Jawnts: R.I.P. 3711 Melon St.
Like many older, poorer cities, Philadelphia is scarred by vacant housing and empty lots. About 40,000 of them, by general agreement, left to wrack and ruin by the city's loss of some 500,000 residents since the early 1950s.
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Like many older, poorer cities, Philadelphia is scarred by vacant housing and empty lots. About 40,000 of them, by general agreement, left to wrack and ruin by the city's loss of some 500,000 residents since the early 1950s.
Temple Contemporary's project "Funeral for a Home" seeks to remember all these empty structures that used to be homes by giving one, at 3711 Melon St., in Mantua, an honorable send-off.
Patrick Grossi, one of the project organizers, says West Philadelphia Real Estate owns the lot and plans to construct affordable housing there, as it has elsewhere in the area. After the house is demolished, only a handful of its old compatriots will remain.
The project has been unfolding for months as its architects considered houses in Kensington, North Philadelphia, and South Philadelphia. After deciding on the house on Melon Street, they met with community groups, tracked down former residents, conducted interviews, and learned the history of the house.
The longtime residential neighborhood is almost entirely African American today (87.3 percent as of the 2010 census), although it was once predominantly Jewish and Irish. The house and its original row date to the 1870s and is part of the city's signature housing style, the rowhouses that Philadelphia embraced to a greater degree than any other major city. (At peak population in 1950, Philly had fewer separated housing units than New York or Chicago.) The house now stands alone, with no trace of the houses that once hugged it tightly on either side.
The funeral begins outside the house, with the Rev. Harry Moore of Mount Olive Baptist Church officiating. The choir will sing in between eulogies by Mantua residents and two nieces of Leona Richardson, who owned the house for almost 50 years (she purchased it in 1946).
A procession will then march north, through the surrounding blocks, supported by two neighborhood drill teams - the Unique Miracles and the Xtreme Kre8tionz. A student string quartet from Play on Philly will perform at the halfway point. Upon return to the 3700 block of Melon, lunch will be served.
Jawnts: FUNERAL FOR A HOME
Saturday, 11 a.m. at 3711 Melon St.
Free and open to the public.
For more information, visit http://tyler.temple.edu/funeral-homeEndText