At its meeting on June 12, the Philadelphia Historical Commission added a bank building, a church, and two industrial buildings to the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places, but denied designation of a midcentury modern union hall.
The Galilee Baptist Church at 459 Roxborough Avenue was added to the local register owing to its role as a community institution for the Black population of Roxborough and Manayunk for 125 years. Designed by the firm Kennedy & Kelsey, it retains its original character despite the removal of its cupola.
National Bank of Olney at 5th Street and Olney Avenue. | Photo: Michael Bixler
The former home of the National Bank of Olney at 5604 N. 5th Street was also recognized for its architectural and historical significance. After being chartered in 1925, the bank quickly outgrew its original storefront home and commissioned a new building from the firm of Simons, Brittain & English, who were known for designing banks, especially in small or medium-sized municipalities. The two-story, cast-stone structure, completed in 1928, was constructed in the Art Deco style, which was emblematic of a shift in bank architecture from classical to contemporary styles. The building is also considered an important example of the growth of commercial corridors outside of Center City at that time, along with 52nd and Chestnut Streets, Broad Street and Olney Avenue, and Germantown and Chelten Avenues. After serving the neighborhood for nearly three decades, the National Bank of Olney was consumed in a series of mergers and acquisitions that saw the building still serving as a bank branch until the early 1990s.
In Chinatown, the former Tetlow Manufacturing Company at 132 N. 10th Street was added to the Philadelphia Register. Constructed around 1885, the five-story brick building was designed with Italianate and Romanesque features. It housed Henry Tetlow’s cosmetics firm, whose innovations yielded new forms of face powders that were both inexpensive and non-toxic.
Tetlow Manufacturing Company at 10th and Cherry Streets. | Photo: Michael Bixler
Another industrial property at 4889 Umbria Street was listed for legal protections on the local register. Two buildings of the Manayunk Plush Manufacturing Company–a large one-story manufacturing building and a smaller power plant–were constructed in 1926 and 1927. They were designed by architect and engineer William Elmer Seibert Dyer, a specialist in industrial buildings who influenced the area’s development in textile and other manufacturing in the early 20th century. The factory was operating into the 1970s. Several near neighbors expressed appreciation for the building as an emblem of Manayunk’s past as a center of textile manufacturing.
The owner of the entire 4 1/2 acre site has redevelopment plans underway, including the construction of a new building with 363 residential units and a similar amount of parking spaces, despite being directly across Umbria Street from the Ivy Ridge Regional Rail station. While the plans call for the preservation of the nominated buildings, the owner requested and received modification approval to remove any open land surrounding the historic buildings from the designation.
The National Marine Engineers Beneficial Association building at 4th and Willow Streets. | Photo: Michael Bixler
The final nomination reviewed at the meeting was for the National Marine Engineers Beneficial Association Office at 428-34 N. 4th Street. The two-story Modernist office building was completed in 1967 to serve as a union hall for the association, which owned the property until 1990. The nomination, complied and submitted by Misha Wyllie, a student of the University of Pennsylvania’s Master of Science in Historic Preservation program, describes the building’s connections to Philadelphia history, including its construction that occurred during urban renewal and the Callowhill East Redevelopment Project, which saw widespread demolition in the neighborhood. Wyllie’s research also suggests the building is representative of the importance of Philadelphia’s history of organized labor.
The building’s owner, Mark Rubin, president of Willow Management Corp., objected to the nomination, citing a confidential agreement of sale to the neighboring organization Gift of Life Donor Program. He claimed that reuse of the building and/or development of its front parking lot and rear addition were not possible. Real estate attorney Michael V. Phillips and Gift of Life’s CEO Richard D. Hasz submitted an exhaustive 103-page letter to Historical Commission staff voicing opposition to the historic nomination. The potential new owners plan to demolish the building and develop the site with new construction. The Historical Commission unanimously declined the nomination.
