Not much remains to mark the site of a long experimental educational saga on the south side of Baltimore Avenue, between 42nd and 43rd Streets.
Part 1: The Phillips Brooks School
Part one begins with the question: What does a favorite Christmas Carol have to do with the perennial rivalry between Boston and Philadelphia?
Though peripheral to the story of 4224-4226 Baltimore Avenue, it’s still significant. Phillips Brooks was a famous Episcopalian clergyman. Born in Boston, he built the magnificent Trinity Church in Boston in the 1870s. He became a Bishop of Massachusetts in 1891, died there in 1893, and was buried “like a king” at Boston’s Mount Auburn Cemetery. But today he is best remembered as the author of the beloved Christmas hymn, “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” which he wrote in Philadelphia in 1868, and which was put to music by the organist of The Church of the Holy Trinity at 1904 Walnut Street, where he was rector for a few years from 1862 to 1869.
All of this happened long before the Baltimore Avenue story, but it gave Philadelphia an opportunity to claim him as one of its own, so that in 1904, an Episcopalian private academy, the Phillips Brooks School opened in his memory. The school was listed as a “day school for boys on novel lines,” arranged with three sessions: “one for play, one for recitations, and one for study, all work is performed in school, thus doing away with home study.” The first principal was John S. White, who had previously founded a memorial school to the Rev. Frederic Brooks, the brother of Phillips Brooks, in Cleveland Ohio in 1874. (We don’t know what was his relationship to the Brooks brothers). The Baltimore Avenue school was noted for its musical evenings. The 1907 Commencement exercises also merited a mention in the Inquirer, as including “two graduates engaged in a debate on the subject: ‘Which country benefited more by the recent Russo-Japanese War?’ Other features of the exercises were a military drill, accompanied by a fife and drum crops (sic), and the rendition of the tent scene from Shakespeare’s ‘Julius Caesar.’”
Despite, or perhaps because of its “novel” curriculum, the school was sold to its creditors, including parents of the boys enrolled at the school, in 1908. The property at the time included “the lot, which has a frontage of 100 feet on the south side of Baltimore avenue and a depth on the east side of Forty-third street of about 150 feet, and a three-story and mansard dwelling which has been altered for use as the main building of the school. In the rear is a large brick gymnasium, but recently finished.” (The gym was designed by architects Cope and Stewardson in 1906). A new headmaster was installed, and the school continued to operate for a few more years.
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In 1917, the property was purchased by a Masonic group — the Eastern Travelers of West Philadelphia — and quietly slipped into the obscurity of the Secret Societies for the next three years.
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Part 2: The Burd School for Orphan Girls
Meanwhile, across the city at 63rd and Market, another Episcopal school encountered difficulties, and needed to move to a new site. This was the Burd School for Orphan Girls (initially built as a “refuge for the daughters of dead Episcopal clergymen;” later opened to all fatherless girls) conducted by St. Stephen’s Church at 10th and Market.
The school, named after the Burd family, was the project of Mrs. Eliza Burd, whose husband, Edward Shippen Burd was an Ambassador to France, and whose family were charter members of St. Stephens. She donated 38 acres of land and paid for the construction of the school at 63rd and Market Street in 1861. It was an extravagant gift: “the buildings were so large that there had to be built a small railroad to carry the meals from the kitchen to the dining room.” Sadly, surrounded by luxury, in a magnificent Gothic pile, “the fund left for the work amounted to $300,00,” which was not enough of an endowment – even in those days — to maintain the massive property and the fifty pupils, so they had to leave. In July,1920, St. Stephens purchased the “Old Phillips Brooks School” on Baltimore Avenue and the Burd School for Orphan Girls prepared to move.
The former boys’ school first had to be refurbished to suit girls’ needs: the gym would be “remodeled and used for the dining room and assembly room, while the entire school will undergo renovation. A vacant lot next door has also been purchased and will be used as a playground for the pupils.”
The money for the renovations came from the sale of the antiques in the old school: “the personal effects of the Burds, gathered from all over the world,” were catalogued and sold at the American Art Galleries in New York. “The collection formerly was kept in a large room in the old school…” and included “a beautiful and valuable suite of twelve arm chairs and a sofa of the period of Louis XVI, covered with silk tapestry. Tradition among the older pupils is that at one time this suite was the property of Marie Antoinette, but the trustees have not been able to substantiate this.” The collection was expected to raise about $30,000, to be used “to furnish the new school with modern equipment.”
Life at the school (loosely termed: the pupils attended local public schools and resided at Burd) appears to have been fairly tranquil, except for one dramatic moment in 1922, when two bats “found their way into one of the dormitories in which fifty girls were sleeping. Cries of ‘murder’ attracted persons who notified the police of the Thirty-second street and Woodland avenue station,” who arrived with riot guns, but ended up spending an hour chasing bats with brooms.
In 1926, the school was called “exemplary,” in a story about orphan asylums in Philadelphia, because of patroness Eliza Burd, who established it, and the forward-thinking policies of longtime principal Margaret Tappen who set up the routine that: “the pupils here are sent to public schools, given training in the fine arts, and in the 70 years of its existence the school can point with pride at the success attained by various graduates who started life under handicaps.” Tappen, a native of Argentina, was named Principal of the Burd School in 1917, and stayed until her retirement in 1942. It was noted that “while working with the school, Miss Tappen formed and led one of the first Girl Scout troops in Philadelphia.”
In 1936, the Burd Orphan Asylum changed its name to the Burd School, and celebrated its 80th anniversary with “exercises and tableaus in the school building.” Photographs of the event appeared in the newspaper. At that time, it was said that “since its beginning the school has cared for 414 girls, providing college education for many, and sent them out into the world equipped to earn their living. Age of the present enrollment range from 4 to 18.” Meanwhile, in 1937, the magnificent old Burd School building at 63rd and Market was demolished: “vacant for nearly two decades, the building had been condemned earlier in the year following the collapse of a floor.”
Principal Margaret Tappen retired in 1942 and died in Massachusetts in 1980 at age 98 (another Massachusetts connection!). The Burd School considered moving to the suburbs in 1946, but the Lower Merion School District and local civic groups there opposed the zoning variance that would have been needed to purchase the Lane estate at Lancaster and Morris Roads in Ardmore. The Burd School eventually disappeared from the news, sometime after the 1950s, when it “became a project of Episcopal Community Services.”
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Part 3: The West Philadelphia Community Free School
The Philadelphia School Board acquired the Baltimore Avenue property in 1971, and in 1972, the “West Philadelphia Community Free School at 3833 Walnut Street, 3500 Lancaster ave., and 4226 Baltimore ave. for 450 students” was reported to be “an excellent model to relieve overcrowding and provide an alternative program for academically-oriented students.” A 1973 newsbyte elaborated: the West Philadelphia Community Free School “was begun in 1970 by the Philadelphia Board of Education in cooperation with the University of Pennsylvania as a means of diversifying inner-city education by offering a wider curriculum and innovative teaching formats and to relieve the overload at West Philadelphia High School. Today approximately 485 students attend the school at three different locations…”
A report from the UPenn West Philadelphia Collaborative History Project fills in some of the details:
“For the curriculum, each house would offer a “basic program” that included developmentally appropriate intellectual activities and content in literature, social studies, math, and foreign languages. A salient component of the curriculum was the “outside courses”—student internships in businesses, institutions, and agencies around the city, with options ranging from “violin instruction to astronomy with a Penn professor, to anesthesiology taught by a staff member at Children’s Hospital, to clerical training at local banks.” The “family group” was another important feature of Eriksen’s plan. Each teacher would have responsibility for 12 to 15 students, provide a family-like home base for each student, and create “a cohesive group structure for interpersonal relations to grow.” Free time for students was another component. “
The school was a bold experiment — a precusor to the charter school movement — but unfortunately, each of the three partner groups had different and contradictory goals. The University of Pennsylvania, which supplied young, idealistic teachers through its education program, wanted to try out new educational ideas while reducing the tension between the University and the surrounding neighborhoods. The principal at West Philadelphia High School saw a way to relieve overcrowding at his building by moving troubled students into the program. Meanwhile, the Community Board “wanted a ‘new kind of school’ that would inspire young people to aspire to a college degree and give them the tools to achieve that goal.” In the end, the three different approaches proved to be incompatible.
The branch of the school at 4226 Baltimore was known as “House 3” and it was the last to close: in 1974-1975, it had ly seven teachers and 150 students. The school closed in 1977 or 1978.
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By the 1980s, the building was known locally as a shelter for battered women, and the part of the lot nearest 43rd street was a flourishing community garden.
The building was torn down long ago, but the property remains undeveloped. Why have there been so many issues with building on the lot? A look at an old map reveals one possible answer: Mill Creek runs under half of the property.
On July 12, 2021, westphillylocal.com reported: “Here’s a quick update on our last month’s post regarding the development of a 132-unit residential complex at 43rd and Baltimore (4224 Baltimore Ave) across from Clark Park. Developers announced in June that they were finally moving forward with the construction. The work began promptly after the announcement. Street parking around the construction area was closed and trees were removed, which made the site much more open and unrecognizable. Some excavation work has also begun. Zoning approval for the project was granted in June 2015 and building permit was issued in May 2019.”
Street of History Philadelphia 