PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Demolition of a shuttered 19th-century church in Philadelphia has begun after a years-long fight by some neighbors to save the crumbling structure.
Last week, crews surrounded the 140-year-old St. Lawrence Church in the Fishtown area with scaffolding, fencing and barricades. Neighbors gathered Wednesday to see their final appearance, taking pictures and pointing to a huge cross once attached to the building that sat next to the fence, KYW reported.
“I don’t want the church, regardless of denomination, to go down,” Margaret Ann Ramsey told KYW. “It’s always been part of the area so it’s sad, especially for the people who belong to that parish.”
Michael Johnson of HC Site Construction told WTXF-TV that the work to dismantle the 150-foot spiers is being done by hand, and the material is dumped through chutes into the basement to prevent vibration from the truck’s operation.
The city’s Department of Licenses and Inspections issued a demolition permit nearly a year ago, but officials said moving utility poles and wires surrounding the property took longer than expected. Crews were also ordered to wait until the summer because of classes at a Catholic school in the neighborhood, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.
St. Lawrence is on the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places, and the Philadelphia Historical Commission has ordered the developer to preserve or rebuild the church’s facade in any new development. The zoning permit for the proposed eight-story, 49-unit apartment building is being appealed, the newspaper reported.
The church was built in 1882 with donations from Polish emigrants. In 2014, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia announced its closure, citing “vertical cracks” and a “severely deteriorated” facade that threatened to collapse without a $3.5 million restoration. Proponents said their estimates are as low as $700,000. In 2015, the historical commission included the church in the historical list of the city.
Concerns arose in 2019 when pieces of the facade crumbled, in one case 6,000 pounds (2,720 kilograms) of rock chipped off the spire, pierced steel scaffolding and fell into a fenced security area around the church, closing a nearby school for two days.
The archdiocese spent $135,000 to stabilize the building, and city inspectors said it appeared to be in better shape, but two engineers hired by the new owner later concluded that St. Lawrence significantly collapsed, with one predicting “at least a partial collapse” during A structural engineer hired by the Preservation Alliance of Greater Philadelphia said the building remained standing, despite dire assessments by a number of engineers.
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