Buildings Then and Now: The Hale Building | Philadelphia Real ...

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The Hale Building through the years. Left to right: The Keystone Building, ca. 1900; the building today, with 1960s storefront renovation; proposed future renovation with glass storefront. Courtesy Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia.

Architectural aberration. Restless jumble. The most bizarre skyscraper of the 19th century. Amazingly ornate. Beautiful.

No single building in Philadelphia has had so many detractors and admirers as the Hale Building. Built in 1887 by Willis Hale at 1326 Chestnut St., the building is a hodgepodge of Victorian architecture mixed with highly ornate Gothic stylings.

Willis Hale's Central High School (1894-1939), at Broad and Green streets. Photo from PhillyHistory.org.

Hale built hundreds of buildings around Philadelphia, including the Divine Lorraine Hotel on Broad Street, The Powelton and the third Central High School, where Philly?s brightest public school students attended high school from 1900 to 1939. But most of his buildings were torn down in disgust at his audacity to take variety to its extreme.

Upper floors of the Hale Building

He was highly praised in his lifetime, but styles changed quickly back then. His work was declared horrific before he was even in the ground and he died penniless. But perhaps even more bizarre than the building itself is the story behind the structure?s first tenant, Gideon Marsh.

Marsh was the president of Keystone National Bank. In 1891, several bank runs had taken place on the institution, leaving it in a dire state. City Treasurer John Bardsley instituted his own mini-bailout of the bank, loaning it several thousand dollars. But he was drawing interest on the loans for his own profit and helping Marsh loot the institution.

On March 20, 1891, the bank?s doors closed and the public was stunned. It still had depositors and creditors who held money there. Or so they thought. This was before the days of the FDIC, so their money was as good as gone, as was Marsh after William Wanamaker, brother of the famous John Wanamaker, posted bail for him.

For seven and a half years he wandered the world a vagrant. He left Philadelphia with about $1,400 he collected from two of his debtors and found his way to Brazil. Not much is known other than that he ended up in Washington state doing odd jobs. Finally, after tiring of looking over his shoulder, he turned himself in in 1898. And he did so in style?he was hiding in plain sight at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City.

A little of the building's ornate decoration

For the next four-odd years, his home was the Eastern State Penitentiary. He was pardoned by Theodore Roosevelt and released on Christmas Eve 1902. But the Keystone Bank was finished and went back to being the Hale Building. Since then, it?s been a neighbor to the Garrick Theatre, which was connected to it in the early 1900s. It?s been various storefronts, home to Drucker?s Bellevue Bathhouse and Sauna in the 1970s and 1980s, and is now all but abandoned. It still wears the mask of the shoe store that took over its street floor in the 1960s, but the last tenant to occupy that space, a discount store called Valu Plus, closed last year.

Juniper Street elevation of the Hale Building

In 2010, Developer Alon Barzilay and architects JKR Partners proposed converting the long-neglected property into a boutique hotel and restaurant, promising to restore the majority of the building?s ornate masonry exterior but replacing the current 1960s-era storefront with a contemporary glass entryway. After several redesigns, the Philadelphia Historical Commission approved the design in concept, but the developer must submit another design with slight modifications before any work begins.

But that was two years ago, and just like the Hale, the plans seem to be forgotten and are being ignored?for now.

Photographer Michael Burlando recently gained access to the building?s interior and posted?a haunting collection of photographs on his BRLNDOBLOG site.

-By Matthew Stringer for PhiladelphiaRealEstate.com

Except as noted, all photographs by the author

Source: http://blog.philadelphiarealestate.com/buildings-then-and-now-the-hale-building/

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