My City Was Gone

Hidden City Philadelphia brings our long-forgotten landmarks back to life.

by A.D. Amorosi

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Published: May 26, 2009

[ visual arts/architecture ]

Joseph E.B. Elliott CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW? Steve Roden's sculpture/sound installation, nothing but what is therein contained, echoes through the domed walls of Founder's Hall at Girard College.

Sometimes the jewels in the crown are tarnished or in disrepair, but that doesn't make them less worthy of adoration. They just need some love.

If you think that sounds foolish, you're missing the big picture behind Peregrine Arts' Hidden City Philadelphia. During the monthlong fest, newly crafted site-specific works of art will be housed in spaces familiar to most by reputation (South Street's Royal Theater), some by sight (North Broad Street's Oscar Hammerstein-built Metropolitan Opera House), and all by their current state of decay or dilapidation.

"In terms of 'discovering' sites, the ones we're working with are known to somebody," stresses Thaddeus Squire, Peregrine's artistic executive director. He says many of these battered spaces still host events — the Met's become the Holy Ghost Headquarters Revival Center in recent years, and the Philadelphia Inquirer building, whose grandeur has faded over the years, is obviously still abuzz.

"These places we've chosen ... have owners, and many have very vibrant communities of people connected to them," Squire says. But they're all largely unexplored by the wider public and, more importantly, have great stories to tell.

"We've found a lot of interesting things," says Jay Wahl, managing producer of Hidden City. "The Royal still has its spooling machine in the projection booth and hundreds of canceled checks dating to the 1960s on the floor of its offices."

Wahl and Squire continue the countdown of odd treasures newly discovered: Shiloh Baptist Church contains five organs and an old Boy Scout meeting room. Founder's Hall has an archive room, completely uncataloged, with records like coal receipts, board minutes and report cards from the mid-1800s through the 1920s. Disston Saw Works left its company infirmary exactly as it was in 1955 — instruments still in the sink, medicine still in the cabinet, the physicians' log still sitting on the desk open to the last entry.

Along with John Gallery of the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia and Susan Glassman of the Wagner Free Institute of Science, Squire and Peregrine Arts sought to answer the question, how does the creative community interpret, animate and bring attention to what Wahl calls "undersung heritage sites" of Philadelphia's history? "We went through an extensive planning and research process with a team of local historians, architects and preservations who generated a list of nearly 100 sites of various use, history and conditions," notes Squire. Peregrine wasn't there to meddle with operative spaces or take them over. "Intrude is not the right word — in each case, participation from the site was voluntary — though in some cases, lengthy courtship was necessary," says Wahl.

None of the nine participating sites were altered or repaired; instead, Hidden City artists have re-imagined elements of the landmarks to enhance their history and unmask their soul.

Mother Bethel Church at Sixth and Lombard streets, for example, is host to artist Sanford Biggers' Constellation installation, in which immense "freedom quilts" hang throughout the stained-glass-heavy sanctuary, recalling the church's history as an Underground Railroad stop. The four-room, 60-by-60-foot domed space of Girard College's Founder's Hall, meanwhile, is where Steve Roden's nothing but what is therein contained — a wooden sculpture and sound installation — lets the cavernous power of the site do most of the talking. "It's really all about how the art intersects with each space and how the space re-contextualizes contemporary art," says Wahl.

By letting each artist choose his or her sites and projects, Peregrine remains at arm's length from the creative process. "Our only criteria were that they were willing to engage not just with the physical spaces, but with the history or memory of each site, as well," Wahl says. Philly's site-specific specialists Group Motion Dance Company, in collaboration with composer Phil Kline and choreographer Wally Cordona, chose the Metropolitan Opera House for its many incarnations worthy of exploration through dance — from opera house to ballroom to sports arena to church. Their Revival brings that metamorphosis to life at the end of June.

The ultimate goal for Hidden City Philadelphia stretches across realms aesthetic and historic. "Hidden City gives contemporary art — which is often abstract or non-narrative — a physical context or interesting space, and a story or history that creates a total experience," says Squire. "We take the amazing unknown stories of Philadelphia and use art to tell them to the public."

(a_amorosi@citypaper.net)

Hidden City Philadelphia | May 30-June 28, various times, locations and prices, 267-597-3808, hiddencityphila.org.

nEW Festival
Ribbons of War
Freudian Slip-Up
Liquid Dreams
Kaleidoscope
Hide and Seek
83rd Annual Competition
The Meatpackers Book Club
Bread & Puppet Theater
I'm Nobody