There exist all kinds of visual evidence of Philadelphia’s deep history: preserved and reconstructed colonial buildings, adaptively reused commercial properties, and abandoned sites. And then, there is evidence seen through the lens of an absence. Referred to as “building ghosts,” they occur when a building that is conjoined to another is demolished, leaving outlines of its structure on the remaining building.

“That’s part of the dynamic here,” noted historian Molly Lester, associate director of the Urban Heritage Project at the University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of Design. “Rowhouses are built adjacent to each other, so they leave a ghost when one is removed.”

Lester partnered with Michael Bixler, editorial director and chief photographer of Hidden City, in documenting some of Philadelphia’s building ghosts in a new book, Building Ghosts: Past Lives and Lost Places in a Changing City, published by Temple University Press.

In late 2020, Lester and Bixler searched the city, discovering scores of building ghosts. It was an ideal pandemic project, documentation done while solitary and outdoors. “We’d go out separately, scouring different sections of the city,” said Bixler. “With the pause on construction, it gave us more time to document them in our survey. Once building projects restarted, it was a race against time.”

The resumption of construction activity could yield a never-ending supply of building ghosts, so the authors gave themselves two limitations. “We decided to keep from going back to revisit ghosts,” recalled Bixler. And, they set a four-month limit to their work collecting the visual documentation. “I acknowledge there is an arbitrariness to this four-month period,” said Lester. “We had to invent a time frame to bracket it.”

“I would begin photo documentation in the morning. Because our survey was so vast and spanned the entire city, I had to hustle quite a bit,” explained Bixler. “But I took plenty of time to consider how the sun hit each address, ideal framing, and how to capture not just the ghost, but often the entire building and a bit of the neighborhood for nuanced urban context.”

While Lester and Bixler didn’t coin the term “building ghost,” they did create “legacy ghost” to describe one that has been on view for a long time, and will likely remain so, as opposed to one that only appears briefly before new construction starts. They also came up with the classification “double ghost,” where a missing rowhouse leaves a ghost on the side of both of its neighbors.

The duo found the most ghosts in North Philadelphia. Many there are legacy ghosts, whereas in Center City and Fishtown they tend to get built over rapidly, owing to the difference between neighborhoods that have experienced disinvestment versus those where there is more real estate development and gentrification. Bixler spent roughly a month photographing building ghosts in North Philly.

Another geographic difference appeared as an underrepresentation in the Northeast and Northwest sections of the city. “Northeast Philly’s building stock is too young to be considered replaceable,” explained Lester. “And Northwest Philadelphia has so few ghosts because density is a factor in leaving a building ghost, and there, buildings were constructed with more space around them.”

As Bixler focused his lenses on their subjects, his thoughts went beyond just capturing the perfect photograph. “I was trying to dignify each ghost and their adjoining buildings. In a way, I wanted to treat them with emotional care,” he said. “We wanted to separate ourselves from ruin porn.”

“A larger theme is our attitude about the disposability of these places, but there was a tension and a risk of voyeurism,” agreed Lester, who had her own methods of creating that separation. As a historian, she wanted to document the stories of some of the lives those buildings had contained.

“I used the same resources as for higher profile buildings: newspaper articles, aerial photographs, city directories, deed abstracts,” she said. “You could find these threads that would tell stories. Sometimes I’d find a lot, or nearly the whole history of the house, and sometimes just one person.”

The stories range from the amusing, like the tall undertaker who wrote a letter to the editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer railing against the War Production Board’s mandate on how long coffins could be during World War II, to the poignant, learning about a family that experienced the deaths of their children, with each buried in different cemeteries. “It carries an additional responsibility because they didn’t ask for these internal aspects of their lives to be exposed,” Lester noted. “There is a risk of over exposure. I hope I did it justice.”

Of the nearly 200 building ghosts that Bixler photographed, a final 120 are represented in the book with 40 of them receiving Lester’s historical essays.

A planned book launch event at the headquarters of architectural firm KieranTimberlake led to the creation of a companion Building Ghosts exhibit. Curators Sarah Kaizar and Huwayda Fakhry interpret some of the photography and essays from the book through an installation that incorporates video, printed scrims, and 400 pounds of reclaimed material from Revolution Recovery, a construction and demolition waste recycling company in Northeast Philadelphia. The exhibition is currently on view at the Bottling House, named for the former Ortlieb’s Brewery building the firm occupies at 841 North American Street, through April 4.

The authors feel their book is a timely project and will appeal to both a narrow and a broad audience. “At first, we were going to have a website,” recalled Bixler. “The idea of a book was always there, but we weren’t sure if an editor would get it.”

“I intentionally avoided jargon that an academic audience might use,” noted Lester. “There is a growing cross section of people who care about cities and think about cities.”

“The preservation of old buildings, uncovering the histories of everyday people who don’t usually get covered–the audience for this subject matter is getting larger and more diverse,” added Bixler.

---

Molly Lester and Michael Bixler will discuss Building Ghosts: Past Lives and Lost Places in a Changing City at the Athenaeum of Philadelphia, 219 S. 6th Street, on January 6, 2025 at 6 p.m. See event details and register here: https://philaathenaeum.org/event-detail/?event_id=25288

---

---