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Preservation advocate Judith Robinson has launched a Change.org petition in opposition to putting a deliberate $32 million twenty second District police station within the coronary heart of the Diamond Road Historic District in North Philadelphia.
The police headquarters, which town has rebranded as a “public security” facility that can embrace a Police Athletic League recreation middle for kids, could be constructed on Diamond Road, between twenty first and twenty second Streets.
“We would like HOUSING and HISTORY! NO Police Station in Diamond Road Historic District!,” reads the banner headline atop the petition which might be seen at this change.org website.
Robinson, a consultant of the thirty second Ward Registered Group Group, launched the petition in late June, as she additionally awaits the result of her appeal of Philadelphia Historic Fee’s vote in Might to approve the architectural plans for the police headquarters.
“We demand the restoration of housing and the honoring of neighborhood belongings that signify unbelievable Black-led contributions to the world. Our kids need to be nurtured and surrounded by protected historic websites that affirm their lives and remind them of their potential. Not police stations that showcase the specter of arrest, imprisonment, and worse,” the petition states.
Robinson famous that the historic fee had rejected the concept of a police headquarters on the historic avenue in a previous vote.
“I need to let town know that there’s a neighborhood of people that want to hold the historic hall,” Robinson stated when requested why she began the petition.
The police station would go up on vacant heaps on Diamond Road, just some blocks away from the historic Church of the Advocate, which Inquirer architectural columnist Inga Saffron described as “a hovering French Renaissance cathedral.”
The town declared a piece of Diamond Road, from Broad to Van Pelt, to be a historic district in 1986, due to a big assortment of stately row houses “interspersed with a number of elaborate church buildings,” that have been constructed between 1875 and 1897 within the Victorian, Romanesque and Gothic architectural kinds.
Whereas the Henry Ossawa Tanner House at 2809 W. Diamond St. is a Nationwide Historic Landmark, it isn’t included inside this historic district, stated Robinson, who has additionally been lively in efforts to protect the Tanner Home.
» 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 launched the next assertion Friday:
“The administration is supportive of this mission on the deliberate website, which is able to carry a multi-use facility to long-term vacant land that at the moment has an adversarial impact on the encompassing neighborhood.
“This mission will embrace a Police Athletic League facility which is able to serve the youth of the neighborhood — a really welcome profit after we know that Philadelphia wants extra protected locations for youths to assemble and interact in enriching actions. We’re excited concerning the many neighborhood advantages that this mission can provide.”
A spokesperson for the historic fee stated the fee voted “as soon as to disclaim approval to a specific architectural design for a police station. This spring, it accredited a unique architectural design … . The fee evaluations whether or not or not a proposed constructing could be architecturally applicable for a historic district — it doesn’t contemplate the use or proprietor of a constructing as a part of this resolution.”
However Robinson stated there are many different vacant heaps in North Philadelphia that may very well be used for a brand new twenty second District police headquarters.
“On the 2300 block of North twenty first Road, between York and Dauphin, I imagine there is just one home left standing,” Robinson stated.
Gail Loney, one other lifelong North Philadelphia resident who’s the block captain of the 2200 block of Lambert Road, stated she additionally opposes a police station on Diamond Road.
Loney, 62, stated she resides in her childhood residence, simply north of Diamond Road.
“I’ve been at twenty first and Norris from delivery and on Lambert Road since I used to be 13 years outdated,” she stated.
She stated she remembers the gorgeous brownstones that when dotted that block of Diamond Road. “The homes and 12-foot ceilings and vestibules that have been lovely with tiled flooring and tiled half-walls. That they had the marble steps everybody talked about scrubbing.”
Loney stated she is suspicious of town’s plans.
“They’re calling it a public security advanced and attempting to influence folks by placing a PAL middle there.
“We don’t want a PAL Heart,” Loney stated. “We want them to completely fund and absolutely workers the Hank Gathers Rec Heart (at 2501 W. Diamond), the MLK Rec Heart (at 2101 Cecil B. Moore Ave.) and the Amos Playground (at 1817 N. sixteenth St.).
However Ruth Birchett, one other longtime North Philadelphia resident, who’s the block captain of the 1900 block of North twenty third St., stated she helps placing the police district headquarters on Diamond Road.
Birchett additionally voiced frustration on the police station opponents who’ve known as the vacant heaps on the 1900 block of West Norris Road, the place she has been planting fruit bushes, instead website for the police headquarters.
She stated if something, the Philadelphia Historic Fee ought to be questioned about why they didn’t do extra to protect the brownstones on Diamond Road homes earlier than they have been torn down, in the course of the Mayor John Road administration.
Now that they’re gone, she stated she believes the cops from the twenty second District need to have a brand new facility, quite than the present station home at seventeenth and Montgomery, which Birchette described as cramped and deteriorated. She additionally stated police will be capable of reply to emergencies simpler from Diamond Road.
However Robinson stated between Temple, Philadelphia Housing Authority and SEPTA police, along with close by metropolis police districts, there already is a heavy police presence.
The twenty second District extends from tenth Road on the east to Kelly Drive in Fairmount Park on the west. The district expands from Poplar Road on the south to Lehigh Avenue on the north.
“That hundred block of Diamond Road has lengthy since misplaced its historic worth,” Birchett stated.
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