Philadelphia is the first World Heritage City in the United States. In this city’s culture of demolition, places where history happened are frequently tossed on the trash heap of history. The Germantown Boys’ Club (originally the Boys’ Parlors Association) was established in 1887. It is now known as the Germantown Boys and Girls Club. Friends of the club are fighting to save the historic building from the wrecking ball.
On May 12, the Philadelphia Historical Commission considered the nomination of the Germantown Boys and Girls Club submitted by indefatigable architectural historian Oscar Beisert. Parenthetically, Oscar worked 24/7 to try to save the church where Marian Anderson learned to sing. His nomination of the First African Baptist Church preserved the historic church for future generations. Oscar and I collaborated on the nomination of the Malcolm X House.
After three hours of histrionics, the Historical Commission had enough. They voted to table the nomination for 45 days. In the meantime, the opposing sides were encouraged to talk among themselves.
Reverend Dr. Alyn E. Waller, senior pastor of Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church, began the conversation with a monologue. He opened his Mother’s Day's service by calling out “a small but vocal part of that community”:
You may have heard a lot about the struggle we are presently in in Germantown around the Germantown Boys and Girls Club. Those of you who are from Germantown know that Germantown, like Charles Dickens, is the tale of two cities. … The reason there is a Boys and Girls Club within a mile of each other is because there was a time when there was a white Germantown and a black Germantown. So the black Boys and Girls Club was the Wissahickon Boys and Girls Club and the white Boys and Girls Club was the Germantown Boys and Girls Club.
Now that reality is no longer because, quite frankly, Germantown is black, both sides. But sadly, there are still vestiges of the old mindset. What is taking place in Germantown is that there is an opportunity for the Boys and Girls Club to expand its offering to at the Germantown site. Comcast, along with Ed Snider Hockey, along with some other funders, are attempting to build a new Boys and Girls Club that is going to be inclusive of an ice rink and some other amenities for the community.
The last ditch effort of a very small but vocal part of that community to stop it is to try to get the present building declared a historical site. Now on the surface it sounds like, you know, it’s a good thing to declare it a historical site. Underneath the public argument is fundamentally a group of people who don’t want those children coming into their neighborhood because you have to kind of go through the Penn-Knox neighborhood. And quite frankly, not all of them because there are some wonderful people who really wanna know what the building is going to look like.
Rev. Waller then played the race card:
But the fundamental issue is a race issue and it is a certain crew of people who just don’t want those kids in their neighborhood. I have to call a name because I don’t speak in abstract. The ring leader is a man by the name of Greg Paulmier and he has been historically, the 23 years that I have been here, a lead voice in trying to keep African Americans in a particular pocket. He even on that day called into question my love for the children of this community because I don’t live here.
The Penn-Knox neighborhood is a “family-oriented area, with many residents having raised their families here, and younger residents raising children. Many people are professionals, and range from lawyers and teachers to artists and business people.”
Truth be told, racists who have options do not raise their families in an overwhelmingly black community.
Aaron Wunsch, an assistant professor of historic preservation at the University of Pennsylvania, told me: “Germantown is the closest Philly has to an integrated neighborhood.” Prof. Wunsch’s observation was underscored by archivist and historian J.M. Duffin: “It’s completely absurd because white racists don’t choose to buy houses in Germantown and live next to two organizations, the Boys & Girls Club and PAL, that were there long before any of the neighbors and have been serving primarily African American youth.”
Time will tell what is underneath Rev. Waller’s race-baiting. Like the reverend and many of his allies, I don’t live in Germantown. As a lifelong activist, I care about children in every community. I grew up in an impoverished neighborhood so I know first-hand the importance of exposing children to the possibilities.
Knowing one’s history also transforms lives. The Germantown Boys and Girls Club is associated with the Great Migration. The building exemplifies the economic, cultural, political and social heritage of the city and nation. It holds stories of de facto segregation, resistance and white flight. The club’s past is part of African Americans’ story of separate and unequal facilities. Germantown’s history of racial segregation should not be erased from public memory. Fact is, the club's past informs our present. Philadelphia is the 4th most segregated big city in the country.
The Historical Commission is not the venue to settle old scores or impugn motives. The sole issue before the Commission should be whether to accept the recommendation of the Committee on Historic Designation to add the Germantown Boys and Girls Club to the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places. If the 119-year-old building meets the criteria, it should be added to the list. Point, blank, period.
