The Rittenhouse-Fitler Residential Historic District, one of the first historic districts to be added to the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places, is celebrating its 30th anniversary. Although it district was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983, it wasn’t until 12 years later that the district was recognized locally as well.
A historic district is a group of buildings, archaeological resources, or other properties that are deemed historically or architecturally significant by a local, state, or the federal government. Within the boundaries of a historic district, individual buildings, structures, and sites are usually classified as either contributing or non-contributing to the district.
They can range from a handful of properties, as in the recently created Northwest Apartments Thematic Historic District, which comprises 30 apartment buildings in Germantown and Mt. Airy, to neighborhoods that contain thousands of properties, as with the Rittenhouse-Fitler district.
A 1955 ordinance created the Philadelphia Historical Commission and gave it authority to designate individual properties as historic. “Since it only allowed individual designations, preservationists felt that wasn’t sufficient to preserve streetscapes,” recalled David Brownlee, who served on the Historical Commission for many years beginning in the 1980s.
“In the early 1980s, the historic preservation ordinance was rewritten to grant new authorities,” explained Jon Farnham, executive director of the Philadelphia Historical Commission. “It was given the power to deny demolitions, and another big change gave it the authority to create historic districts.” Before that, the Historical Commission had created informal historic districts in Old City and Spring Garden by approving hundreds of individual designations in those neighborhoods.
The Center City Residents Association (CCRA), which had been instrumental in securing the National Register designation, then submitted a nomination to the Philadelphia Register as well. “Rittenhouse was high on everyone’s mind,” said Brownlee. “When I became chair of the Commission’s Committee on Historic Designation, I knew one of the first things I had to do was to bring up the Rittenhouse District.”
The Bradbury Bedell Residence at 2134 Chestnut Street. Built in 1889, designed by Wilson Eyre Jr. | Photo: Michael Bixler
The district is outlined by a jagged perimeter that includes and excludes various blocks and individual properties, extending roughly between Walnut, South 15th, Pine, and South 25th Streets. The neighborhood has maintained its status as an elite enclave longer than almost any other in Philadelphia, which has helped preserve its architecture from decline and redevelopment.
It contains a diverse range of architectural styles, including along the eastern edge, Greek Revival brick townhouses with marble bases, mid-19th century Italianate homes west of 17th Street, and large Victorians with Gothic details west of 20th Street. The small streets like Panama and Cypress that lie between the main streets feature smaller houses, originally for the workers in the large mansions. Development after World War I saw the building of apartment towers that replaced many of the original mansions, particularly on the square itself.
The pedigree of many homes in the district represents a veritable who’s who of important Philadelphia architects of the 19th and early 20th century, including Thomas U. Walter, Samuel Sloan, Theophilus Chandler, Wilson Eyre Jr., John Notman, Furness and Hewitt, and Cope and Stewardson.
In addition to residences, numerous historic churches and institutions are within the district’s borders, such as the Gothic Revival St. Mark’s Protestant Episcopal Church at 16th and Locust Streets (Notman 1847), the Romanesque Holy Trinity at 1900 Walnut Street (Notman 1856-9), the Swedenborgian Church of the New Jerusalem at 2129 Chestnut Street (Chandler 1881), the First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia at 22nd and Chestnut Streets (Furness and Hewitt 1885), and the College of Physicians of Philadelphia at 9 South 22nd Street (Cope and Stewardson 1907), to name a few.
As one of the first nominations under the revised ordinance, the Rittenhouse-Fitler district experienced a number of struggles and setbacks owing to some vagaries in the law’s language, misinterpretations by property owners, and a lawsuit that worked its way up to the State Supreme Court twice. As a result, although nominated in February 1987, it was finally added to the Philadelphia Register in February 1995.
To commemorate the district’s 30th anniversary, the CCRA is holding an event at Trinity Memorial Church, 2212 Spruce Street on Sunday, May 11 at 2 p.m. The event will begin with a panel discussion with former Philadelphia Historical Commission members David Brownlee and David Hollenberg and former Philadelphia Historical Commission staff members Sally Elk, Lori Salganicoff, and Laura Spina, who helped with the creation of the district. They will discuss the challenges and successes in creating the district 30 years ago as well as CCRA’s involvement in advocating for the district’s nomination. Walking tours will leave from Trinity after the panel. For more information about the event see the CCRA website: https://members.centercityresidents.org/atlas/events/join-us-for-a-talk-and-tour-celebrating-the-30th-anniversary-of-the-rittenhouse-fitler-historic-district–42/details
