get it, routinely siding with developers at the eleventh hour.

The reason sites are declared historic is multifaceted. Most visibly, the declaration helps dictate a level of restoration, but only if its owner chooses to or can afford to preserve the site.

Beyond that, and where the city falls short, historic designation indicates that preservation may pose a challenge. Old buildings are old, they're hard to work with, and like the Church of the Assumption, many have outlived their architectural purpose.

This is exactly why historic status is important. It's ironic that the Historical Commission grants economic hardship exemptions with such regularity when the historic status in itself means that redevelopment will almost always be economically difficult.

Philebrity.com

This is where the city's involvement, and yes, even tax dollars, is most crucial. But it's also where the city's involvement is most absent.

If the city can grant developers tax breaks and subsidies to develop hotels and apartments, where are the incentives that protect our landmarks?

The Historical Commission is lip service. Worse than an ineffectual government agency, it hinders the sites it was designed to protect. Countless private historical organizations like the Greater Preservation Alliance of Philadelphia, often confused with the Commission itself, are forced to challenge the Commission's decisions.

That should never happen.

The Commission needs to aid every site it declares historic. While that certainly means it needs to be more thorough when it comes to granting historic status, some sites will be lost. But if the Commission is going to continue to grant hardship exemptions at every site it deems historically significant, historic status and the Commission mean absolutely nothing. 

How many of the Commission's historic sites have actually been saved? How many stand vacant? How many are awaiting a hardship waiver? How many have been demolished? And demolished for what?

The Commission exists to preserve Philadelphia's history. Maybe it's time to review their work.

Provo Temple and the Church of the Assumption

A huge, 112 year old church in Provo, UT destroyed by a fire in 2010 has not just been salvaged, but nearly rebuilt. Gutted of its destroyed interior, the LDS's Provo Temple has been elevated forty feet in the air to add a two story basement.

An engineering feat, this begs the question why can't Philadelphia's Church of the Assumption, much smaller, at 164 years old, older, more in tact, and arguably more historic, be saved? The answer: Money. And the Mormons have a lot.

However, looking at the Provo Temple stripped of its interior it is nothing more than exterior walls. If we're willing to accept the fate of the Church of the Assumption and the fact that demolition is inevitable, perhaps we can look at another approach. Our city's historic powers that be can propose a compromise, allowing the owners to clear the lot and part with the structure if they can find someone, anywhere, willing dismantle the church and relocate it.

Insignificant Significance: Dock Street's Ritz 5 Theater

A common concern brought about by the possible demolition of the Church of the Assumption on Spring Garden is that it's highly unlikely that anything as architecturally significant will ever stand on the site again. It's a valid concern. The church is old and simply really, really cool looking.

It's easy to browse the "Then & Now" picture books and recoil in horror over the landmarks we've demolished for freeways, parking lots, and other architectural eyesores. Those books profit on a longing for another time but fail to showcase the progress of time, ignoring countless modern marvels that have replaced poorly built or just plain ugly buildings. In short, not everything built yesterday is good.

Philadelphia sits on a balance between slow development trends and a portfolio of priceless history that allows preservationists the luxury to save buildings that would be lost to booms in New York or Chicago, but also to get a little carried away with regard to what constitutes historical significance.

That awkward situation is already teetering at the Ritz 5 on Dock Street and nothing has even been proposed. Landmark Theaters has only suggested an expansion of its Dock Street location, admitting that it's highly likely nothing will happen. That hasn't stopped Lorna Katz Larson of the Zoning and Historic Preservation Committee from lauding the alleged historical significance of the 1970s theater, citing it as "a very modern response to the historic district."

Landmark Theaters' Ritz 5 on Dock Street

Is it? Or is it just a cheaply built theater from the 1970s? If you can interpret little more than bricks and metal as "a response" then why not interpret a parking lot as a response to the American love affair with the car? The Ritz 5 is as architecturally significant as a Safeway.

Another "response" to Philadelphia's historic district. Is it significant?

When Society Hill was redeveloped in the mid 1900s, preservationists criticized the loss of countless Victorian masterpieces and Colonial history. Dock Street was a thriving, albeit dirty, local resource to the residents of Philadelphia, and although the revitalization of the neighborhood ultimately attracted the wealthy residents of today's Society Hill, the loss of the markets on Dock Street and those accessible on Delaware Avenue before I-95 was not met without protest.

Dock Street was once a thriving market place, entirely razed in the mid 1900s to make way for modern development projects including the Ritz 5.

The Ritz 5 Theater is not a significant landmark. Like the fate of so many Victorian masterpieces, The Ritz 5 is the same inconsiderate aftermath we worry will come from the Church of the Assumption's demolition.

It's easy to imagine the residents of Center City looking across the razed prairies of Society Hill in the 1960s and 70s wondering - much like the neighbors of the Church of the Assumption - when anything as significant would stand there again. Even since the neighborhood's revitalization, only Society Hill Towers stands as a significant testament to midcentury design, and I. M. Pei's apartment project still pales in comparison to the Victorian high rises that once graced Walnut and Chestnut.

Society Hill at the height of demolition

Although Landmark Theater's plans for the Ritz 5, however preliminary, may never find a place in the annals of history, the redevelopment of this insignificant property is an opportunity for Society Hill residents to respect the concerns of their predecessors that shopped the markets and filled the offices of another Society Hill.

Spring Garden's Church of the Assumption

Spring Garden's Church of the Assumption's new owner is seeking to demolish the decaying relic. After changing hands numerous times since it was sold by the Catholic Church, the landmark cathedral has deteriorated due to neglect, nature, and ineptitude.

The saddest point in the site's fate is the inevitability of its demolition and preservationists' reluctance to accept that. Adaptive reuse has a threshold, and retrofitting churches as anything, particularly ones with such unique and unusable architectural elements, is cost prohibitive and often pointless.

Realistically, the Church of the Assumption has been dying a slow death since its previous owners began gutting it in anticipation of its demolition. At this point, any appeal to save the church will at best simply stave off the demolition for a future date.

It's a shame that the Callowhill Neighborhood Association and preservation advocates are so resistant to compromise because a demolition permit does not have to mean the complete demise of a landmark and another surface parking lot. Ironically the same neighborhood full of industrial relics creatively advocating the reuse of the Reading Viaduct has offered little to no outside-the-box solution to save the Church of the Assumption's presence in their neighborhood.

The ruins of Windsor Plantation near Port Gibson, Mississippi stand among park space.

Across Europe, countless churches and castles have been stripped of all but the necessary masonry to serve as parks. Even in the United States, Windsor Plantation near Acorn State University and Port Gibson, Mississippi remains in ruins as a testament to another time. 39 of the original Capitol Building columns stand at the D.C. Arboretum in Washington, D.C.

Our situation offers Spring Garden, Callowhill, and Philadelphia the unique opportunity to conserve the easily maintainable elements of a condemned relic as urban ruins.

Nothing remains of Tintern Abbey in Monmouthshire but the masonry that once upheld the structure.

The site could be saved - at least in part - as a park frequently used for art exhibits, outdoor theater space, a concert venue, a beer garden, and private events. If you accept the fact that the Church of the Assumption has reached the point at which it cannot be reused as a habitable structure, the creative uses for the site become endless.

Historic Church Saved!

Great news from PlanPhilly on the Church of the Assumption on Spring Garden. L&I has unanimously voted to stop plans to demolish the historic site. 

In more good news on Spring Garden's landmark, The Clay Studio has emerged as a "very serious buyer".

I find it ironic that the Philadelphia Historical Commission granted Siloam permission to demolish the church to build a parking lot while the Board of Licenses and Inspection - typically harbingers of the wrecking ball - favored the appeal of the Callowhill Neighborhood Association. 

Would the PHC - charged with preserving Philadelphia's historic catalog - have voted in favor of the CNA if the neighborhood group had spoken up sooner, or is the PHC simply not doing its job?

Lost in the Squabble

Demanding too much or too little, preservationists have managed to leave at least two historic properties behind in the squabble. Years ago, developer John J. Turchi purchased former Mayor Richardson Dilworth's Washington Square mansion. Intending on restoring the property and converting it into his private residence, that wasn't good enough for the Historical Commission. Denied his attempt to reside on Washington Square, the Historical Commission demanded that it serve the neighborhood as nothing less noble than a museum.

Well nothing that remains of Dilworth House today is noble. Turchi did what developers do best, he went through the back door and filed an application to build a 20 story condo tower on the site of the house, which would have completely demolished Mayor Dilworth's presence in the neighborhood he fought to transform.

Neighborhood organizations did what they do best and tied Turchi up in hearings for years, demanding rendering after rendering, some so absurd that the facade of Dilworth's mansion was sitting in the lobby of the high rise.

Is this the compromise the Historical Commission wanted when they denied Turchi's use of the house as a private residence? Instead of a restored Colonial reproduction gracing Washington Square, Dilworth House, which was once a message to this former slum, now stands as a vacant testament to what the great mayor fought, not what he accomplished.

At the opposite end of well intended meddling, the Preservation Alliance of Greater Philadelphia and the Callowhill Neighborhood Association had their say yesterday in one of the hearings to decide the fate of Spring Garden's Church of the Assumption. The non-profit group, Siloam, was granted the authority by the Historical Commission to demolish the church due to economic hardships. After hearing of the demolition's approval, a board member of the Callowhill Neighborhood Association quickly submitted the church for historic certification.

Amy Hooper, President of the Callowhill Neighborhood Association claims the organization was "caught off guard" by the demolition. Adding "the last thing (needed) is another parking lot". Truer words can't be spoken of Callowhill and Spring Garden, but in a neighborhood with sparse examples of historic properties, how is it that the status of this iconic building ever managed to fly below the radar? Perhaps Spring Garden's most prominent contribution to the skyline, not one voice at the Callowhill Neighborhood Association spoke out on behalf of this historic property until it was under the wrecking ball.

The property has long sat on numerous endangered lists, even catching the attention of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Why then, was it not submitted for historic certification until after it was approved for demolition?

Additionally, Hooper noted that the building stands at the "gateway" to the Reading Viaduct which the group wants to convert into a park. But like their absent responsibility for the Church of the Assumption, the neighborhood sits on acres of potential community gardens neglected as urban landfills, and with numerous surface lots and barren concrete walls left from demolition, Callowhill does not have one mural in a city of more than 2000.

It's hard to sympathize with an organization that waited until the 11th hour to wrangle a bevy of witnesses, particularly when they clearly have a habit of neglecting their own potential.

Siloam isn't devoid of their own suspicions. Prominent developers like Alex Generalis have stepped forward to cite how little they knew of the organization's attempt to sell the property in lieu of demolition. Still, in the years that the Church of the Assumption sat vacant no one from the Callowhill Neighborhood Association pointed out the site's deteriorating state of disrepair.

In a neighborhood with no shortage of available land in the way of surface lots and vacant meadows, the last thing that comes to mind when a developer sees a vacant church is going to be "adaptive reuse". This is where neighborhood organizations can shine, by proactively addressing a potential loss in their historic portfolio. Instead, the Callowhill Neighborhood Association is best known for deterring the redevelopment of several surface lots and the fiercely debated reuse of the Reading Viaduct. Meanwhile, many Callowhill residents live in gated fortresses isolating their contribution to the city, and even their own sidewalks.

Sadly, Assistant City Solicitor Leonard Reuter may have made the most apt statement during yesterday's hearing, "Sometimes you have to let it go." And this fact isn't solely due to Siloam's sloppy and inexperienced respect for their property. The loss of the Church of the Assumption, an architecturally and historically significant site, is largely due to those who self-assign themselves watchdogs for our neighborhoods' best interests, and then ignore our neighborhoods' most valuable assets.

Meanwhile, like children caught up in a divorce and awaiting a custody decision, Dilworth House and the Church of the Assumption stand alone, both parents caught up in the squabble, neglecting what's truly at risk because of their own stubborn pride.

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.

Church of the Assumption

While the Venturi "masterpiece" Guild House several blocks to the east was recently awarded a place on the historic register, it took a little more elbow grease to get a building even more beloved by a neighborhood that has seen its share of architectural loss. Patrick Charles Keely's Church of the Assumption, built in 1848-49 and extensively renovated in 1899, almost met the wrecking ball in April when the non-profit social services organization, Siloam wanted to raze the building for...yes, you guessed it, a surface lot. Largely due to community support and the signatures of over 400 neighbors, The Church of the Assumption at 1123 Spring Garden Street was added to the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places in May.