Germantown Town Hall is sitting vacant at 5928 Germantown Ave., and it has been for the past 12 years, slowly deteriorating, the ground becoming littered with historic debris. What once served a great purpose in the town’s history is now collecting cobwebs, only to sit even longer, waiting for its value to be restored.
People have expressed an interest in restoring the building. In fact, multiple people and groups have inquired about transforming the landmark into something that could be of use, like an antique store or an assisted living home, but the amount of work that the building would require seems like too much to take on for the interested parties.
But now a petition is circulating in Germantown, asking residents for signatures supporting the idea to restore Town Hall into a regional justice and civic service center. In fact, District Atty. Seth Williams ran on a campaign that coincides with this proposition. Williams suggested that the district attorney’s office become more regional, redistributing assistant district attorneys and investigators throughout the city into some of the larger communities.
Restoring Town Hall into a regional district attorney center is seemingly fitting with its location. Besides the fact that it is located in the center of Germantown, it is situated right next to the 14th Police District.
Jim Foster, the publisher of the Germantown and Mt. Airy newspapers, is a strong advocate for this change.
“It’s in a section of Germantown Avenue where there are a number of vacant buildings in addition to Town Hall, so I thought it would be advantageous to make this building project the first regional D.A.’s office,” said Foster. “So I took the plan to Seth Williams personally and he liked it so much. He seemed to think it was a natural.”
The next step was to propose this idea to the community. Foster took the petition and his thoughts to a meeting for the Germantown Community Connection. His plan was well received. After answering some questions and making clarifications, the petition gained many signatures. The purpose of the petition is to prove to the city of Philadelphia that people want this to happen.
“We demand that the city put some priority on looking into this project,” explained Foster. “The response has been excellent. We’re gathering more and more signatures all the time and at some point in the near future this will be formally presented to the hierarchy of the city. Petitions are still coming in.”
Germantown is also one of the only neighborhood in the 8th City Council District where the council member does not have an office in her own district. By renovating Town Hall, Donna Reed Miller would be able to move her office into Germantown, making her services more accessible to the public, rather than making members of the community go to her current office at City Hall.
“The classic answer you get is we don’t have money to do that. There are examples of this all over Germantown,” said Foster. “We’re not willing to take that answer.”
They are not willing to take that answer especially since money is spent to keep Miller’s office in City Hall. Therefore, it won’t be a totally new expense.
Foster, as well as the rest of the community and the surrounding communities of Mt. Airy and Chestnut Hill, is hoping this will jump start recognition for Germantown. And with all of the history the neighborhood has to offer, preserving a building of such importance could certainly add to the town’s landscape.
Of course, the building is going to cost some money to rebuild. And it will not just be expensive structurally.
Elizabeth Gabor, a real estate manager for the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corp., is one of the managers who has been in charge of marketing Town Hall for the past three years. She explained that because this is a historic building, the outside needs to be preserved, and a private market cannot use the space enough to cover the costs of fixing the building. There are multiple historical ornaments inside that would need to be preserved, which could cause potential problems. Also, attempting to purchase Town Hall would require City Council approval as well as approval from the state.
“The need to restore the inside and the outside, plus the number of ornaments that need to be preserved would further complicate any transactions,” said Gabor.
Among the historical ornaments are a bell and historical documents that hang on the walls in the rotunda, which takes up a space of two floors. Gabor also explained that whoever was to purchase this building would have to grant access of the rotunda to the public because of the historic tablature.
Based on the deteriorating exterior, a passerby could only guess at the amount of work renovations would require. The building is surrounded by trash and broken pieces of cement, which have fallen from the crumbling pillars. There are several broken windows and some windows are even covered in graffiti. Wooden pieces are rotting away and grass is overgrown. The front and back are posted with a notice for public hearing regarding the structure’s future.
A group who tried to determine that outcome is the Germantown Conservancy. This group formed because of a recently passed Pennsylvania state law, Act 135, which gives groups the right to petition the court to essentially get control of a neglected property in order to renovate it for the community’s benefit. The Germantown Conservancy spent time walking the streets of Germantown, recording every neglected and abandoned property, which equals 319 properties.
The group decided to take their findings to court on Sept. 16, asking for the authority to take control of each property. This was the first filing under Act 135 in Philadelphia. The court rejected the idea, so the conservancy filed an appeal with a select group of 50 properties, one of those being Town Hall. The Germantown Conservancy is still waiting on a ruling from the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County.
Based on the conservancy’s findings, it is clear that Town Hall is not the only building that needs to be restored. Over the years, many of Germantown’s historic buildings have been renovated, reviving the town’s history as well. Mark Sellers, president of the Germantown Historical Society, wants people to understand the value that the history of Germantown has, and each restored historic building is valued in a different way.
“Whether it’s economically, historically, or aesthetically, community history is important,” said Sellers, “All of this stuff is interesting. People should want to see it because it’s interesting.”
And certain groups within the community are working to make sure more of this history is seen. Germantown has a large amount of surviving real estate that has not been tremendously altered from its original construction in the 18th and 19th centuries. At least a dozen of these structures have been restored to preserve the history of the use that they once served.
Multiple historic sites line Germantown Avenue, such as the Deshler-Morris House, which was once a retreat for George Washington. Or the Johnson House, which was a stop along the Underground Railroad. There are multiple destinations that make Germantown a perfect tourist attraction, but it is not as much of a tourist destination as the community would like it to be.
Anne Burnette, the program director for Freedom’s Backyard, claims that trying to recapture the level of tourism is difficult.
“The field at large is that tourism doesn’t play as huge a role as it did in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s.”
Freedom’s Backyard is trying to change that. In fact, the organization recently went through a revamping process. The group used to be called Historic Germantown, but it decided to rebrand itself, changing its name to Freedom’s Backyard, because it wanted to be relevant to the immediate community.
“We’re trying to make ourselves known,” said Burnette. “I am constantly meeting people from the community who have said they’ve driven by all of these historic places but they’ve never gone in. We want that to change.”
As a result of the change, Freedom’s Backyard is trying to gain some community input about promoting Germantown’s history.
“We’re trying to identify themes, one being the idea of freedom,” said Burnette. “Freedom is as relevant today as it was when the settlers first came here.”
David Young, executive director of Cliveden of the National Trust, believes that if the town builds, the tourists will come.
“History is the primary selling point of Germantown,” said Young.
Young feels that it all comes down to making Germantown’s organizations work together. Because the town has dozens of community organizations, making them work together could be extremely beneficial, especially when trying to develop a project like the desire to restore Town Hall.
“The question really becomes why? What would Town Hall serve?” asked Young. “The end use and the answer for whom is the building to be of use is really the question to be asked. The present has to be the means of a larger end for the community.”
As it seems, the means of the redevelopment of Town Hall will be a benefit to the community. It served the community greatly in the past, originally built as a city services building in the 19th century. It has been on endangered properties list of the Preservation Alliance of Greater Philadelphia since 2003. Restoring for a purpose similar to the original would not only take it off of this list but also better the streetscape of the community, adding to the hopeful tourist attraction that is Germantown.
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This building needs to be saved. It is unfortunately emblematic of our neighborhood. With all the resources we have, all we need is community involvement. If we take care of our community, the money will come. We just need a rallying call and a kick-start. Imagine if/when Town Hall is restored. It will become a hub of activity, something that we badly need. It’s not hard to imagine that services around the Town Hall would develop around town hall in order to meet its needs.
It seems that in this time of reductions to the city budget, decentralizing city services, like the D.A.’s office and the council person’s office, would cost more over-all, not less. Also, city run buildings are notoriously badly renovated and maintained. One would think a privately funded re-use would be more likely to happen, even in central Germantown.