Eclectic artist and Philly promoter Joel Spivak, who helped revive South Street, has died at 85

Joel Spivak, 85, a free-spirited carpenter and artist known for his quirky, scholarly passion for all things Philadelphia, died Monday, April 21, of heart failure at his home in Bella Vista.

Mr. Spivak was an authority on Philly trolleys, delis, soda fountains, and neighborhood traditions, including “rowhouse sports” such as half-ball.

He wrote books about the city’s 20th-century history and maintained a lively website with sections devoted to subjects such as National Hot Dog Month in Philly — an occasion he invented.

“He was the ‘Trolley Lama.’ Few [people] knew more about Philly public transit,” his nephew Michael Spivak said. “He crafted spectacular sculptures and furniture out of pieces of discarded headboards, chests, and wood salvaged from the streets.”

Mr. Spivak was a founder of the Philadelphia Dumpster Divers, whose other members continue to make art from found objects and materials; the group’s work is featured in a new exhibit at City Hall.

He also helped restore The Little Shul, the last of more than 100 South Philly rowhouse synagogues still in use.

“Joel was a member of our board for many years and was active in bringing our Shul back to the gem that it is today,” Kvn Josef Shapiro, the synagogue’s director of community engagement, said in a Facebook post.

Mr. Spivak was born Oct. 25, 1939, at Hahnemann University Hospital and grew up in West Oak Lane. His father ran an auto parts business, and his mother, as he described her in a post on his website, was a professional blues singer who was active citywide during World War II bond drives. Her example of public service stayed with him throughout his life, he wrote.

He dropped out of Olney High School, served in the U.S. Army for two years, returned home to Philly in 1960, just before his 21st birthday. He later attended Drexel University and the Philadelphia College of Art. He didn’t earn a degree at either but found work as a carpenter for local architectural firms.

Mr. Spivak became one of the young creatives, artists, artisans, and entrepreneurs living in and renovating moribund buildings on or near the eastern stretch of South Street. Collectively, they sparked a South Street Renaissance in the 1960s and ’70s.

“Because it was so cheap to live there, a lot of opportunities happened,” Mr. Spivak said during a 2024 interview with The Inquirer. “People just kind of showed up there magically. A friend told me about a great apartment in a building on the 300 block renting for $25 a month.”

Mr. Spivak also helped lead opposition to the proposed Crosstown Expressway in the late 1960s and early ’70s. It would have obliterated the 24 blocks of multiethnic commercial and residential areas along South and Bainbridge Streets between the Schuylkill Expressway and I-95.

The government “was trying to push people out and gentrify South Street for rich people,” he said. “But up and down South Street, people got organized and had demonstrations at City Hall. They realized there was strength in numbers.”

Mr. Spivak “led by example — always patient and good-humored, and encouraging,” said Gerald Kolpan, a retired newspaper and television journalist who knew Mr. Spivak for half a century. “Whatever Joel was doing at any given moment was what he most wanted to do.”

“There was no one else like him,” said longtime friend Len Davidson, whose since-closed Neon Museum of Philadelphia hosted Mr. Spivak’s 2021 exhibit “The South Street Renaissance or how a handful of acid heads brought South Street back from the ruins."

George Felice, 77, an antiques dealer and longtime friend, said Spivak came of age on South Street when ”the hippies, or the leftover hippies” helped define a community of which Mr. Spivak was the ”unofficial” mayor.

“Those were the days of Ruth and Rick Snyderman and their Works Gallery and the Zagars (Isaiah and Julia) and their Magic Garden,” he said. “The theater (TLA) was open and people were buying old stores and fixing them up, and Joel worked on a lot of them.”

Mr. Spivak met his wife, Diane Keller, in 1978 while working at Judy’s, the fabled and funky cafe at Third and Bainbridge, a block from South Street. They were married in 1981.

“I was waiting on tables, and Joel was playing at being host on Sunday nights,” said Keller, 76, an artist and arts educator. “Joel was a playful person. He always had fun. But he also was a grown-up.”

In the early 1980s, Mr. Spivak opened Rocketships & Accessories, a toy store just off South Street where the inventory centered on ray guns and other sci-fi paraphernalia.

“I was involved one way or another in almost all of Joel’s projects,” Keller said. “He had the best life. He loved it, and he lived it to the fullest.”

In addition to his wife and his nephew, Mr. Spivak is survived by a sister, as well as cousins, other nephews and nieces. His brother, Robert, died in 2022

A celebration of life will be held from 4 to 7 p.m. May 22 at the TLA, 334 South St., Philadelphia.

As per his wishes, his body was donated to the Humanity Gifts Registry at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.