Celebrating National Historic Preservation Month
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May is National Historic Preservation Month.
To celebrate, the Preservation Alliance asked 31 historic preservation leaders in Philadelphia to name a building that has inspired them and why. We invite you to watch this space daily and hear from leaders in the local preservation movement as they reveal the historic buildings that have inspired them.
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Faye Anderson
Douglass Hotel
1409 Lombard Street, Philadelphia
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The historical marker in front of 1409 Lombard Street reads, in part, “Billie Holiday: In this city, she often lived here.” "HERE" was the Douglass Hotel, named in memory of abolitionist Frederick Douglass. Built in 1926, the hotel was first listed in The Negro Motorist Green Book in 1938. The “Green Book” was a travel guide that helped African Americans navigate Jim Crow laws in the South and racial segregation in the North.
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The Douglass Hotel also provided a transportation service to allow black Americans to “ride without discrimination or segregation.” The hotel rooms had a bed, basin, and dressing bureau with a shared bathroom. There were two bathrooms on each floor. While the rooms were basic, the basement space was magical. Legends in the making walked through this door.
Through four decades and several ownership and name changes, jazz and blues greats-in-the-making and future Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees performed in the nightclub in the basement of the Douglass Hotel. The list included Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Fats Domino, Ray Charles, Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck, Dinah Washington, Ramsey Lewis, Art Blakey, Cannonball Adderley, Thelonious Monk, and Aretha Franklin. Sidney Bechet, John Coltrane, and Grover Washington Jr. recorded live albums at 1409 Lombard Street.
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Listed on the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places, 1409 Lombard Street is one of the few extant buildings associated with Philadelphia’s golden age of jazz. The historical marker merely hints at what happened behind those brick walls. If walls could talk, they would tell how the jazz culture broke down racial barriers. For the first time, blacks and whites mingled on an equal basis. Jazz musicians created a cultural identity that was a stepping stone to the Civil Rights Movement.
1409 Lombard Street transformed me from an accidental preservationist to a cultural heritage preservationist. Historic preservation is about more than preserving brick-and-mortar. It’s also about preserving the ancestors’ stories in public memory.
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Faye M. Anderson is director of All That Philly Jazz, a place-based public history project that is documenting Philadelphia’s lost jazz shrines and contextualizing the social history of jazz. Faye leads a walking tour of Green Book sites in Center City and South Philly.
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Faye Anderson
Director, All That Philly Jazz
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NEW VIRTUAL LECTURES
Watch from the safety and
comfort of your own home!
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TONIGHT -- Wednesday, May 6, 6:00 PM to 7:30 PM
Yesterday's Aftermath: Philadelphia's Epidemics and the Built Environment
Presented by The Carpenter's Company of the City and County of Philadelphia and the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia
Join us for this FREE event as Inga Saffron moderates a discussion on the impact of Philadelphia's epidemics on the built environment.
The Carpenters' Company and the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia present Inga Saffron in discussion with David Barnes, Jane E. Boyd and George Wohlreich on the history of Philadelphia's epidemics.
Inga Saffron writes architectural criticism for The Philadelphia Inquirer. This panel is inspired by her March column "Philadelphia Has Endured Plagues Before. It Adapted and Became a Better Place." Saffron has maintained her column in the Inquirer's "Home and Design" section since 1999 and has written for the Inquirer since 1984.
- David Barnes, PhD, is Associate Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania.
- Jane E. Boyd, PhD, is an independent exhibit developer and was the historical curator for the Mütter Museum's recent exhibit "Spit Spreads Death: The Influenza Pandemic of 1918-19 in Philadelphia."
- George Wohlreich, MD, MA, is President and CEO of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia.
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Tuesday, May 12, 6:00 PM to 7:30 PM
Boathouse Row: Untold Stories of a Philadelphia Icon
Presented by Dotty Brown
Digging into 150 years of archives for her book,
Boathouse Row, Waves of Change in the Birthplace of American Rowing
, Dotty Brown, a former editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer, discovered quirky and fascinating stories behind the façade of these 19
th
century houses. She will reveal some of them, including: how one of Philadelphia’s best known architects came to build on Boathouse Row; its ties with two of the city’s 19
th
century firehouses; why Thomas Eakins’ early work focused on rowers; and the battle women fought for a house of their own in the all-male venue. Dotty blogs about the Row and its history on her website:
www.BoathouseRowTheBook.com
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Tuesday, May 19, 6:00 PM to 7:30 PM
Art Deco in Philadelphia
Presented by Dr. David Brownlee
,
Frances Shapiro-Weitzenhoffer Professor of 19th Century European Art,
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia contributed an exhilarating chapter to the history of "Art Deco," the colorful, invented modern style that offered an exciting alternative to the austere functionalism in the 1920s and 30s. The quintessential style of the Jazz Age, Art Deco brought brilliant color to the decoration of the Art Museum, introduced exotic motifs (including Mayan and Spanish Colonial) to the city's new skyscrapers, and contributed zig-zagging ornament to our radio stations and "automat" restaurants. It was also one of the components of the brilliant stylistic synthesis created by George Howe and William Lescaze in the era's greatest landmark, the PSFS Building.
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