In which my Hidden City Philadelphia photo safari continues!
The Mr. and I had so much fun on our tour that we invited some new friends to join us the next weekend.
First up, Germantown Town Hall, a gorgeous Beaux Arts behemoth that has been abandoned since 1998. One of the most fascinating things about visiting these vacant buildings is the state they are left in, as if everyone who worked there just vanished, leaving behind piles of papers, ancient conputers and cabinets filled with files. What happened when the Town Hall closed it's doors?
The entry of the Germnatown Town Hall is painted an arresting shade of seafoam grey, the great detail of the moldings and domed ceilings a sharp contrast to the bland beurocratic decay we found as we wandered through the halls.
Next stop: The Historical Soicety of Frankford, smack dab in the middle of a particulalry bedraggled neighborhood in Philly that was (unbelievably) a place where the Philadelphia elite summered. Today the Historical Society is like a museum of Philadelphia curiosities. The artist project, called AV Archaeology, was its own discovery- housed within the glass cases of musical instruments, taxidermy and ephemera, a group of musicians called Data Garden were asked to create soundscapes based on a curiostity that appealed to them. Push a button and suddenly the birds under glass would sing or a victrola would play a tune. It's as if these relics came to life, whispering their histories to us.
We weren't able to take pictures inside most of the space but I snuck in a few bits of text that appealed to me.
The photo above of Globe Dye Works ads got me excited for our next stop. You guessed it: Globe Dye Works! Philly was once a great textile mill city but those are all gone now. Globe Dye Works was recently rehabbed for artist studios but in the boiler room, the memory of the old mill remains. The artist project here, called Oil & Water, by the Dufala Brothers, is a "defunct infrastructure", calling attention to the ephemeral usefulness of all industrial equipment. It's oddly poignant to see all these empty spaces that once thrived, like great invisible dinousaurs.
And last but certainly not least, Hawthorne Hall. Oh Hawthorne Hall, you were magic to my senses but a disaster for my camera to capture. So I only have one picture. Once a clubhouse home first to The Knights of Pythias Union Lodge then later the Irish
National Foresters Society, New Light National Baptist Church, New
Beginnings Inc., and Christ Ministries, Inc. and replete with theater, church and bar, Hawthorne Hall is now crumbling and forgotten. Until the art collecrtive Rabid Hands got their paws on it. The collective created the "Society of Pythagoras," drawing from past
and present secret spiritual and fraternal customs to create a
mysterious, multi-storied club built on ritual and exploration.
The place was madness, with secret doors and hidden passageways but it was so dark that my poor camera freaked out and gave up. Oh well, you'll have to trust me on this one. It was amazing!
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