Yale Ave Facade (try to ignore the badly placed downspouts)
Close up of Dormer
Side Elevation, This use to be boarded up and full of junk
Beautiful Gothic Windows and Oversized Brackets
Slightly off topic today but so it goes. Today we had the ribbon cutting on our SEPTA Regional Rail Train Station. One of my many hats is the VP/Volunteer Architect of the Morton Station Preservation Committee. This is the train station that I used when I commuted into Philly. It is an interesting complex of 3 buildings including an 1880 Passenger Station, and 1890 Passenger Shelter on the far side of the track and an 1880ish Freight Station (it looks like a barn). It is amazing to think that the parts of our house probably came through the freight station!
It has been a long journey! 6 years ago SEPTA tried to knock down the lovely little Passenger Shelter (literally with chains in the middle of the night). Thanks to some concerned citizens we managed to get them to stop (mostly because they didn’t pull a demolition permit). After a lot of contentious meetings and a lot of fundraising and grant writing our little group managed to get enough money to restore the passenger shelter. We thought the main passenger station would probably never get a full renovation. We were trying to raise money to do some stabilization when the Stimulus money from the Federal Government came through and SEPTA was able to renovate several stations! It is nice to see that money actually being used for something I use and that is good for the community. So here it is in all its glory. There are a few things I wish they would have done differently but overall I think it came out quite nice. The orange brick with the dark gray mortar is really stunning!
I appologize for the bad photos. It is 100 degrees here today and I just shot a few quick photos with our little camera. I will hopefully make the local paper later this week!
Thanks for volunteering your time and effort toward this project, the results are wonderful!