Wells Fargo Center has removed the ‘immortal’ commemorative bricks

Patrick Kreamer stood amid the crowds swarming into the Wells Fargo Center for the Flyers’ home opener on Oct. 17 and stared at the blank pavement beneath his feet. He couldn’t believe it: His brick was gone.

The engraved commemorative brick that his mother, Wendy Schlessinger, bought for him nearly 30 years ago, when he was just 2 years old, had read: “Future Flyer.” The brick that they made a little tradition out of visiting before every Flyers’ game they attended. Gone. And not just Kreamer’s brick. All of the hundreds of commemorative pavers that fans had purchased over the decades. Gone and replaced by newly laid concrete.

“He called me and was like, ‘Mom, the bricks are gone!’ ” recalls Schlessinger. “And I’m like what the heck do you mean the bricks are gone?”

The bricks are indeed gone. Advertised as “rocks of immortality” — and sold to fans from 1996 (when the arena was the CoreStates Center) until 2017 — the bricks offered Flyers and Sixers fans a chance to own a little piece of walkway outside the arena. For $75, one could be purchased near the arena’s Broad Street or 11th Street entrances, where it would “forever” stay, a form promised.

But forever, it seems, only lasts 27 years.

On Tuesday, a spokesperson for the Wells Fargo Center said that some of the roughly 1,600 commemorative bricks were torn up as early as 2019 — and that all of them would be removed in the coming weeks. After two decades, some needed to be replaced due to “wear and tear,” the spokesperson said. Others are being replaced as part of the arena’s ongoing $400 million transformation project, which involves improvements to the pedestrian walkways that included the bricks.

Fans who bought bricks will be part of a new, yet-to-be-determined display, the spokesperson said.

“We have kept detailed records of everyone who has purchased a brick, and we’re already in the process of reimagining the program with a new display so that everyone who purchased a brick will continue to be a special part of the arena,” the spokesperson said.

Many fans saw the bricks as a personalized gift to give a loved one — or a way to remember a lost one. Inscriptions ranged from birthday wishes to dates of death.

Schlessinger, a physical therapist from Eagleville, purchased the brick — and a replica for an extra $39.92 — in 1996, during the excitement over the new arena that replaced the Spectrum.

“I was a single mom, and it was something I could do for the team,” she said. “We could go to a game once or twice a year, so it was a big deal to see the brick. We’d take a picture; it was a whole thing.”

Schlessinger said she has since emailed the Wells Fargo Center, wanting to know if she could acquire the original brick or if it will be moved to a new location outside the arena. She has yet to hear back, she said.

Her husband posted about the missing bricks on Reddit, where other fans replied that they too were upset. One commenter, who said they worked at the arena, said they were surprised to see the bricks torn out, even if some were in poor condition.

“The construction crews annihilated those bricks along with the sidewalks they were mounted in,” the poster wrote. “I thought this was gonna be more of a big deal than it has been, to be honest. They could have made a decorative wall out of them.”

For Schlessinger, it’s not about the money but the memories. The 4-inch-by-8-inch rock had come to represent years of games and good times.

“There’s meaning attached to it,” she said of the brick. “We expected to go to the game and find the brick.”