North Philly community group petitions to stop planned police building in Diamond Street Historic District

Preservation advocate Judith Robinson has launched a Change.org petition against placing a planned $32 million 22nd District police station in the heart of the Diamond Street Historical District in North Philadelphia.

The police headquarters, which the city has rebranded as a “public safety” facility that will include a Police Athletic League recreation center for children, would be built on Diamond Street, between 21st and 22nd Streets.

“We want HOUSING and HISTORY! NO Police Station in Diamond Street Historic District!,” reads the banner headline atop the petition which can be seen at this change.org website.

Robinson, a representative of the 32nd Ward Registered Community Organization, launched the petition in late June, as she also awaits the outcome of her appeal of Philadelphia Historical Commission’s vote in May to approve the architectural plans for the police headquarters.

“We demand the restoration of housing and the honoring of community assets that represent incredible Black-led contributions to the world. Our children deserve to be nurtured and surrounded by protected historic sites that affirm their lives and remind them of their potential. Not police stations that showcase the threat of arrest, imprisonment, and worse,” the petition states.

Robinson noted that the historical commission had rejected the idea of a police headquarters on the historic street in a prior vote.

“I want to let the city know that there is a community of people who would like to keep the historic corridor,” Robinson said when asked why she started the petition.

The police station would go up on vacant lots on Diamond Street, just a few blocks away from the historic Church of the Advocate, which Inquirer architectural columnist Inga Saffron described as “a soaring French Renaissance cathedral.”

The city declared a section of Diamond Street, from Broad to Van Pelt, to be a historic district in 1986, because of a large collection of stately row homes “interspersed with several elaborate churches,” that were built between 1875 and 1897 in the Victorian, Romanesque and Gothic architectural styles.

While the Henry Ossawa Tanner House at 2908 W. Diamond St. is a National Historic Landmark, it is not included within this historic district, said Robinson, who has also been active in efforts to preserve the Tanner House.

» READ MORE: Plans for a North Philly police station make even less sense after the George Floyd protests | Inga Saffron

A spokesperson for Mayor Jim Kenney released the following statement Friday:

“The administration is supportive of this project at the planned site, which will bring a multi-use facility to long-term vacant land that currently has an adverse effect on the surrounding neighborhood.

“This project will include a Police Athletic League facility which will serve the youth of the community — a very welcome benefit when we know that Philadelphia needs more safe places for kids to gather and engage in enriching activities. We are excited about the many community benefits that this project can offer.”

A spokesperson for the historical commission said the commission voted “once to deny approval to a particular architectural design for a police station. This spring, it approved a different architectural design … . The commission reviews whether or not a proposed building would be architecturally appropriate for a historic district — it does not consider the use or owner of a building as part of this decision.”

But Robinson said there are plenty of other vacant lots in North Philadelphia that could be used for a new 22nd District police headquarters.

“On the 2300 block of North 21st Street, between York and Dauphin, I believe there is only one house left standing,” Robinson said.

Gail Loney, another lifelong North Philadelphia resident who is the block captain of the 2200 block of Lambert Street, said she also opposes a police station on Diamond Street.

Loney, 62, said she is living in her childhood home, just north of Diamond Street.

“I’ve been at 21st and Norris from birth and on Lambert Street since I was 13 years old,” she said.

She said she remembers the beautiful brownstones that once dotted that block of Diamond Street. “The houses had 12-foot ceilings and vestibules that were beautiful with tiled floors and tiled half-walls. They had the marble steps everyone talked about scrubbing.”

Loney said she is suspicious of the city’s plans.

“They are calling it a public safety complex and trying to persuade people by putting a PAL center there.

“We don’t need a PAL Center,” Loney said. “We need them to fully fund and fully staff the Hank Gathers Rec Center (at 2501 W. Diamond), the MLK Rec Center (at 2101 Cecil B. Moore Ave.) and the Amos Playground (at 1817 N. 16th St.).

But Ruth Birchett, another longtime North Philadelphia resident, who is the block captain of the 1900 block of North 23rd St., said she supports putting the police district headquarters on Diamond Street.

Birchett also voiced frustration at the police station opponents who have called the vacant lots on the 1900 block of West Norris Street, where she has been planting fruit trees, as an alternative site for the police headquarters.

She said if anything, the Philadelphia Historical Commission should be questioned about why they didn’t do more to preserve the brownstones on Diamond Street houses before they were torn down, during the Mayor John Street administration.

Now that they are gone, she said she believes the police officers from the 22nd District deserve to have a new facility, rather than the current station house at 17th and Montgomery, which Birchette described as cramped and deteriorated. She also said police will be able to respond to emergencies easier from Diamond Street.

But Robinson said between Temple, Philadelphia Housing Authority and SEPTA police, in addition to nearby city police districts, there already is a heavy police presence.

The 22nd District extends from 10th Street on the east to Kelly Drive in Fairmount Park on the west. The district expands from Poplar Street on the south to Lehigh Avenue on the north.

“That hundred block of Diamond Street has long since lost its historic value,” Birchett said.