Historic South Philly churches designed by Frank Furness slated for very different futures

In South Philadelphia, separated by a little more than half a mile, two 19th-century churches designed by famed architect Frank Furness face radically different futures.

19th Street Baptist Church at 1253 19th St., with its unmistakable cladding of green Serpentine stone, is being demolished.

Across Washington Avenue, Shiloh Baptist Church at 2040 Christian St. is being preserved as an 87-unit apartment building.

“I believe that housing is important,” said the Rev. Edward Sparkman, senior pastor at Shiloh. “As long as it’s housing somebody, it’s good, regardless of the cost, regardless of what type. That’s preservation for us also.”

In June 2023, Shiloh turned over the keys to Tierview Development, a local company that has completed eight adaptive reuse projects in Philadelphia since 2012. The former church will host larger apartments in line with long-standing community demands for more units large enough to accommodate families with children.

The largest will be two-bedroom units with dens, which can be used as a third bedroom, at 1,400 square feet. Tierview Development got zoning permits June 18 to begin the apartment project.

Just a week earlier, demolition permits were issued for 19th Street Baptist church after 15 years of struggles by the congregation and preservationists to save the building.

The City of Philadelphia is paying over $103,000 to tear the structure down, contracting with Pedro Palmer Construction. The church will receive a bill for the work. Although the main building is actively being demolished, the fellowship hall will remain.

“At this time, we have no finalized plans for the land,” the Rev. Wilbur Winborne said in a text message. “We’re prayerfully considering how to use it in a way that honors our mission — to share the Gospel, serve community needs, and preserve our church’s history.”

Both churches were originally Episcopalian and date to the 1870s, when South Philadelphia was growing rapidly and needed more religious institutions to serve the swelling population. Local star architect Frank Furness — also responsible for the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and Fisher Fine Arts Library — had a hand in designing both of them.

By the 1940s, as the Black population grew in this part of South Philadelphia, both buildings were purchased by Baptist congregations. Both Shiloh and 19th Street were later visited by such civil rights luminaries as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Jesse Jackson.

But in recent decades, the congregations shrank, with no growing religious successor group to take their places.

Both buildings were added to the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places in the 1980s, which gave them protection from demolition. They also worked with Partners for Sacred Places, a nonprofit that helps congregations preserve historic churches.

A small army of local historic preservationists tried to save 19th Street Baptist Church in particular. The Serpentine stone cladding is expensive to maintain. That’s why there are few others like it locally, with the exception of the University of Pennsylvania’s College Hall.

The church faced an existential threat as early as 2011, when the city’s Department of Licenses and Inspections (L&I) declared it unsafe after stucco fell off during the minor earthquake that year. The congregation, with the aid of preservationists like the University of Pennsylvania’s Aaron Wunsch, managed to scrape together funds to patch the church.

But by 2019, the building was again in trouble. It got demolition permits for the building that February, but later that year the Historical Commission denied permission to tear down the church.

In 2021 the city declared the building “imminently dangerous,” which essentially strips it of preservation protections. As Hidden City reported last year, the church clashed with lenders who provided funds for repair, and options for the building’s future slipped out of reach. And unlike Shiloh’s pastor, Winborne declined to sell.

“As the building comes down, we give thanks — not only for the safety of our neighbors and the removal of risk, but also for the possibilities that lie ahead,” Winborne said in a message to the congregation that he later shared with The Inquirer. “The land may be cleared, but God is making room for something new — something for the good of the church, the community, and the city.”

Shiloh Baptist Church never faced the scale of challenges that its neighbor did and the congregation managed to win grants to give the entire complex a new roof.

Nonetheless, the same challenges faced both churches. Shiloh currently has about 50 parishioners left, and most of them are elderly.

“We put a lot of work into the building, but we had lost a lot of members, and when COVID hit, that took a lot of our members also,” Sparkman said. “That’s where we had to decide for the best interest of the building. Let’s save it by selling it to somebody who’s going to keep it.”

Construction is expected to begin by the end of the year, and costs will be about $20 million.

Shiloh is much larger than 19th Street and configured in a U-shape that allows in more sun and air.

“One of the reasons this church and the surrounding structures were such good fits for an adaptive reuse project is the amount of windows,” said Jenn Patrino, president of Tierview Development. “The light is truly spectacular. A lot of churches end up with some dark spaces in the center that are really challenging for residential units.”

The project is benefiting from historic preservation incentives enacted during Mayor Jim Kenney’s administration, which allowed developers to forgo parking if they were reusing historically protected buildings. If that law had been in place during the battle for St. Laurentius in Fishtown, that church might have survived.

“There’s a funding gap that’s really challenging with these old buildings,“ Patrino said. ”In [Shiloh’s case], it was easier because Graduate Hospital is very established and, frankly, it’s mostly already gentrified. But in a neighborhood like Point Breeze or Grays Ferry, you’re not going to get that level of investment.”