In early April, Philadelphia real estate developer German Yakubov began posting in social media groups dedicated to historic preservation in Philadelphia with what sounded like a straightforward proposition: “Save Parkside.” In accompanying photos and on a linked website, Yakubov urged the public to sign a petition supporting his redevelopment of a historic, once-handsome duplex in the West Philadelphia neighborhood that has fallen into disrepair.

However, the backstory is anything but simple.

Yakoubov’s online campaign to redevelop the three-story residences at 4204-06 Parkside Avenue, built circa 1895, has been met with jeers from near neighbors who say it’s the latest tactic the developer is using to squeeze as much density in, and profit out of, their neighborhood as possible. Working with his brother Lev under the corporate banner of Haverford Square Properties, the Yakubovs have accumulated significant holdings in West Philadelphia over the past 15 years, starting in Mantua and Belmont before pushing north into East Parkside.

Along the way the firm took a number of historic properties into its portfolio, at times to good effect, a product of what German Yakubov previously told Hidden City was his appreciation for the build quality and architectural details of older buildings. Yet, things appear to have gone sideways as the firm began developing in Parkside, which contains a designated historic district recognized by both the local and national registers. Walk the block of 4200 Parkside Avenue–directly across the grassy park fronting the Please Touch Museum–and at least half a dozen Haverford Square properties in various stages of development can be found, along with frustrated neighbors. “He’s building all this density with no clear plan,” said Joyce Smith, president of the nonprofit Community Development Board of East Parkside. “He’s not taking into consideration how that will impact the community.”

The twin at 4204-06 Parkside Avenue is perhaps the highest profile project. The three-story, brick-built, bay-windowed homes were originally constructed in 1895 and designed by architect Henry E. Flower. They are listed as “significant” buildings within the National Register of Historic Places District, established in 1983, as well as within a Philadelphia Register of Historic Places district created in 2009, which affords the residences legal protection against demolition and exterior modification.

However, residents and German Yakubov both agree the properties have deteriorated in recent history. They blame one another. City records show the Yakubovs purchased the twins in 2015 and that they have since racked up dozens of L&I violations, including “vacant and open property” and exterior weed and sanitation notices last fall. Google Street View images from the past 10 years also show an increasing number of open windows and deteriorating architectural elements.

Meanwhile, Haverford Square has sought to redevelop the residences into multi-unit residential. In 2021, the firm received a permit to fit the properties with 12 units, matching the historic capacity of the 6-bedroom duplexes. But the Yakubovs are now seeking a zoning variance for 16 total units, a request denied by the Zoning Board of Adjustments in February following opposition from community members.

In an interview this May, Yakubov said the four extra units are simply needed to make the project “pencil out” and blamed opposing neighbors for what he views is an unreasonable stubborness to accept the economic realities of redevelopment. “The most somebody is willing to pay for a unit there is $1,500 for a one-bedroom,” Yakubov said. “And what it costs to rehab that building, 11,000-square-feet, is significantly more.”

Neighbors instead believe Yakubov is trying to maximize a profit and say he is letting the building fall further into disrepair as a strong arm tactic to get them to relent. “For five or six years he has let the building sit as a public eyesore,” said Paulette Fields, a longtime resident of the 4200 block of Parkside Avenue, likening the inaction to extortion. “He’s coming back… ‘If you give me eight units in each apartment,’ then, you know, he’ll fix it up again.”

Yakubov didn’t dispute that he’s held back on investing money into upkeep, but framed that as logical given the situation. “Everything on that building is expensive. So, we’re doing the best we can in maintaining it, without, you know, effectively rehabbing it,” Yakubov claimed. “If we go ahead and put a brand new roof on it, brand new windows on it, we’re talking pretty much the value of the entire building as it is today.”

Meanwhile, things are even more contentious at another parcel, on the backside of the block, at 4283-87 Viola Street. There, Haverford Square is seeking to build, at minimum, a 16-unit apartment building on land that used to contain three rowhouses. Once again, the matter went before the Zoning Board, and, once again, the Yakubovs were denied a variance this March after residents launched a GoFundMe campaign to pay for a lawyer to fight the proposal.

Yet, the contest continues. Haverford Square has appealed the decision to the Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas. The firm has also submitted additional applications to the City for an 18-unit apartment building and a group home for up to 50 residents at the site. Hearings for those proposals are presently scheduled for July and September. In an email sent to residents and provided to Hidden City, an attorney representing Haverford Square proposed to conceptually agree to limit the Viola Street property to 12 units, as part of a wider framework spanning unit counts at 13 properties in East Parkside, including 16 units at 4204-06 Parkside Avenue. Smith sees this all as further evidence of strong-arm tactics by the Yakubovs to bleed energy and money from residents while pressuring them to make a deal and accepting even more density.

Yakubov pushed back against the idea that his company is acting as a bully in the neighborhood. He said he has never personally attacked any resident, despite personally being the unsavory subject of social media posts that he says have gotten “literally got millions of views.” He also asserts a “Save Parkside” petition he established has gained the support of other neighborhood residents who don’t oppose the density and want to see the properties redeveloped.

“I’d be the most unsuccessful bully that ever existed,” Yakubov said of the accusation he is running roughshod over neighbors, adding he remains open to meeting with residents who oppose his plans. “On a dozen or so occasions, I asked for a meeting to blend my vision with theirs. We’re in litigation with two of the neighbors, and even in spite of that, I’m still more than happy to sit down and have a conversation.”

Yakubov is also on the wrong side of the ledger with the most important political player in East Parkside: Philadelphia City Council member Jamie Gauthier, who in an interview, made it clear she agreed with residents opposing his development plans. “I don’t believe that German and Haverford Square are good community partners,” Gauthier said. “The disrespect that he has shown the community, and the fact that he’s always trying to trap the community in these false choices that only really benefit him, has made him undesirable as a development partner throughout East Parkside.”

Welcome to die Nachbarschaft

At stake in the neighborhood is the fabric of a historic built environment. In the decades following the 1876 Centennial International Exhibition in West Fairmount Park, it was originally German-Americans who established East Parkside on land left unoccupied in the wake of the celebration, according to the neighborhood’s historic district nomination. “The expanse of available land allowed for more suburban scale and large three-story houses and apartment buildings,” the nomination relays.

Also spurred by the development of new public transit systems in the area, well-to-do beer brewers and merchants with names like Poth, Trautwine, Steinmetz, Wengell, and Baltz began to construct homes there in the 1890s. They did so with a distinctly European taste, eschewing red-brick Colonial styles common elsewhere in the city for “more florid” varieties of the old continent: from “mid-Victorian to tan brick, turn-of-the-century eclectic fashion with its references to Flemish” revival styles, the nomination notes  “[East Parkside] is thus of considerable interest, particularly in a city with an historically important German community,” the nomination concluded.

The German-American presence in the neighborhood in the 1890s quickly gave way to Russian Jewish immigrants, according to the West Philadelphia Collaborative History, a University of Pennsylvania project. Then came the Great Depression, when many of the large homes were converted into efficiency apartments and rooming houses. That was followed by white flight and transition into a predominantly African American neighborhood in the mid-20th century. Both public and private disinvestment followed: Landlords stopped caring for many of the historic homes, and some public transportation services were suspended.

However, the most recent arrivals to the neighborhood fought for its historic beauty in the 1980s when community leader James L. Brown IV and wife Charlotte Brown founded the Parkside Historic Preservation Corporation. The organization successfully completed the National Register nomination in 1983, allowing property owners to apply for historic preservation tax credits and enabling the rehabilitation of some 20 historic buildings.

Even still, other properties continued to fall into disrepair and even demolition. As of the mid-aughts, the district–bounded by Parkside Avenue, Belmont Avenue, Viola Street, and 41st Street–included 40 historically significant properties, each added to the Philadelphia Register. 57 buildings were listed as “contributing” to its history, along with 29 “non-contributing” buildings that did not receive historical protections.

Today the district continues to be marked by some pockets of blight, including vacant lots where contributing structures once stood, but the neighborhood also hosts handsome and well-preserved residences dating to its earliest days.

 Competing Visions

What should come next for East Parkside? This question is perhaps the most crucial one underlying the feud between Haverford Square and the long-time residents who oppose the firm’s developments. Yakubov doesn’t think there is a density problem. He noted that many homes constructed around the turn of the 20th century eventually deteriorated and were demolished. The plots now existing as empty lots. With amenities including grocery stores, parks, museums, and concert venues within walking distance, along with access to public transit, he sees that as a disconnect begging for redevelopment.

Data from the U.S. Census show the tract containing East Parkside had a population of about 3,400 residents in 2011, 2,700 in 2022, and 3,300 in 2024. Yakubov said all of his firm’s projects, including 74-unit and 49-unit buildings on Parkside Avenue, amount to a few hundred new residents and characterized that as not out of line with historic norms. “I would challenge anybody to produce a report, data, outside of a feeling that would say that neighborhood is oversaturated,” Yakubov said.

Residents say all one needs to do is walk the streets. On the western half of the historic district, Haverford Square is constructing its 49-unit apartment building at 4274 Parkside Avenue on a parcel where four homes recently stood. Immediately behind it is the Viola Street parcel where Haverford Square is ostensibly seeking to house up to 50 people in a group home.

At the end of the block, a few hundred feet away, Yakubov is planning to build a 14-unit apartment building that previously drew opposition from residents for requiring the demolition of a mural celebrating the Philadelphia Stars, a Black baseball team that played in Parkside during the 1930s. Yet, after Yakubov purchased an adjoining property, he said he can now proceed with the project by-right and has donated $30,000 to the Mural Arts program to reconstruct the mural across the street. The nonprofit did not respond to a request to detail the status of that project and its funding.

Perhaps the project drawing the greatest ire of residents is Yakubov’s plan to construct a four-story, 22-unit apartment building in a 0.15-acre triangle-shaped alleyway sandwiched between Parkside Avenue and Viola Street, right in the middle of the other three projects. The project would not have any frontage along the neighborhood’s streets. Instead, access would be through a thin strip of the alleyway. Many of the building’s windows would inevitably offer views of little, but the back of existing homes.

All totaled, the four projects would amount to well over 100 new residents on parcels that had until recently contained a combined nine single-family homes. The projects also do not include parking, and residents say they will lose access to the alleyway where many previously parked their cars. A dispute over property lines in the alleyway and a physical fence Haverford Square installed to partially block access already boiled over earlier this year before construction even began.

Asked for her perspective on the right path forward for East Parkside, Councilmember Gauthier said there is a desire for thoughtful redevelopment, citing collaboration with community groups like Centennial Parkside CDC and developers such as Gary Jonas, who she explained is working on a Turn the Key affordable housing development project in the neighborhood. “I think folks do want multifamily. I think folks do want home ownership. I think people in East Parkside care very much about the historical character of the neighborhood… historic assets that may not be designated as historically significant by an outside institution, but matter to the people who live there,” she explained. “Everyone wants a good quality of life. They want to live in a thriving neighborhood. But we’re not begging Haverford Square to get that.”

Residents who oppose Haverford Square also say they don’t have a problem with adding new development or density to the neighborhood. Yet, they stand by their view that the Yakubovs are seeking too much and are employing hardball tactics instead of organically seeking community input. “He paints us as anti-development,” said Smith. “That is not true. We do want development, but we are also asking developers to please consider how it’s going to impact the quality of our lives. We feel like we can’t negotiate with [German Yakubov] because it’s either his way or no way.”

---

---