The roof of the old supermarket is visible in the courtyard in front of the stage at the historic Girard Theatre in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Desigпed by Johп Bailey McElfatrick, the Girard Aveпυe Theatre opeпed iп 1891. Just a little more than ten years later, it was destroyed by an electrical wiring fire in 1903 that cost $25,000 to repair. It was rebuilt the next year, although not until two years later.In 1919, the Girard Avenue Theatre reopened under the leadership of the Keith Vaudeville Exhibition.
The theater featured “high-class vaudeville” events, as contrast to the Spiegel Stock and Misstrel Shows the theater had previously hosted, according to a fantastic history by Hoffman City. This continued until the staircase was converted, in accordance with a design by Ballinger architects, to a cinema theater in 1927. Rumor has it that Milto¿ Berle, who was a teenager at the time, was employed at the theater.The Girard Theatre closed and Klei’s Self-Serve Market opened in the lobby in 1967 as the neighborhood’s economy declined. Additionally, most of the area was razed during the 1960s Urban Renewal period.Years went by, and the marquee and ornamentation of the front were taken down, leaving only a lifeless, apathetic brick façade that scarcely left an impression of what it had once been.
The front of the Girard Theatre before the namesake and marquee were removed, when it was converted to Klei’s Food Market
A friend invited me to go take pictures of it with him in November 2019—on my birthday, no less—because the cartoon would be going well and the demolitio would already be making progress. Since that was the only route to get to the theater, I had attempted to gain admission through the supermarket previously, but it was extremely difficult. The abandoned supermarket, which had changed names twice and landed at the Fiery Fare Market before closing permanently, was now only partially covered by plastic fencing. As we entered, we could see the columns and the edge of the mezzanine, but the remainder was obscured by a drop-tile ceiling. We made our way through several dark passageways, up a dubious staircase, and into the former theater.There’s a certain feeling you get when you’re at a place where practically everyone has been working for decades—a kind of temporal overlap between the office’s past and present. Since the late 1960s, the Girard Theatre has been open, but forgotten, with a small stuttermarket tacked onto the first floor. Did the patrons ever feel intimidated by it? Do people ever consider the minor effects on their ordinary lives and wonder whether they might only be the result of something much larger that has been dormant for decades?These doors led to areas that were not part of the building, such as the jumbled heap of trash that I assumed to be the lobby’s grand stairway, from the second and third levels of the building. When I glanced past the glittering towers of Capitol City, I could see them. It appeared to be a section of another planet.
Beautifully decaying plaster portraits adorned the balconies of the Girard Theatre.
Rewinding a month or two later, most of the cartoon was still in good condition. To the point when I become weary of hearing the same clichés about Philadelphia’s wastefulness, I frequently find myself criticizing the careless destruction of its historical legacy. Further work has to be done to accurately document the outside of the building. It may have saved more lives. More acknowledgement of the office’s value in the context of the community should have been given. However, these actions may hinder democracy:It’s crucial to act quickly if you want to take down a location before people have a chance to realize what they’re losing or think too much about it. If not, the procedure becomes more laborious, slower, and more expensive. You can’t preserve every cartoon, and it’s ridiculous to think that the Girard Theatre could have been miraculously brought back to life for its original purpose. It had been waiting for a wrecking ball that had forgotten it existed for fifty-two years until its time had come many years before the demolitio.
