National Trust for Historic Preservation names the Tanner House and Chinatown to its 2023 most endangered list

The National Trust for Historic Preservation announced Tuesday that the Henry Ossawa Tanner House in North Philadelphia and Philadelphia’s Chinatown neighborhood are on this year’s list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places for 2023.

The Tanner House, at 2908 W. Diamond St., is already on the National Register of Historic Places and is also a National Historic Landmark because it was the home of the artist Henry Ossawa Tanner from the age of 13 to about 28.

He was the first Black artist to achieve international acclaim after he moved to France in his early 30s where he began to win awards for his religious paintings set in North Africa and the Middle East in the 1920s. He gained new fame after the 1960s Civil Rights Era when Black Americans took pride in his genre paintings The Banjo Lesson and The Thankful Poor, which both showed experiences of humble Black life with respect and dignity.

The National Trust’s announcement also noted the significant accomplishments of several other prominent members of the Tanner family.

“From 1871 to 1950, this National Historic Landmark was also home to many of Tanner’s family members who were esteemed in their own rights, including his mother Sarah Elizabeth Tanner, who self-emancipated from enslavement as a child, along with her siblings, with the support of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society,” the National Trust said.

The trust also pointed out that Henry O. Tanner’s father, Benjamin Tucker Tanner, was a bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Church and editor of the largest Black-owned periodical in the U.S.; his sister Halle Tanner Dillon Johnson was the first woman of any race to be a licensed physician in Alabama; and his niece Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander was the first Black person in the United States to earn a doctorate in economics from an American university, and also the first national president of historic Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc.

The National Trust said that Philadelphia has one of the oldest remaining active Chinatowns in the United States, which has been “a gateway and sanctuary for working-class Asian immigrants since 1871.” But it also said it is facing a new threat.

“In 2022, the 76ers basketball team announced plans to build an 18,500-seat arena abutting Chinatown. Residents and neighborhood leaders are concerned that the community has not been adequately included in the planning process and fear the arena could further jeopardize the future of Chinatown by exacerbating decades-long trends of gentrification and displacement, impacting family-owned businesses, worsening traffic and parking congestion, and increasing costs of living,” the National Trust said.

Chinatown has streetscapes of 19th- and 20-century buildings and more than 40 have been locally designated as landmarks. The Chinatown district is also listed on the state and national historic registers.

“Chinatown remains a vibrant community of Asian American businesses, community organizations, and residents,” the trust said. “A long history of land-use planning decisions has scarred Philadelphia Chinatown and resulted in large-scale development that have already claimed more than a quarter of its land.”

» READ MORE: Big projects like the Sixers’ arena plan have often threatened Philly’s Chinatown. But the AAPI community always fights for the neighborhood.

Debbie Wei, a member of Asian Americans United, reacted to news expressing the irony that a national organization was citing Chinatown as historic and worth preserving at a time when the National Basketball Association team wants to build a stadium near it.

“The recognition of Chinatown’s importance to American history, to the understanding of the role Chinatown plays historically, culturally, socially, spiritually as a regional center for Asian Americans is so heartening,” Wei said in an email Tuesday.

“Is it ironic to celebrate being named one of the most endangered historical places in the U.S.? Undoubtedly. That a national organization like the Trust for Historic Preservation recognizes our importance gives us hope that the eyes of the country are on us,” Wei said.

“How the city responds to our survival will be now part of the national historical record. It tells us our struggle to survive has not fallen on deaf ears, even if it feels like it has done that with certain powers in the city.”

The National Trust has, since 1988, announced its annual list of most endangered historic places to raise awareness that some of the country’s most historic sites are threatened by decay or demolition.

The National Trust announced the news of its 2023 “11 Most Endangered Places” list at Franklin Square on Tuesday morning, which is adjacent to Chinatown. The entire list of this year’s endangered places can be found on the National Trust website.

Christopher R. Rogers, one of the leaders of the the Friends of the Tanner House, said the group is “extremely grateful” to the National Trust for recognizing the significance of the Tanner House by naming it among the 11 “most endangered” places for this year.

“We are additionally honored to reach this designation alongside our neighbors in Chinatown,” Rogers said. “We recognize a legacy of common resistance that we share.”

» READ MORE: Once ‘the center of the Black intellectual community in Philadelphia,’ the Henry O. Tanner House could be demolished

“When we started our organizing to save the Henry Ossawa Tanner House, we anchored ourselves in the belief that nurturing Black heritage spaces in Strawberry Mansion supports economic development strategies that reject displacement, dispossession, and erasure,” Rogers added.

Just last week, on May 1, the Friends of the Tanner House and the Center for the Preservation of Civil Rights Sites at the Stuart Weitzman School of Design announced that the two organizations had together received a $150,000 planning grant from the Mellon Foundation. The grant will enable the Friends of the Tanner House and the center, which is at the University of Pennsylvania, to conduct community engagement work to determine the ideas residents and local organizations about the possible future uses of a restored Tanner House.

The next major fundraising event to complete the stabilization work is planned for Thursday evening, May 25, at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where Henry Tanner studied, starting at about age 20.

Reached by telephone at her home in New York, Rae Alexander-Minter, a research scholar who holds a doctorate in education and anthropology, and Henry Tanner’s grand-niece, was pleased.

“It’s an affirmation of the high level of the significance and importance of protecting the Tanner House and African American history,” Alexander-Minter said.