In 1918, a predominantly Black branch of the Germantown YWCA formed, becoming the home to future National Basketball Hall of Fame inductee Ora Washington. An African American women’s basketball team called the Germantown Hornets was established in 1929, and they quickly won the Colored Women’s National Title in 1931. The team featured Washington, a young star who had learned to play basketball at the building’s courts and soon became a very popular athlete in the country.
This branch formed as an extension of the original Germantown YWCA. Germantown had already embraced urbanization at the time of this plan, and the mill-town became a destination for many African Americans escaping the south, as well as a spot for European immigrants to find labor. The colored YWCA branch formed with pushes from social justice advocate and Gray Panthers founder Maggie Kuhn, as well as Caroline Shipley, the group’s first Chairman of the Inter-Racial Committee.
The two YWCA locations were separated by only six blocks but worked in conjunction with one another to promote the wellbeing of the neighborhood. What began as an escape for women working in the mills soon became a powerful force in the Germantown community.
A W. Penn St. sign in Germantown on Nov. 4, 2024. The resolution for the original Germantown YWCA was formed on this street in 1871.
In February 1871, 47 years before the predominantly Black branch of the Germantown YWCA was built, ten women met at the house of Elizabeth Smith on Penn St. in West Philadelphia to discuss the establishment of their very own Young Women’s Christian Association branch. A group of women in Boston had founded a YWCA of their own five years earlier, and spearheaded by Ellen Matlack the idea came to fruition in Germantown.
Germantown was once a mill-town, the first manufacturing town in America according to its inhabitants, and at the time there were several people doing influential work in what is today a neighborhood in Northwest Philadelphia. Matlack was one of these people, and her volunteering in Wakefield and Fisher’s Hollow had inspired her to take on this project. That February night a resolution formed creating the Women’s Christian Association of Germantown.
“Germantown kind of sits in an interesting spot for the United States,” said Marcus Palm, Archivist and Librarian at the Germantown Historic Society. “Germantown is one of the few truly historic places. It has been host to a lot of philosophical origins of the United States, as well as almost every kind of major immigrant movement.”
The origins of the neighborhood serve as a microcosm of the transformation that took place in its buildings, and with the influx of settlers came shifts in the general demographics.
The two YWCA locations were separated by only six blocks but worked in conjunction with one another to promote the wellbeing of the neighborhood. What began as an escape for women working in the mills soon became a powerful force in the Germantown community.
However, their initial intentions soon changed quickly.
“As early as 1880 sites like the Rittenhouse Town were already in decline. Most of the buildings here came down around 1880, which is relatively early,” said Amy Ricci, Executive Director at Historic Rittenhouse.
The association’s cohesion only grew, and after World War II the initial branch invited all members to use their pool since the colored branch did not have a swimming pool on site. One of the founder’s Kuhn, who was forced into retirement at 65 years old by the Presbyterian Church, broke boundaries by working directly with Black women to help their Y get off the ground. This bridge that was formed remained until 1953 when the Colored Branch was sold, with the building becoming the Germantown Settlement Music School today.
“I think Germantown is a microcosm for urban America today,” said Caroline Slama, a librarian and researcher at the Joseph E. Coleman Northwest Regional Library. “Gentrification, reinvestment, displacement, you can just see it with the number of places that have been either torn down or made something new.”
The Germantown Y is stated as being one of the three oldest groups of its type in the country, yet since 2006 its original structure has sat vacant on Germantown Ave., a topic of steep discussion amongst locals in the community who have attempted to create action from the city.
“Germantown, especially after the 40s, definitely became a center of African American culture in Philadelphia proper, and I think there’s definitely a strong push to maintain a sense of self in that way,” Palm said. “There seems to be a lot of effort in keeping Germantown’s character celebrated and kept from being washed out.”
Many historic neighborhoods like Harlem in New York City have experienced a transformation in their properties that often has them lose their traditional form. The Germantown community is trying to prevent that, but a vacant building does little good in upholding the legacy of an organization that held so much cultural value for more than a century.
This disconnect between the city and the people is partially why the Germantown YWCA was formed initially- a spot for women to learn and grow in ways the mainstream avenues once prevented.
However, the ongoing court cases have caused an adverse effect. On October 31, 2024, the First Judicial District of Pennsylvania Civil Trial Division decided to dismiss a case in which Weinstein Properties, LLC hoped to win back the rights to the building from the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority.
The loss marks another hit against the community, and an abandoned Germantown YWCA building continues to gain dust, grow weeds and lose its shine as a leader for social development in America.
The property, with a rich history, sits next to Vernon Park on Germantown Ave., the busiest street in the neighborhood. The former YWCA building, which was once consistently packed with hundreds of people on busy days, has been a crucial part of the community’s efforts to revitalize a neighborhood they believe is becoming an afterthought.
“I grew up there at the Y learning to swim when I was nine in day camp,” said Barbara Dowall, a Germantown resident and volunteer. “I was in teen groups and when I was in junior high and early high school.”
Dowdall organized girl scout troop meetings and taught SAT prep classes at the YWCA, continuing to work at the building through its closure. She even contributed to the massive mural on the building’s side, and helped when they went through a transition from a national YWCA organization to “The Germantown Women’s Y”.
She recently brought an exhibit on the book “Bright April” by Marguerite de Angeli to the Germantown Historic Society. The book refers to an African-American child from Germantown in the 1940s who walks from a library to a little park in part of the story, based around the set up at Vernon Park.
“It’s a tragedy that the politics of councilmanic privilege are destructive to the neighborhood,” Dowdall said. “I have great hope that the building is going to be preserved in some way.”
The biggest component to the politics behind this abandonment is councilmanic prerogative.
Councilmanic prerogative is a term known to local community activists and property commissions throughout Philadelphia, and for the second time in two decades, the city’s powerful tool has been a topic of conversation in the Germantown neighborhood.
Councilmanic prerogative is a tradition through which the 10 district council members have the final say on real estate and property development decisions in their district. The process has had a large impact on developmental projects in Germantown under councilwoman Cindy Bass. Bass was unavailable for comment.
“It’s a gentle-people’s agreement that goes back decades,” said Ann Doley, a Germantown resident who is a co-founder of Friends for the Restoration of the Germantown YWCA Building. “For years, we’ve worked tirelessly to get the YWCA repurposed to benefit Germantown residents in need of quality, affordable housing and to honor the YWCA’s progressive history. Sadly, we’ve made no progress with the city, and I blame that on the use of councilmanic prerogative.”
Another component to the development case of the building is the local Center in the Park’s parking lot, belonging to the Y. Center in the Park was founded in 1969 but has no parking or street entrance, utilizing the former YWCA’s access points. When Center in the Park moved to an adjacent building in the 1980s, the YWCA continued to support the needs of their senior citizens with mobility issues. A concern is that a new owner could also eliminate this unwritten agreement and create another debate, says Doley.
The ongoing real estate dispute between Weinstein Properties, LLC and the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority has continued to stall, leaving the former Germantown YWCA battered and vandalized. The YWCA has been a microcosm for the blight in the city, but the city’s intentions do not match those of the community.
“Public disposition of property is so bad that it has caused blight,” said Yvonne Haskins, a former lawyer and community activist. “But here you got a vacant building, it’s on the Historic Register, it’s significant to the community. The history of that building is so important to us, and it is not just Germantown residents.”
Council prerogative has given the authoritative power of confirming or denying real estate projects directly to the council members instead of from the mayor’s office. Eight years ago, development firm KBK Enterprises was chosen to step in to restore the building and implement market-rate housing. And eight years later, even after they changed the proposed plan to low-income housing, they have not received the funding to move forward with their project.
“The fact that there was a developer selected to redevelop the property and has been unable to do so is not a good situation,” said Tuomi Forrest, Executive Director of Historic Germantown. “It’s not good for the building, it’s not good for the neighborhoods.”
Ken Weinstein filed suit against the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority in late-2023 in hopes of taking over the project, garnering support from local community groups. Since December 2023, community members have filled courtrooms for hearings over Weinstein’s Pennsylvania’s Abandoned and Blighted Property Conservatorship, or Act 135, lawsuit. On October 31, 2023, the case was dismissed without rationale.
“They didn’t put any value on what the community has suffered all these years with that vacant building,” Haskins said. “They didn’t put any value on our concern about the lack of preservation in the way it should have been preserved, so I think we have to go political.”
The community has kept faith in their ability to help the neighborhood, like they did with a 2011 zoning case surrounding The Plaza at Chelten off of Pulaski and Chelten Ave. That year a Fresh Grocer closed down and was to be replaced by a dollar store. Haskins and several more community members stepped in, and with more than 3,000 signatures they rallied to block the owner from getting another $1 million.
“Chelten Plaza is the backdrop to exposing councilmanic prerogatives,” Haskins said. “Before that case, nobody knew they were practicing this.”
According to Haskins, the situation regarding The Plaza at Chelten provides the framework for what Germantown can do today- unite. Along with dozens of other community activists, she showed the power of wearing matching t-shirts, protesting loudly and creating change in a neighborhood searching for it.
Haskins, a founding member of Friends for the Restoration of the Germantown Y, says the community’s next step is to apply for a reconsideration of the initial decision and hopefully begin to find political avenues for change.
The Germantown YWCA’s preservation combines the sentiments of an essential historic location with modern-day politics. Whether it is the blight, lack of action, or tarnished history, Germantown may look at the abandoned YWCA as an isolated attempt to preserve an iconic piece of the past. The decisions coming up, though, may help dictate the neighborhood’s future.
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