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UCREVIEW.COM · AUGUST 10 · 2011 North Philadelphia’s Poor Clare Monastery continued from page 1
cissistic bombast and dance around an altar. Sometimes the dancers get really fancy and hold up incense bowls in a reenactment of Inca pagan ceremonies. Some new age (read: post-Conciliar) Catho- lics will tell you that this is prayer; that the movements of the dancers’ limbs are be- ing guided by the Spirit. But which Spirit? The star draw at Santa Croce was Sister Anna Nobili, an ex lap dancer- turned nun whose liturgical dancing stunts be- came a You Tube sensation. The unconventional Sister Nobili, sans veil of course, danced around a crucifix in a way that called to mind imag- es of a snickering Larry Flint. Sister Nobili’s gyrating put a new twist on the phrase “in the spirit of Vatican II.” Rarely do monasteries fall from grace Santa Croce-style. Most just die a natural archi- tectural death—the building becomes too expensive to op- erate or a larger structure is needed. There are monaster- ies that seem to never change and where dilapidation from the centuries is transformed into a venerable historic pa- tina, much like Orthodoxy’s Mount Athos. Some monasteries, like the Poor Clare Monastery at Co- rinthian and W. Girard Av- enue in North Philadelphia’s Francisville section, are aban- doned and left to rot like dis- carded tires in a vacant lot. The reasons for that abandon-
ment will be explained here in an interview with a nun who lived in the monastery from 1955 until the Poor Clares left North Philadelphia in 1977. First, a little bit of history: Not long after the Poor Clares left the monastery in 1977 for their new home in Langhorne, the property was taken over by 2012 W. Girard Associates. The new owners allowed the buildings to deteriorate until they were deemed too far- gone for rehabilitation. Doing nothing to a property until it falls like the Wall of Jericho is an old developer’s trick. Once things reach this stage it’s easy to say, “We have to level it. It’s beyond salvation.” The three buildings in ques- tion—two 1890c brownstones framing a 1918-built Roman- esque stone chapel—have intrigued passersby for years. The words Poor Clare Mon- astery etched in large classic script above the main door of the chapel. The script and floral designs engraved in the exterior stone of the chapel stand in stark contrast to the area’s row house monotony. W. Girard Associates’ vision is this: to build two four story apartment-condo structures on the site. The complex would contain over forty 800 square foot, two bedroom units. W. Girard would also eliminate the old monastery garden area where the nuns used to pray. The plan, how- ever, has not gone smoothly. Not only have Preservation groups objected to demoli-
Sunday, August 21, 2011 at 5:00 pm
tion plans, but also Licenses and Inspections is, allegedly, making it difficult for W. Gi- rard to secure a development permit. Pertinent issues con- cern height limit restrictions, zoning code violations and the proposal’s lack of a pro- posed rear yard. Five years ago the same owner came up with a pro- posal for 17 residential units. Although the community approved this plan, the units were never built. While the monastery is part of the general Girard Avenue National Register Historic District, it is not listed on the Philadelphia Registry of His- toric Places, hence out of the legal purview of the Philadel- phia Historical Commission. This means that it is a vulner- able target for an overnight demolition. Overnight as in, “It’s past midnight, let’s fire up these bulldozers and tear up old Poor Clare.” “I think it would be a shame for them to be demolished,” John Gallery, executive direc- tor of the Preservation Alli- ance of Greater Philadelphia, is on record as saying. “The development proposed in its place is really out of charac- ter, both in style and choice of materials, and in density. It seems to be overbuilt for the site.” “The Poor Clare monastery at Girard & Corinthian will indeed be poor, if not pre- served, restored and reused. It’s a beautifully textured site, with quite the garden on the east side. If and when Girard College needs to expand, it’s a logical site to consider.One proposal being considered is giving the three historic buildings a façade-ectomy, that would leave the build- ings with their historic fa- çades but nothing else. The front of the structures would become like the faux creations
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at Hollywood’s Universal Studios while the facades’ rear ends would be crammed with a neighborhood-friendly scaled down design. Some would call that a stuffed turkey. Center City architect Alvin Holm, who champions the classical tradition in architec- ture, says this is far from an ideal solution. Holm says that the only fa- çade-ectomy he’s seen work has been Philadelphia’s Por- tico Row at 8th and Spruce Streets. “Philadelphia is alone among American cities in having such a rich heritage of historic buildings. Most of the big cities in the country have taken them down. Kan- sas City is just a fraction of the city that it was in the early 20th century. After the Second World War they just began demolishing office buildings to make parking lots for peo- ple who work in the city and commute. Philadelphia never did that.” Holm likes to say that as the Americans were triumphant in Europe, and bombed the heck out of Dresden, and as the Germans made their own mess there, once the war was over America began to dis- seminate itself. “People now look back and say ‘How could that have happened?’” It happened, he says, because modernism took control. “Af-
ter the war, all the schools in the country changed their curriculum. All the architec- ture schools stopped teaching the orders of classical archi- tecture. “The Poor Clare buildings are very good in themselves and are excellent examples of their ilk in their time,” he adds. “They have a quality above and beyond of just be- ing representative of an era, especially the chapel. They also form a nice relation- ship to the college across the street.” Holm also believes that the buildings can be retrofitted, specifically in the areas of plumbing and electricity, for contemporary use. “It’s generally not true when people insist it’s cheaper to tare down old historic build- ings rather than bring them up to date,” he says. Holm wrote in the Spring 2011 issue of Construction Today [“Preservation and the New Traditionalism’] that as many notable modernist buildings pass the age of fifty, they are achieving historic landmark status but are “notoriously difficult to restore.” “Traditional buildings that are designed to endure for the long term (by employ- ing time-tested construction techniques) are also relatively easy to maintain, and when neglected, they are not diffi- cult to restore.”
So why, then, can’t someone come forward who can ret- rofit the Francisville monas- tery?
The Poor Clares Founded by St. Clare (a friend of Saint Francis of Assisi), in the 13th century, the Poor Clares that came to Phila- delphia in 1918 were part of the so-called primitive order. Other branches of the Poor Clares include the strict ob- servance Colettine, who prac- tice mendicancy, perpetual fasts (Lent without end), live in strict enclosure, go barefoot and wear the traditional habit, and the Urbanists, whose rule was modified and made less austere by Pope Urban IV. There are also the Poor Clare Nuns of Perpetual Adoration (P.C.P.A.), a Pontifical Order of Cloistered Nuns, founded in Paris on December 8, 1854. When the Poor Clare nuns came to North Philadelphia’s Girard Avenue in 1918, it was an area inhabited by wealthy Gilded Age industrialists like Peter A.B. Widener. Widen- er’s Willis G. Hale’s-designed home was a baroque mansion on the corner of Broad Street and Girard Avenue. This ur- ban castle formed a gateway of sorts to West Girard Avenue and Girard College. The Poor Clares, however, would have only known the building as a branch of the Free Library
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MONE L L A BOUT IQUE
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