Notes from Monday Meeting with Jonathan Farnham

We met with Jonathan Farnham of the Philadelphia Historical Commission on Monday, October 20th, to discuss the potential implementation of a conservation district in Tacony.

Conservation Districts
- little infrastructure in place to regulate, PHC would have little authority
- little or no authority to intervene when changes proposed, more for regulation of demolition
and new construction

Industrial Heritage
- what are the goals of preservation in an industrial area?
- how do you regulate preservation of buildings when used for much different new purpose?
- can the economy support ways in which industrial properties can be adaptively reused?
- few industrial buildings in Philadelphia on local register (usually listed as contributing resources
in a district, or listed after they have been adaptively reused)
- marketability of current space and size of industrial properties (PIDC study underway)

Threats
- wholesale demolition and big box development
- protection of Disston Park from future development

Possible Approaches
- streetscape designation in relatively intact portion of industrial area
- threshold levels of conservation district, neighborhood-based guidelines
- "preservation lite" scheme involving setbacks, materials, etc.

Comparables
- Frankford Arsenal, locally listed with PHC, about 100 industrial buildings on site but only a few
designated
- Point Breeze exampled of workshops on how to perform repairs and take care of your
property, very popular and successful

Like with Society Hill in the 1950s, the involvement of the PHC over a similar period could have a tremensously significant impact on Tacony.

The full meeting notes have been posted to the server in the 'Meeting Notes' folder.

Industrial Photos Survey

Hello, we're uploading photos from our site survey of the industrial park. They are available on the server. The directory is Studio>Disston>documentation photographs>industrial photos. The streets and site plan is very complex, so we have coded each of the buildings with a number, and then linked the number to the folders, which contain the individual site photos of each Disston Building.

Existing Resources in Labor & Industrial History

I wanted to post this as well. The Center for Working Class Studies at Youngstown State University is an excellent resource which works to bridge working class culture, history, art, music, and the built environment. It explores links with contemporary economic development as well. I've researched a lot of the work of Sherry Lee Linkon and John Russo and their book Steeltown USA: Work & Memory in Youngstown. It's one of my favorite books, and one of the most fluid and comprehensive looks at industrial change and what it means for the nature of work and culture. Their central question is: "What does Youngstown, Ohio mean after the steel mills have closed." I think in many ways this parallels some elements of Disston/Tacony, asking the central question of "What does Disston/Tacony means after the Disston company has left." It's a great resource to check out if you ever have some free time.