On April 12, human remains and caskets were discovered at the construction site of Temple University’s new Caroline Kimmel Pavilion for Arts and Communication building. It shouldn’t come as a surprise as the project is taking place on the former site of Monument Cemetery.

Temple released a statement last week that claims the discovery was anticipated and that there is a plan in place to deal with such situations. “That plan includes notification of the Philadelphia Coroner’s Office, medical examiner, an archeologist, and law enforcement. Per the protocol, crews immediately halted work at the site when the remains were first discovered, and Temple’s Project Delivery Group (PDG) notified the university’s archeological consultant and other appropriate agencies, who then visited the site and directed next steps. We followed their guidance to ensure the remains were handled with the utmost care and respect and per the protocol, did not resume work in that area until directed by the appropriate agencies. Moving forward, PDG will remain in frequent communication with our archaeological partners and continue to follow the prescribed protocol to ensure that any remains are respectfully and properly reinterred.”

Monument Cemetery was a sprawling Victorian-era graveyard on the west side of North Broad Street between Montgomery Avenue and Fontain Street. Opened in 1837, the grounds held the graves of 28,000 individuals until the cemetery was subject to Temple University expansion in the 1950s.

When the school acquired a large portion of Monument Cemetery in 1956, bodies were exhumed and their headstones were discarded on the banks of the Delaware River to be used as riprap. Of the alleged 28,000 remains unearthed, only 748 relatives were contacted. The bodies that went unclaimed were reinterred in a mass grave at Lawnview Cemetery in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania. Since then, the site has been utilized as athletic recreation space and parking lots for the university.

Philadelphia universities tend to have an odd relationship with the past, from University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University’s razing of the Black Bottom neighborhood to make way for real estate development to Temple’s botched exhumation of Monument Cemetery as well as demolishing numerous predominantly African American residential blocks and architectural landmarks for campus expansion. This is not to mention Penn Museum’s recent acknowledgement that it possessed the human remains of one of the children killed in the 1985 MOVE bombing in its collection. “Many of these absurdities are owed to the sloppy way that these universities sought to expand after World War II. It was during those years, for instance, that Temple participated in a campaign to characterize Monument Cemetery as blighted so that the property could be obtained on terms favorable to the university,” explained Seth Bruggeman, a professor of history at Temple University.

“Until that point, the cemetery–beyond serving as an important site of community memory–functioned as a much-needed green space for students, who used it in all the ways you might suspect,” Bruggeman said. “The university, however, wanted expanded parking and more control over its main entrance on North Broad. The acquisition and removal of Monument Cemetery was part of a larger campaign by Temple to rebrand itself in anticipation of the significant expansion it expected by way of federally-sponsored urban renewal.”

Doug Mooney, president of the Philadelphia Archaeological Forum, has done archaeological work in the city for 20 years. More so than just the universities, he believes the City of Philadelphia is also at fault. “It goes far beyond the universities. [The City of] Philadelphia has a problem with cemeteries, and it is an issue that comes up time and time again. Every time it does, they treat it as if it’s the first time such a thing ever happened and profess they don’t know about it,” said Mooney. “There are laws that come into effect in these situations, but they just refuse to acknowledge it because they don’t want to anger developers.”

Mooney researched and discovered that, since 1800, there were at least 53 unmarked cemeteries impacted by construction projects in Philadelphia. Including the sites that were impacted more than once, he calculated 87 separate incidents.

What will happen to the human remains discovered at Temple has yet to be announced. According to Philadelphia lawyer Mark Zecca, Pennsylvania law dictates that unmarked burials and burial grounds are protected under the jurisdiction of the Orphans’ Court Division of the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas. For Temple to bury the remains found on its property elsewhere, the university must petition the Orphans’ Court to do so.

“The news said Temple consulted the City [about excavation]. The City should have informed Temple that in order to get an excavation permit to disturb remains, it needed to get approval of next of kin or Court, because an excavation permit can only allow a permit holder to disturb property that the holder has a right to control,” Zecca explained. “Human remains are not property of a land owner, like Temple, just because the remains are present on the land owner’s land. The disposal of remains is under the authority of next of kin or Court.”

Last summer, a similar case involving the remains of the First Baptist Cemetery in Old City was brought to the Orphans’ Court, where a judge reaffirmed that the remains were in the custody of the court. “The City, however, does not do its job on this issue. The City even claims officially that it has no responsibility, which is false,” Zecca said, sharing the sentiment mentioned by Mooney. “The City does this so as not to ruffle the feathers of developers. The City knows it has authority to stop work in these situations and demonstrates this by asking developers when there is publicity to treat remains ‘with respect’ which is tantamount to implicitly claiming the authority to stop work. A City Council ordinance would clarify the duties that already exist and would be a good thing.”

When asked to share the plans to rebury the bodies and how Temple will rectify the situation beyond doing what is lawfully necessary of them, the university declined to answer.

“In this situation with Temple, like in all these situations, these are fellow Philadelphians that are buried there. In many cases, they are the ancestors of untold thousands of current Philadelphia residents. They deserve to be treated with the utmost respect,” Mooney said “And it wasn’t a mystery. Nobody stumbled across the cemetery unexpectedly. They knew it was there. Temple should be taking all of the steps to make sure that these remains are respectfully removed from this current property and reburied in an appropriate different cemetery.”

To keep situations like this from happening in the future, Bruggeman stressed that Philadelphia’s universities, and the City itself, need to be responsible stewards to the land. “The missed graves, in my view, are a reminder of the rush to growth during those years, and the ways in which it trumped the sort of rigorous accountability you’d want from an institution whose choices impact everyone who lives in North Philadelphia,” said Bruggeman. “It is what happens when universities put profit before people. Alas, reckless expansion begets reckless expansion. It does so at least until someone in power chooses to do better.”

Construction crews broke ground on Temple’s new building in March. When the human remains and caskets were discovered in early April, construction was paused, but has since resumed. The project, designed by 89-year-old Chicago architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, is being funded by a $27.5 million dollar donation by Philadelphia businessman and philanthropist Sidney Kimmel. When the project is completed in 2027, it will house the Caroline Kimmel Pavilion for Arts and Communication.

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