Architecture in the Neighborhood
The Baldwin Park neighborhood, once populated by brick industrial buildings, consists now of modern high-rise apartment buildings. Like many such transitions, it was gradual, then sudden. The jobs left slowly. The residents followed the jobs. In June 1971 the Franklin Town Development was announced and in short order fifty acres were leveled.
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There were buildings within the Franklin Town footprint that were not destroyed, mostly large historic buildings, and there were smaller structures outside the footprint. Let's look at some of the architecture still here, and let's approach the topic chronologically.​​
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I will only briefly discuss the buildings in the neighborhood that are on the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places, since they are individually discussed here. They are:
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The third United States Mint (now part of the Community College of Philadelphia);
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Wills Eye Hospital (now the Colonnade Condominiums);
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The Julia R. Masterman School;
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The old Family Court;
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Parkway Central Free Library;
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Middishade (1600 Callowhill Street Apartments);
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The Granary (the concrete granary, not the Granary Apartments);
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The Rodin Museum;
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Girls Catholic High School (former Hallahan High School, now Belmont Charter High School)
Going way back to Neolithic times, about 5,000 years ago, we can compare the granite plinths in the Park to Stonehenge, a comparison many visitors have voiced. Athena Tacha is the landscape architect who designed the Park in the 1980s. This article will confine itself to the architecture of buildings, not landscapes.
A mossy plinth in Baldwin Park on the left and Stonehenge on the right.
Three thousand years before the Greeks and Romans were placing massive horizontal stone lintels between vertical columns, Neolithic Englishmen were doing the same to build circular forms open to the sky.
Philadelphia, birthplace of the United States and "city of brotherly love" in Greek, always welcomed its comparison to the ancient lovers of democracy in Greece. Early 19th-century buildings like the First Bank of the United States, the Second Bank, Girard College's Founders Hall, and our own Preston Retreat all looked like Greek temples. This emphasis was renewed, at least in public buildings, after the 1893 Columbian Exhibition in Chicago. The City Beautiful movement, with wide boulevards and grand architecture, prevailed for the next forty years.
First image that comes to mind in Architecture 101 courses.
The order distinctions are made not just on the structure of the capitals, but on the proportions and suite of details that accompany each order. The Romans would add a column simpler than the Doric called the Tuscan, and a column more complex than the Corinthian called the composite. The Romans would also add concrete to the Greek materials list and develop arches and domes.
Academic architecture taught the strict proportions of the columns as far as diameter-to-height ratios and height of entablatures relative to those diameters, down to the minutest components of the entablatures and bases. The revival of Greek architecture in the late 19th century was accompanied by a looser interpretation of the strict rules of these Greek and Roman orders. In our neighborhood the Parkway Central Library is a good example of this Beaux Arts style.
One of these three buildings is not like the others – or maybe not? From top to bottom are the Hotel de Crillon in Paris (built 1758), the Family Court building (1941), and the Parkway Central Library (1927). The Hôtel de Crillon was the site of Ben Franklin's signing of the Treaty of Amity and Commerce in 1778. This treaty brought France into the American Revolution on the side of the Americans.
To this collection of Beaux Arts buildings we can add the similar Franklin Institute (1934), Philadelphia Museum of Art (1929), the Rodin Museum (1930) and the Third Philadelphia Mint (1901).
The Beaux-Arts style is named for the aesthetic principles promulgated by the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, which originates in Paris in the Napoleonic era. Several Philadelphia-based architects who worked in our neighborhood attended the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Julian Abele, who worked for Horace Trumbauer, spent time in Paris and was influenced by the Ecole. Paul Cret and Jacques Greber, who designed the Fairmount Parkway and the Rodin, attended the Ecole. What makes a building a Beaux Arts building?
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Symmetry;
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A flat roof;
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Rusticated first floor, i.e. the blocks of stone are visibly separated by mortar, vs. an ashlar second floor where the blocks are closely fitted with minimal mortar;
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A raised first floor with a grand entrance staircase and usually a grand lobby staircase;
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Arched windows;
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Pedimented doors (a triangular truss-like structure above and between the door jambs or columns;
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Classical details like Roman or Greek order columns, but with eclectic details: balustrades (railings), pilasters (flat columns with capitals, extending out from the wall), festoons (hanging branches, best seen on the Family Court building), cartouches (round raised stone with or without inscriptions, again best seen on the Family Court building), brackets and supporting consoles for the pediments and cornices), and agrafes (basically decorative keystones);
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Statuary, murals, ceiling medallions, coffered ceilings;
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Subtle polychromy (slight variation of color).
The entrance gate to the Rodin Museum is a reproduction of the entrance to Rodin's home in Meudon, France. It was designed by Paul Cret and Jacques Gréber.
You can see classical details with a blend of Greek and Roman orders (refer to the diagram in the second image on this page). There are four Tuscan columns supporting the architrave; above that the entablature that consists of triglyphs, with carved metopes between some of the triglyphs; above that the cornice with balustrade (railing); and finally the triangular pediment with a statuary grouping. There are carved brackets in an S-shape (ogees for you New York Times Spelling Bee fans) on the main wall on either side of the gate. Above the statue on the right is seen an agrafe, a decorative keystone.
The only example of a true Doric column in the neighborhood is at the entrance to the Rodin Museum itself. Doric columns have vertical grooves called flutings, 20 to be exact, and the column rests on the flat ground without a base. Here the entablature above the column capital is plain.
The best examples of Corinthian order columns surround all four sides of the Parkway Central Library. To the volutes of the Ionic columns are added carved acanthus leaves. The flutings on Corinthian columns number 24 (count the number on the columns at the entrance to the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Franklin Institute).
Apartment building at 1844 Callowhill Street, just up 19th Street from the Parkway Central Library and Family Court buildings.
The facade shows a rusticated first floor and ashlar second floor, but this is all fake (a facade??). This building was just re-stuccoed about five years ago, with grooves worked into the first floor stucco to emulate the grander buildings down 19th Street, an example of stucco classicism or classical stuccoism.
Chronologically the Romanesque or Norman style is next. Rounded arch doors and windows in stocky buildings with sharp lines and minimal ornamentation mark this style.
Romanesque former church at the northwest corner of 20th and Spring Garden Streets.
Compared to the later Gothic style, Romanesque buildings were stockier with sharp lines and minimal ornamentation and thus more economical to build. An off-center tower is typical.
This brownstone building, built circa 1864, now holds 19 subsidized housing rental apartments.
Pointed arches are hallmarks of the Gothic style. The active church at the northwest corner of 18th and Spring Garden Streets appears more delicate and less boxy than a Romanesque church. Brownstone buttresses support the tall tower with its slate spire. There is extensive tracery in the large windows, which can be larger than in the Romanesque churches because the tall pointed arch transmits forces more directly downward compared to the lateral forces generated by a rounder arch.
The Gothic building of the Philadelphia Tabernacle Church at 1801 Spring Garden Street. There was an extensive fire here in August of 1986 as discussed here.
2008 Spring Garden Street.
According to the nomination form for the Spring Garden Historic District, this is an example of High Victorian Gothic. This is a three-story semi-detached brownstone with a mansard roof and elaborate and eclectic detailing.
This was mentioned in our article on Frank Piasecki as the one-time Pitcairn mansion. Harold Pitcairn flew the first autogyro in the United States in 1930.
His Pitcairn Aviation mail service would grow to become Eastern Airlines.
A block away is the similar 1825 Spring Garden Street building.
Brick, symmetry, delicate ornamentation and a central entrance mark the Federal style, which is named for its prevalence in the early years of our country when the more robust Georgian style (and name) were out of favor. There is often a fan light over the door, here being just a non-windowed arch. Notice how the lower floor windows are mullioned with 8-over-12 panes and the upper floor has shorter 8-over-8 paned double-hung windows, giving a taller appearance to the structure. This building is part of the IBEW union complex discussed in our article here.
Independence Hall, designed by Hamilton Street's namesake Andrew Hamilton, is a more elaborate but similar Georgian structure.
Residential buildings in the neighborhood often have a mix of styles. It is difficult to achieve a classic architectural style in a three- or four-story building that is only 16-20 feet wide. Cost and material availability also constrained the appearance of the final product, and many of the "final" products have been repeatedly modified as tastes changed.
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Most of the residential supply in our neighborhood was built in the second half of the 19th century. The Italianate style was very popular between 1850 and 1880. Prominent eaves with decorated brackets (modillions), low-pitched roof, clean lines, tall first floor windows, and metal work mark this style.
Italianate townhome at 1819 Spring Garden Street.
Here there are first floor balconettes, sometimes called Juliet balconies in honor of that young lady from Verona, Italy. A gate and awning mark a clear entrance into this home.
Notice here as well the decreasing number of panes as your eye moves up the building's floors.
This is one of only a handful of townhomes along our neighborhood's stretch of Spring Garden Street that is owned and occupied by a single family, and has not undergone apartment conversion. One family has lived here since 1987.
2025 Spring Garden Street, one of three homes built in 1980 to replace the three built in 1860 that were demolished in the late 1960s. Builder Michael Lawrence used as his model historic townhomes in Savannah, Georgia, with their curving stairs, bays and raised stoops. These three homes have about 3,000 square feet and each sold for about $200,000 in 1980.
It is difficult to attribute any discrete style to this building, but what a human passerby might ask, unlike the Italianate home pictured above, is "Where is the entrance?" Counting the garage door, there are four choices from the sidewalk level. Garages with curb cuts privilege the automobile over the pedestrian in both appearance and safety. They also cause a loss of one street parking space, which today is always a community issue when a zoning variance is sought for a curb cut.
The Second Empire style was named for the preferences in France during the reign of Napoleon III (1852-1870). The classic example in Philadelphia is our City Hall, which was designed during this time frame and constructed over three decades starting in 1871. A key feature is the mansard roof, which has two slopes with the upper slope flatter and not usually seen and the lower roofline much steeper. This steep slope is often punctured by dormers, essentially adding an extra floor to the building. The front facades are usually flat with no porches or bays, thus accentuating the vertical massing.
1731-33 Spring Garden Street: Second Empire semi-detached homes.
The dormered slate curving roof above the heavily bracketed cornice is characteristic of this style.
The west side of the building on the left has an oriel window supported by decorative brackets, alongside a leaded glass window with casement sash, with an arched transom in a beautifully carved arched marble surround.
The house on the left was built for rivet magnate Barton Hoopes, who had at one time owned all the lots on the north side of the 1700 block of Spring Garden Street. He is discussed in our article here.
1709-1717 Spring Garden Street
The three middle buildings have had their cornices removed and Permastone facades placed on all four stories. This faux-stone treatment, popular in Baltimore, hides the Second Empire original features. The building at far left, 1717 Spring Garden Street, was the former home of hat-maker John B. Stetson and is discussed here.
More Second Empire at 19th and Nectarine Streets: 1947 and today
These five houses, with first floor stores in two of them in 1947, run between Buttonwood and Nectarine Streets on North 19th Street, and still exist (without the stores). These homes were condemned by the Franklin Town Development Corporation but spared when it was decided to use them as replacement houses for neighbors who wanted to stay in the neighborhood.
In the right photo you can see the different brickwork at 518 N 19th Street that hides its retail past.
Art Deco, short for the French Arts décoratifs, flourished in the 1930s in not just buildings, but furniture, trains, and appliances.
1822 Spring Garden Street: art deco, built in 1937.
A curved "prow," horizontal windows and fluted pilasters with modern "capitals" give the building an aerodynamic look.
This building replaced the clinic for the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine as discussed in our article here.
Even the Baldwin Locomotive Works got into art deco, or streamline modern as it was later called. Here is a Santa Fe class steam locomotive built in 1937: aerodynamic nose, bright blue color, and shiny aluminum or chrome accents.
1811-1817 Spring Garden Street: another art deco building marked by
shiny metal in the window sills and lantern posts, an aluminum roof balustrade, ribbon windows, brightly colored tiles with signs of the Zodiac, and stucco designs of the Greek gods Demeter and Poseidon. The glass blocks between the astrologic tiles were very popular on art deco buildings.
In Greek mythology, Poseidon and Demeter were siblings, the children of Chronus and Rhea. Poseidon pursued the unwilling Demeter and when Demeter changed into a mare to escape his advances, Poseidon changed into a stallion and raped her. These pair of gods might not be the first choice for representation today.
This building is discussed in our article here as the site of the Pennsylvania State College of Optometry. This address is made up of four townhomes that had facades and interiors modified in 1925.
Brutalism is a style that emerged in the 1950s in England, possibly as a reaction to the demoralizing devastation of the monumental buildings that were bombed. The name of the style comes from the French beton brut, which translates as "raw concrete." Unadorned monochromatic concrete was left exposed with minimal steel timber and glass. Function was prioritized over aesthetics. The granary at 411 North 20th Street, if it was designed, meets this definition.
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The original wooden granary at this site burned in 1925. The current massive concrete structure was built that same year with the intent of being explosion-resistant. It was one of the first large reinforced concrete buildings using a slip form technique. In this method of construction, a four-foot-tall form is fitted around the foundation, and the 84 silos within, on all four sides. Concrete is poured into the form and rebar is added from above. The form is jacked up continuously at a rate of a few inches per hour, so that the concrete at the bottom is hard enough to resist compression free of the form. There are no joints on the building from individual forms. If you examine the unfinished concrete closely, you can see horizontal lines every six inches as you go up. I suspect the slip forms were cranked up six inches at a time.
The granary building at 411 North 20th Street
The Julia R. Masterman School on the 1600 block of Spring Garden Street.
This U-shaped neoclassical brick school was built in 1932 with symmetry, ionic columns, limestone trim, pedimented windows, and decorative urns.
The second Wills Eye Hospital was built next door to the east in the same style and now is the only building to be named for an architectural feature: The Colonnade.
A closer look at the east window on Masterman.
Ornamented corbels support a balustrade, above which rise paired fluted Corinthian pilasters. Above that is the traditional 3-layered architrave, an almost empty frieze, and a dentilated cornice. A broken (gapped) pediment with a center urn tops the whole design. Very nice touch!
The Franklin Town development scraped fifty acres of our neighborhood clean and built four tall buildings within the first sixteen years. As our article on Jane Jacobs discusses, the same time period yields similar styles (and similar lifespans). The north tower of City View (1975), the north tower of North x Northwest (1987), the Fountain View senior apartments (1984), and ReNew Apartments (until recently named the One Franklin Town Apartments and built in 1987) have similar concrete and glass architecture. Spring Garden Towers (1978) was designed as a narrow minimalist tower in yellow brick. The 34-story Alexander Apartments at 16th and Vine Streets opened in 2018 with a more stylish light-colored brick design. The Tivoli Condominiums (2005) went with polychromatic brick, spacious balconies, street-front patios, and a bright blue roof; certainly one of the nicer looking structures in the neighborhood.
ReNew Logan Square Apartments
The Fountain View
North x Northwest 1987 building
City View 1975 building
In how many different ways can one build a high-rise apartment tower? The four apartment buildings shown above were built around the same time as initial offerings in the Franklin Town development. The City View Condos were originally built as extended-stay furnished apartments. All are concrete with horizontally oriented windows. The Fountain View borders on being brutalist, but at least attempts to imagine the tripartite structure of a classical column with a pedestal, a shaft, and a capital (the three cantilevered top floors). The other buildings lack a significant cornice and just end as they meet the sky. ReNew and NxNW also made extensive use of metal panels as curtain wall. The metal panels were first used in Philadelphia in 1959 by Vincent Kling on the Wills Eye Research building behind the second Wills Eye Hospital, as discussed here. Now those metal panels are everywhere.
View looking south from atop the ReNew Apartments parking garage.
In the lower left corner is the former industrial building that is now the Logan Lofts. "Industrial chic," the deep red brick, with black mullioned window style, is making a comeback in new residential buildings in Philadelphia. Above that building rises the lighter 34-story Alexander Apartments (2018). This building has a strong vertical appearance and its setbacks and angularity on the upper floors somewhat mimic the art deco appearance of Two Liberty Place (1999), which points to the sky in the distance between the Renew Apartments and the Fountain View. The Sheraton Hotel (1980) is just to the right of ReNew and has that early 1980s style used throughout the Franklin Town project of the time.
The Lofts at Logan View Apartments and the 1600 Callowhill Apartments retain their industrial look and seem able to compete economically with the newer apartment buildings in the neighborhood. Both are over one hundred years old. More recent apartment towers like the Granary Apartments (2014) and the six-story Baldwin Apartments (2021) employ the fast casual architecture of sheet metal curtain walls on a rectangular steel or wood skeleton with first floor retail. The Baldwin used five wood-framed floors above the lowest steel-framed floor (five-over-one construction), which is even cheaper than all steel framing. Costs drive these inexpensive designs and materials, and the height restrictions on both these buildings may have led to achieving maximum allowed floor-area ratios via the simple rectangular footprint.
A view over Baldwin Park at from left to right, the Baldwin Apartments, the Granary Apartments, the concrete granary which is now apartments, the Tivoli Condos with the blue roof and eaves, and the City View Condos. The Tivoli stands out for its colors and thoughtful design.
Metal panels in extremis on the south face of the Athletic Center at the Community College of Philadelphia (CCP). Those darker gray vertical rectangles are metal panels, not windows. Cost efficiency for a taxpayer-funded building may explain this, but there is no explanation for why a similar treatment was used on the west and south faces of the additions put on the historically significant Mint Building, partially seen on the right.
Rowhomes on the east side of the 400 block of North 20th Street, built in the 1860s.
These could be called vernacular architecture, which means built in a local style with local materials without the involvement of professional architects. These were often built in a row by contractors on speculation. Nothing says Philadelphia more than sixteen-foot-wide brick three-story rowhomes. The bright colors here add extra charm.
The neighborhood dodged a bullet in the 1970s: all these homes were slated for demolition by the Franklin Town Development Corporation, and were spared only after protests.
Buildings are built for people, to keep those inside safe and keep water out. Once inside, the exterior of the building is immaterial to its inhabitants. What do architects owe the people walking by the buildings, those outside the buildings? Can there be some accommodation for street appeal and beauty in design? When rental units are available in the Tivoli, the rent is about the same as the rent in the bland apartment towers. Architects should also offer longevity in their buildings, say the 160 year longevity of the residences on Spring Garden and 20th Streets discussed in this article. Will these metal paneled buildings be here in 100 years?