Chinatown’s 40-foot Friendship Gate was designed by artist Sabrina Soong and installed in 1984. | Photo: Michael Bixler

Recent decisions made by Mayor Cherelle Parker’s administration involving historic preservation reflect a deep misunderstanding of the value of culture to thriving cities. The choices to threaten Chinatown with the Sixers arena project and refuse legal protection for the Police Administration Building (aka the Roundhouse) are short-sighted, damage the diversity of Philadelphia’s cultural heritage, and reflect a narrow vision of both preservation and urban redevelopment.

Both decisions have been long in the making, informed by detailed studies and public conversations. There is every reason to expect that wise decisions would result. Yet, we are getting the opposite.

It is well understood that contemporary preservation doesn’t mean putting the past under glass. In every quarter of the city one finds examples of historic buildings, blocks, and landscapes from the last three centuries being used, loved, activated, and developed. This is central to Philly’s vibe and its identity–how we Philadelphians think about ourselves as a city. Keeping and using a collection of the city’s most distinctive places, reflecting its culture and history in both its brightest and darkest moments, is what makes Philly Philly.

Much has been said and written about Chinatown. The arena proposal is questionable in fiscal terms. It is devastating to anyone who values culture as a reason to love, live, and invest in cities, whether you are from Chinatown or not. As an outsider to that process, I can only note the complete lack of surprise that billionaire sports-team owners are getting their way. The Sixers and its enablers are convincing the City, against all evidence, that this vanity project will create shared prosperity and that sacrificing the integrity of Chinatown is worth the short-term financial benefits and political boost that the deal brings Mayor Parker. If a city can’t support the diversity and vibrancy of neighborhoods like Chinatown, it won’t thrive in the long term. The Parker Administration must take a longer view.

The former Police Administration Building (aka the Roundhouse) at 750 Race Street was completed in 1962 and designed by Geddes, Brecher, Qualls and Cunningham. | Photo: Michael Bixler

The question of preserving the Roundhouse is complex. The history, design, and economic potentials clash dramatically. Dreadful histories of police brutality coexist with masterful architectural design and great economic value. How do we preserve and redevelop the building in light of this? The question should not be whether to preserve the place or not, and rather how to adapt it.

It is typical in historic preservation work to think about these decisions from distinct angles, according to the multiple kinds of value such projects can create. Cultural value comes from our shared understanding of a place as a work of art or design, or its association with important stories. Whether proud or shameful, the significance of these stories to the city’s history is what matters. I would argue that all of the stories connected to the Roundhouse need to be remembered and reckoned with, not ignored and forgotten. Social value comes from citizens gathering, protesting, celebrating, or otherwise using the place to symbolize civic life. Environmental value resides in the building’s embodied energy and avoidance of the environmental damage required to demolish, landfill, and rebuild. Last, but never least, economic values realized by redeveloping, or demolishing, the place depend on markets and government policies—the costs and benefits are purposefully distributed among private owners and the public sector. Adaptation for new uses, running tourism attractions, and creating cultural institutions are all time-tested strategies for creating economic value while sustaining other values, too.

There are many precedents, in Philadelphia and elsewhere, for protecting the complicated values of difficult buildings or buildings with difficult histories. They can be given new lives that create cultural, social, environmental, and economic value for the city. Look no further than Eastern State Penitentiary: a place of dark history and deep injustice converted, through artistically inspired and development-minded preservation, to an engine of social value, creativity, and tourism marketing. Other examples include Cherry Street Pier and the Bok Building. Each project found a creative and effective path to create continuing flows of cultural, social, and economic values. Other cities have their examples, too. Consider New York’s thriving Tenement Museum or Hong Kong’s Central Police Station complex. In fact, you won’t find a successful city anywhere in the world without its examples of this general urban preservation principle: cities have to be culturally complicated AND economically creative in order to thrive. You can’t create these conditions without a strong historic preservation vibe.

Eastern State Penitentiary was an active prison from 1825 to 1971. It officially opened to the public as a historic site in 1994. | Photo: Michael Bixler

Philly should be a national model for using preservation to stimulate development by building on our social and cultural assets and reckoning honestly with social justice past and present. Yet, if decisions made by the Parker administration hold–bargaining away Chinatown and demolishing the Roundhouse–these opportunities will be squandered. To ignore the values and preservation-led opportunities of Chinatown and the Roundhouse is a careless urban redevelopment strategy.

As next decisions about Chinatown and the Roundhouse come down to the wire, Mayor Parker should listen to a range of Philadelphians’ voices and consider long-term costs and benefits, not only the short-term economic interests. As history has shown, shiny new megaprojects in Philly often deliver few lasting economic benefits and are a distraction from meaningfully reflecting on the past. And, well, if we don’t know much about our past….