In the classic Philly-set film Trading Places, Dan Ackroyd’s down-and-out Winthorpe tries to pawn a $6,955 watch and pleads for the maximum price, telling Bo Diddly’s pawnbroker that it tells time in multiple international cities (even Gstaad!), to which Diddly’s character memorably retorts, “In Philadelphia, it’s worth 50 bucks.”
That moment works particularly well in telling the uninitiated viewer about its city-setting and has always rung true to my native ears, because, in down-and-out Philadelphia, you’re in no position to bargain. It’s not like other places. You get what you get, and that’s it, so learn to settle.
I thought about this moment when I read The Inquirer’s recent reporting that Philadelphia’s Historical Commission had lost track of the materials it had itself directed to be preserved from Fishtown’s St. Laurentius. For Citizen readers who didn’t follow the St. Laurentius saga, the quick backstory is that the battle to save the surprisingly soaring Fishtown church stretched over much of the last decade after owners failed to maintain the historically designated building while a small group of neighbors stalled its redevelopment, resulting in its eventual demolition.
In the end, the neighborhood lost an iconic building and important cultural touchstone. But for me, this wasn’t a preservation or heritage story as much as one about poor government process. It demonstrates how Philadelphia sometimes doesn’t work because of a sad, mutually reinforcing mix of low expectations and lack of accountability.
Once the church was designated as historic, the commission should have required its owners to maintain its structural integrity through its code enforcement arm, the Department of Licenses and Inspections. But, like many of our fragile historic assets, it was neglected and allowed to rot until it was deemed imminently dangerous, giving developers a pass to demolish it. The compromise that allowed the building’s demolition to proceed required developers to at least incorporate façade materials into the future building. Despite this being a poor substitute for maintaining and redeveloping the building itself, it provided a pathway to creating meaningful reference points in next-generation development.
What happened in the most recent chapter, sadly, came as no surprise, knowing that this is Philadelphia, and you get what you get. But, to me, it’s an important story that I’m hoping Philadelphians pay attention to. In The Inquirer’s reporting on the commission hearing that provided feedback to the new development’s design, there is an open admission by the executive director of the Historical Commission that it failed to follow their own directive:
In an earlier ruling, the Historical Commission required that during demolition by the previous ownership — New Jersey-based developer Humberto Fernandini — some of the church’s materials be salvaged for reuse in a future building on the site. But at the Friday meeting, Jon Farnham, executive director of the Historical Commission, said that the order had not been executed. “The owner demolished the church in its entirety without apparently preserving any materials or features,” said Farnham. “No historic fabric from the church survives at the site, and in fact, it is just a vacant lot.”
When I read this, I was furious, and reached out to some preservationists, who told me they were not surprised — this wasn’t the first time that protected façade materials had been misplaced. The lost materials are a sadly appropriate coda to this tale, but the greater issue for us as a city is the low expectations that allows this sort of admission of administrative failure to slide when the historical commission should be focused on showing developers their decisions have teeth.
Our built environment is what’s great about Philly
Now, we all know the Philly shrug narrative, corrupt and contented, etc., and we could just ignore this failure because it’s a minor issue compared to other priorities. My rationale for caring is that Philly’s competitive advantage in the unending competition for maintaining and attracting residents is its built environment – it has the walkability, connectedness and character that makes it a real place. This creates the vaunted authenticity that allows Philadelphia to claim to be a world heritage city and positions it as a city of choice in the rapidly transforming economy. In an increasingly mobile age where many workers can live anywhere, some will choose it as a real place in the middle of the Northeast Corridor to settle, start families and businesses and hopefully stay forever.
Fecklessness should not be an option in a city where heritage is existential.
On a deeper level, it’s also important to remember that the city’s fabric provides context for our lives. It’s a backdrop that connects us to the past and provides a real sense of identity, both at the neighborhood and individual level. I was lucky enough to grow up in 1980s Fishtown, where, despite being a low-income community, the fabric of the heart of the neighborhood was intact (save the notable exception of blocks clear-cut by I-95 construction). Fishtown’s mix of rowhomes, small factories and churches on an intimate web of streets creates a unique character and sense of place which defines what a great neighborhood can be, distinguishing it from so many characterless places across the country. One need only to look to the escalating property valuations and wholesale change in Fishtown over the last 20 years to see the demand for real sense-of-place in action.
I’m a firm believer that you can add to cities while maintaining what makes them great, and the Historical Commission should be the protector of that context. Fecklessness should not be an option in a city where heritage is existential. As the mayor reforms the city’s tax structure to be more competitive, and works toward building and preserving 30,000 homes, we should be thinking about how to grow while maintaining connections to the rich character that makes the city wonderful in the first place.
I’m hoping the current administration sees this failure and holds the Historical Commission accountable. The commission, and its enforcement arm, the Department of Licenses and Inspections, should account for why the materials weren’t tracked and what they’re going to do to prevent this from happening again. There was a time-lapse video of the Church’s demolition — surely there are ways to use modern technology to ensure that demolition is done with care and protected materials are tracked. Why not require demolition firms to document the location and state of protected materials and post to the commission’s website? Or have the firm report on the state of materials at a future meeting? Or require owners to demonstrate stewardship of the materials before they are able to pull permits?
This low point could be a catalyst to making the Historical Commission work toward implementing its own high profile plan, completed in 2019, the majority of which remains untouched, including a recommendation to appoint a liaison to monitor situations exactly like this.
Commission leaders should be working to make this a reality. Let’s not let the owners of buildings in similar situations — like 107 Chestnut or 1706-10 Walnut — assume that the Commission’s requirements don’t matter, or signal that gems like the Church of the Assumption or Immaculate Conception can be neglected into demolition. My hope is that the commission will use this as a rallying cry to demonstrate that it can protect our most important assets, building trust in our city government and raising expectations, so that our collective instinct won’t be to settle – it will be to expect excellent outcomes befitting a city as great and beautiful as Philadelphia.
Michael Greenle is a Fishtown native and has worked in Philadelphia design and planning for 20 years.
The Fix is made possible through a grant from the Thomas Skelton Harrison Foundation. The Harrison Foundation does not exercise editorial control or approval over the content of any material published by The Philadelphia Citizen.
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