December 28, 2010
Last call for the region’s most endangered sites?
by Alan Jaffe, PlanPhilly
The final days of the year are when we take an accounting, including preservation organizations that compile their lists of those structures that may be facing their final days.
The Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia announced its eighth annual “Endangered Properties List” this month, focusing on seven properties that have lingered on the list and are now threatened by chronic neglect, in addition to three sites featured for the first time.
Preservation Pennsylvania, the statewide non-profit organization dedicated to protecting historically and architecturally significant properties, issued its “Pennsylvania At Risk” list of 11 endangered resources on Dec. 16.
This year, two historic resources appeared on both lists – a heroic warship on the Delaware River waterfront with a weakening hull, and a sprawling, Gilded Age estate and landscape just outside Philadelphia that may be the site of new development.
A summit for the Olympia
The Cruiser Olympia has received local and national attention since the U.S. Navy and the Independence Seaport Museum, which took possession of the ship in 1996, announced they couldn’t afford the $20 million needed to tow her to dry dock and repair the deteriorating hull, which hasn’t been out of the water since 1945. Museum officials have said the ship would likely be reefed off the coast of Cape May, and had planned to close the floating museum last November.
The Olympia has since been issued a temporary reprieve. The museum board has found funds to make “interim repairs,” support the regular maintenance program, and keep the ship open for tours on a reduced schedule through December. Spot repairs to the ship’s hull will not resolve the need for more extensive work, however.
A summit of museum partners and interested parties – including the Navy, Naval Sea Systems Command, National Park Service and the Pennsylvania Historical Museum Commission – will be held next year, possibly in February, to explore “transfer options” for the Olympia.
Leaders from historic preservation agencies, maritime museums, government, economic development, and tourism, the Friends of the Cruiser Olympia and potential funders will be invited to participate in the hope that “a responsible candidate will emerge from the process” to take over ownership and stewardship of the Olympia, according to a statement from John Gazzola, president of the Independence Seaport Museum.
Glenn Porter, a retired Navy officer who is trying to rally support for a fundraising naval gala to cover repairs of the Olympia, believes the National Park Service could be the best caretaker of the historic ship. The Park Service already has a strong presence in Philadelphia and could provide “consistency over time” in maintaining the Olympia, he said.
Launched in San Francisco in 1892, the Olympia was Commodore George Dewey’s flagship at the Battle of Manila Bay, where he gave his famous order on the ship’s bridge: “You may fire when you are ready, Gridely.” The Olympia devastated the Spanish fleet and lifted the U.S. up as a world power. The ship has been designated a National Historic Landmark and National Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark. She is on the National Register of Historic Places and is part of the Save America’s Treasures program.
