The Yard on John Coltrane Street, a new community hub and ‘gateway’ to Strawberry Mansion, will open in October

In a few weeks, Strawberry Mansion will open a new outdoor space called the Yard on John Coltrane Street. It will be a community hub for arts and culture and will serve as a “gateway” to the neighborhood.

Construction at the Yard, a vacant lot at 1517 N. 33rd St., not far from the John Coltrane House at 1511 N. 33rd St., has been going on for the last couple of weeks, said Tonnetta Graham, president and executive director of the Strawberry Mansion Community Development Corp.

Workers have been grading the lot to make the ground more level and installing landscaping, fencing, and “playful learning” elements for children, such as a drum set, a xylophone, and a reading nook. However, it won’t be a full-fledged playground, Graham said.

The Strawberry Mansion CDC hopes to open the Yard toward the end of October, she said.

The Yard will be “a cornerstone for Black heritage in Strawberry Mansion,” said Wayne King, a member of the CDC board.

“With the gentrification taking place all around us, we had to make a statement that we have an area in this community that is historical enough, that is significant enough that [it] can attract Black people from all over the world,” he said.

The Yard is just a couple doors away from the historic John Coltrane House, where the jazz saxophonist lived between 1952 and 1958. Coltrane, famous for such albums as Giant Steps and A Love Supreme, transferred ownership of the house to his mother, Alice Coltrane.

Coltrane’s cousin, Mary Alexander — for whom the Coltrane composition “Cousin Mary” was named — lived in the house for decades after Coltrane’s mother died and would host backyard jazz sessions. Graham said the Yard will seek to recapture the atmosphere of those jam sessions.

North Philadelphia has a long history with music, when artists like Aretha Franklin, the Four Tops, the Temptations, and the O’Jays played at the Uptown Theater.

“This community has always been connected to music and culture,” Tyrone Williams, program coordinator for the CDC, said at a recent meeting. “This is just another venue to complement the Dell, to complement the Mann Music Center.”

The Strawberry Mansion CDC has been working on plans for the Yard for a number of years, at one point stating intentions to build a museum at the Coltrane House itself.

In May 2021, the CDC said it wanted to “restore the house as a museum, preserve the row’s architectural character, create a gateway to Strawberry Mansion, and develop a world-class venue where jazz can be heard, studied and appreciated.”

However, a recent lawsuit determined that Coltrane’s sons, Ravi and Oran Coltrane, are the rightful owners of the Coltrane House — not the family of Norman Gadson, who had claimed ownership for 20 years.

» READ MORE: John Coltrane’s sons file suit to claim ownership of Philly’s Coltrane House

The litigation required the CDC to change course.

In April 2022, the Coltrane brothers filed suit, claiming that Mary Alexander never owned the house and therefore did not have the right to sell it to Gadson in 2004.

Gadson, a jazz enthusiast, died in 2007, and his wife, Lenora Early, died in 2015. The Coltrane brothers’ 2022 lawsuit named Gadson’s daughters, Aminta Gadson Weldon and Hathor Gadson, as defendants.

The lawsuit alleged that “Cousin Mary” Alexander had the right only to live in the house until her death. After Alexander’s death in 2019, the property was to go to Coltrane’s sons.

The suit was settled in March with the Coltrane brothers retaining ownership.

Now, the CDC is planning to develop the Strawberry Mansion Cultural Arts Center at 1515 N. 33rd St., adjacent to the Yard.

“With the lawsuit, and the transfer of the property back to the Coltrane family, we are now just waiting to see what their plans are for the Coltrane House, and we hope to align our efforts with theirs,” Graham said.

The CDC will continue with plans to use a $300,000 blight remediation grant from the state to open the Yard, and to make repairs to the facade of the Coltrane House and other properties on the block.

Meanwhile, ownership of two properties on the block, the Yard at 1517 N. 33rd St. and the rowhouse at 1515 N. 33rd St., is expected to be transferred to the CDC, Graham said. The Yard is currently owned by the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority, and the 1515 property is owned by the Philadelphia Housing Authority.

Last week, the CDC launched the initial meeting of the Friends of the Yard at its office at 2829 W. Diamond St. Graham invited Kathleen Hennessy, Ravi Coltrane’s wife, of the Alice and John Coltrane Home in Long Island, N.Y., to the meeting.

Hennessy said the Friends of the Alice and John Coltrane Home supports the Philadelphia group’s blight remediation work. However, the family has not yet announced its plans for the Coltrane House in Philadelphia.

In 1984, Mary Alexander cofounded the John W. Coltrane Cultural Society to promote jazz and the legacy of John Coltrane. The society established a John W. Coltrane Center next door to the Coltrane House around 1998, when Alexander was still living in the house.

Marilyn Kai Jewett, who grew up in Strawberry Mansion, was among the seven founding members — all women — of the Coltrane Cultural Society. She said she supports the new phase of the Yard.

“However, we must never forget the history of The Yard and the Coltrane House,” which began in the 1980s, she wrote in an email to The Inquirer.

Most of the seven founders “are now ancestors — ‘Cousin Mary’ Lyerly Alexander, Shirley Scott, Dottie Smith, Eloise Woods Jones, and Sophronia Stewart.” Only Jewett and Linda Williams, a professor in South Carolina, are still alive.

“Those ancestors have charged me with making sure their legacy is not distorted, erased, or forgotten,” Jewett wrote. “I intend to do that.”