1.                  The philosopher, George Santayana, justified the preservation of history by saying "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

a.                   I agree.

b.                  But I also agree with something else Santayana said. "History is a pack of lies about events that never happened told by people who weren't there.

2.                  We're meeting tonight because there's uncertainly and a rising level of contention in this community about a proposal for the city to designate one or both of the Presser and Nugent Homes as historic sites.

a.                   The key questions, and you have to decide this among yourselves, I can't help you other than by calling them to your attention, is the incentive for the nominations

i.                     Why were they submitted?

ii.                   Why should you support, oppose, or even care about them?

b.                  There seem to be three primary possibilities

i.                     The buildings are truly historic, architecturally or culturally, and merit preservation because they contribute to our heritage.

ii.                   The buildings are vital to the visual aesthetics of the neighborhood and add to the quality of life here.

iii.                  The requirements associated with preservation will influence who buys the property, and therefore that it be used for some purposes and not others.

3.                  To understand the what historic designation entails, here's a shortened version of another quote, this by US Supreme Court Justices Berger, Rehnquist, and Stevens

a.                   It was the dissenting opinion in a case the preservationists won, involving Grand Central Terminal in New York.

b.                  "The owner of a building might initially be pleased that his property has been chosen by distinguished architects, historians, and city planners for such a distinction. But he may well discover that the designation imposes a substantial cost with little or no offsetting benefit except for the honor. The question is whether the cost must be borne by all taxpayers or whether it can instead be imposed entirely on the owners of the properties.

4.                  In Philadelphia, a historically designated building can't be torn down or changed in any way that's visible from public view, without the approval of the Historical Commission.

a.                   At the least, this adds cost and city hall bureaucracy to even the simplest repairs or alterations.

b.                  It often means that a job is more expensive than it would otherwise be because the Historical Commission can insist on materials or components that meet standards issued by the US Dept of the Interior.

i.                     Sometimes, the visual impact of the guidelines is such that few of us would even notice, either because the alternatives are close enough, or the work is only visible from a limited perspective.

ii.                   And, while it's my understanding that the standards are meant to serve as flexible guidelines, the Philadelphia Historical Commission tends to cite chapter and verse quite literally.

c.                   In certain instances, historic designation may mean that what an owner wants to do can't be done at all.

5.                  Let me give you a few examples.

a.                   These are admittedly extreme cases.

i.                     And, in fact, most proposals are approved as submitted with little fanfare.

(1)               But, when this happens, it's often because the owner or contractor anticipated what the Commission would approve and planned accordingly, accounting for the extra cost from the start.

(2)               And there's still need to prepare special documentation and visit city hall.

(a)                All this, above and beyond what would be needed for a permit to protect public health and safety from Licenses and Inspections

(b)               And, in some instances, when no permit by L&I is needed.

ii.                   If plans aren't approved routinely, life gets more complicated.

(1)               A Committee studies the proposal.

(2)               The Commission makes a decision, which may or may not follow the Committee's recommendation.

b.                  Consider Our Lady of Loreto, a church on Gray's Avenue in South Philadelphia.

i.                     It was built in 1938 in what's known as the Art Moderne Style. Think "streamlined."

ii.                   In 1938, the area comprised predominantly Italian immigrants. In fact, all church services were held in Italian.

iii.                  The archdiocese closed the Loreto school in 2000. It closed the church in 2003 and merged the parish with another close by.

(1)               The plan was to remove the stained glass window, a ceramic tile mural, and a stone cross -- so they could de-consecrate the building and sell it either to another religious order or to a secular party.

(2)               Some people who'd grown up in the neighborhood and gone to the school objected. When the archdiocese turned them down, they nominated the building for historic designation and it was approved.

(3)               The archdiocese now not only can't sell the building, but must maintain it.

(4)               It closed the school and church originally because the cost couldn't be justified by the parish size. Now it's stuck paying anyway. Surely, there are more important ways a church can serve humanity than this.

c.                   Here's another case involving a church. A 60-member Church of Christ at 63rd & Vine in West Philadelphia.

i.                     This was built in the late 1800s as a Presbyterian church. It's breathtaking. Not a cathedral, more like a sprawling English country village church.

(1)               It was built when the area was rural. But farsighted people knew it would grow when what's now the Market Street El made the neighborhood accessible for working and shopping in Center City.

(2)               Over the years, the Presbyterian congregation prospered, then declined. The property was eventually bought by a ministry of the Church of Christ. Most of you know this is typically an inner-city low-income group.

ii.                   Along the way, the building was designated as historic under the Philadelphia Code.

(1)               Fine. Until structural deterioration was detected and L&I ordered it repaired or demolished.

(2)               The Church of Christ got some estimates; their figure for the job was about $3 million.

(a)                They obviously didn't have that kind of money.

(b)               They found someone who'd buy the property for $875,000, take it down, and build a CVS store on the site, provided they could get a demolition permit.

(i)                  Maybe you don't think the world needs another drug store. But CVS must have done a study that showed this neighborhood did need one.

(ii)                And the Church of Christ couldn't afford the cost of its continuing ownership options and couldn't find any buyers willing to assume them. Further, if it could somehow get the money, surely there are better ways they could use it. Not to mention the important things it could do with $875,000.

(3)               In the end, the Historical Commission wouldn't approve the demolition. The church sued in the Court of Common Pleas and won. The city appealed, and the church won again in Commonwealth Court. The Historical Commission tried to get the City to take it to the State Supreme Court, but the Law Dept apparently didn't think they could win so they declined to do so and the Commission had to issue the permit.

iii.                  The distinguished architects, historians, and planners who worried Justices Berger, Rehnquist, and Stevens didn't appear to care about the church, its urban ministry, the people ‑‑ only the bricks and mortar.

(1)               Preservation advocates rallied behind this building, but didn't offer to dig into their own pockets. Saving it was important as long as someone else would pay.

(2)               And, by the way, Commonwealth Court determined that if the $3 million restoration were done, the property would be worth about $1.2 million. So, the church would lose $1.8 million there. Adding the $875,000 they could get as-is, the penalty approaches $2.7 million.

(3)               One other thing. The Historical Commission claims it offers a "hardship exemption." But Commonwealth Court found they went out of their way to keep the Church from using it.

d.                  Not every restriction associated with historic designation involves churches or other big buildings.

i.                     An elderly woman owns a house on Spruce Street near Washington Square. It was built in the late 50s or early 60s, in fake colonial style, and was part of a block designated as historic because it supposedly typified the urban renewal of the day.

(1)               The fronts of the houses look colonial.

(2)               The rears look like the backs of suburban townhouses ‑‑ double sliding glass doors leading to small patios.

(3)               This owner wanted to replace the double doors, which she said were too heavy for her to open and close, with more modern triple doors that would be easier to operate.

(4)               You could see the doors from the side street. But only if you were on the opposite sidewalk, stood at a certain place about four feet long, and knew where to look.

(5)               The Historical Commission wouldn't let her do it. They proposed an alternate set of doors which they would approve.

(a)                The woman's doors would have cost her about $8,000.

(b)               The doors the Historical Commission recommended would have cost about $16,000.

e.                   One last item. The 1100 block of Sigel Street is a dead-end alley in South Philadelphia with commercial garages on either side.

i.                     It's paved with bricks. It's also loaded with potholes, some of which have been filled with "cold patch" while the others are just holes.

ii.                   A few years ago, the Historical Commission staff created a Historic Pavement Thematic District.

(1)               This is a grab bag of streets or parts of streets scattered around town, paved with things like bricks and Belgian blocks. This block of Sigel Street is in it.

(2)               I'm not talking about picturesque cobblestones near Independence Hall.

(3)               Rather, things nobody knows about, let alone visits or maintains, like Sigel Street or the granite stones between the trolley tracks on several blocks of Lindbergh Boulevard.

iii.                  Last year, the Water Department installed new pipes all over South Philly. It found it couldn't justify spending what it would cost to take up the bricks on Sigel Street, save the good ones, buy new old bricks to replace the rest ‑‑ including those that used to be where the potholes were ‑‑ and restore the street to the way it was once upon a time.

(1)               It asked the Historical Commission for a permit to open the street, then repave it with new asphalt.

(2)               All the property owners on the street wanted this.

(a)                New water service.

(b)               No more potholes.

(3)               Councilman DiCicco requested that the permit be granted. Not only for the water service and the better surface, but he pointed out that if the old pipes failed and the street had to be dug up on an emergency permit, they'd have to do it anyway. Introducing inconvenience and the cost of emergency work. Work for which individual owners rather than the Water Dept would have to pay.

iv.                 The Historical Commission turned them down.

f.                    I could go on.

i.                     Your house might be in a neighborhood designated as a historic district, not because anything took place there or it had unique social or architectural significance ‑‑ and don't think it couldn't happen. You'd have some real problems that you'd pay for, and with which the people responsible for the designation and the city in general wouldn't help.

(1)               You'd have problems if you wanted to replace your drafty old windows with modern thermopanes. Or, wanted to install bars for security.

(2)               You'd have problems if you needed a new roof and your old one was slate -- because what would cost $2,500 for asphalt shingles could run $25,000 for slate or a slate substitute.

(3)               Or, you might be in the same position as the owner of a house in a historically designated 1920s courtyard in Center City who put a trellis and planters in front of her house so she could grow her roses. One of the neighbors dropped the dime on her to the Historical Commission, and the rest is, as they say, history.

6.                  I'll end with two more quotes.

a.                   First, with respect to imposing restrictions on what other people can or must do with their money, by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in the 1920s: "a strong public desire to improve the public condition is not enough to warrant achieving the desire by a shorter cut than the constitutional way of paying for the change."

b.                  Second, with respect to the contention that arises when one group of people tries to do an end run around another by using a legal maneuver for social engineering it was never meant to facilitate.

i.                     Something President Kennedy said when George Wallace stopped Vivian Malone and James Hood from entering the University of Alabama.

ii.                   "We owe ourselves a better country than that."

(1)               Do you have a situation here in which some neighbors are trying to exert control over others by using Philadelphia's historic preservation law for a purpose it was never meant to serve?

(2)               You have to decide that for yourselves, by being informed about and attentive to the circumstances and the chain of events.

(3)               But, if it's true, you have to act because, you owe yourselves a better neighborhood than that.