Two Philly Families, circa 1790

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LAST WEEK, I FINALLY ACHIEVED ENTRY into a pair of restored 18th century houses in Philadelphia that had eluded me for years. The modest 1776 Todd house, above on left, and the elegant 1786 home of Bishop William White are on the same block in Center City, Walnut Street between 3rd and 4th. They’ve always been closed when I’ve tried to visit in the past. They’re only open in the summer months; sometimes they’re understaffed; they only allow 10 at a time inside; you call for information and can’t get through — so a certain mystique had built up for me around these sites. Then there’s the ticketing rigamarole: you have to first pick up a (free) ticket at the Visitor Center at Independence National Historical Park, a few blocks away at Market and 6th, and sign up for a scheduled half-hour tour, which happen once or twice a day.

On Friday morning, however, I did it. Five showed up for the tour, including people from Missouri and Washington State. First we visited the middle class house where John Todd, a Quaker lawyer, his wife Dolley Payne Todd, and their two children lived (with just a single servant). It’s very much a Philadelphia row house of the late 18th century, with narrow twisting wooden stairs, a tiny kitchen, a dining room and parlor, small bedrooms, and an office in a prime corner where Todd practiced law. He died here in the yellow fever epidemic of 1793, as did 4,000 other Philadelphians , including one of their young sons. Dolley went on to meet another young lawyer, James Madison, in that very house two months later, and eventually became the 4th First Lady of the U.S. The house is furnished with period pieces, though they’re not original to the house — and well done as the restoration is, it is just a warm-up for the Federal-style Bishop White house a few doors down.

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Above: The side of the Todd house is more impressive than the front, which is only two windows wide. We entered through a door behind the picket fence.

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From top: kitchen, dining, study in Todd house.

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The 4-inch-wide door to the left of the stairs is a candle closet(!)

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Above: Fire buckets hang from the ceiling in the Todd house.

IMG_0100When Kevin O’Neill, the National Park Service ranger who led the tour, opened the fanlight door to the Bishop White House, left, we all gasped. It is grand, especially by comparison to the Todd house: the plaster archway in the front hall, the diamond-patterned floor cloth, the wide stair landings and turned balusters, the painstakingly reproduced Scalamandre (or did he say Schumacher?) wallpapers in every room. This house is filled almost exclusively with furnishings that belonged to the original homeowner, a bishop in the Protestant Episcopal Church just around the corner. The artifacts were rounded up in the late 1940s and ’50s from as far away as Texas and South Africa; they’d been sold off after the Bishop’s death in 1836, but their provenance was apparently traceable down to the silver and china. The Bishop had 11 children and quite a few servants; Washington, Jefferson and Franklin were among the elite guests. He seems to have been an admirable guy — an abolitionist, of an ecumenical bent (rabbis dined here as well), a charitable fellow who never turned a beggar away empty-handed from his door, the story goes.

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Above: The very wallpaper patterns in place in the late 18th/early 19th centuries.

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The painting propped on a stand, above, commissioned by one of the Bishop’s children shortly after his death, is of this second-floor study. It greatly enabled an accurate re-creation of the room, even after the house had been occupied by an insurance company for decades (happily, they did no damage to the house’s architectural integrity).

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Above: The Park Ranger peering down the hall to where I was lagging behind to take a picture. He’s hoping I’m not some kind of stealth graffiti artist, or perhaps just anxious to keep to his schedule.

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Above: All the mod cons in a room at the back of the hall — from here straight into an alley that ran behind the house.

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Above: A kitchen much larger than those in other houses of this period. Below: The Bishop’s mosquito-netted bed.

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Some of the Ranger’s statements were questionable, such as that Philly went into decline after the 1790s (when the nation’s capital was moved to D.C. and the founders, who had gathered there as a central point while the Constitution was being written and the nation formed, repaired back to their Virginia plantations and homes elsewhere), and that the city’s reputation and vitality didn’t return until the Bicentennial of 1976. Huh? What about the Industrial Revolution? The 1876 Exposition? American Bandstand?

But it may be true that nothing that came later — not even the current real estate boom, which makes Brooklyn’s look sleepy — ever quite recaptured the glory and opportunity of those post-Revolutionary years, preserved for our consumption in a pair of brick row houses.

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Above: On the same Center City block as the Todd and Bishop White houses, a park in the style of the late 18th century, always worth a look.

Fishtown Jumping

Photo: Alexis Olsen

THERE’S NO SHORTAGE OF CORNER BARS in Fishtown, a historically working-class Philadelphia neighborhood that has been steadily mutating, these past few years, into a more upscale one (so what else is new?)

Some of those drinking establishments are decades-old dive bars. The recently renovated Fishtown Tavern, above, straddles the line between what was, offering $2 drafts to keep longtime locals coming in, and what is and will be, with ambitious bar food like warm dates stuffed with goat cheese and portabello mushroom sandwiches.

Fishtown (the name comes from its history as the shad fishing center of the Delaware) is characterized by:

  • tiny 19th century row houses

  • electric trollies

  • abandoned industrial buildings on a massive scale

  • new construction in a hyper-modern style (similar to that in the Northern Liberties area, a few blocks to the south and a little farther along the gentrification arc)

  • a growing population of ex-Brooklynites, including my son Max.

On Sunday afternoon, he and I took a walk, and soon I was getting a tour of the latest developments — especially the rapidly changing Frankford Avenue corridor, a diagonal artery of mostly industrial buildings and old storefronts being adapted as we speak for use as restaurants, music venues and, of course, bars. Here’s some of what moved me to take my iPhone out of my pocket as we walked along:

Loco Pez, a new taqueria (with amazing-looking salads and $1.75 tacos) in one of many buildings with rounded or oddly angled corners

Scrumptious detail on a corner building

Little Baby’s, a new ice cream store on Frankford Avenue offering unusual flavors like Earl Grey Sriracha, next door to the also-new Pizza Brain

One of many fish-themed gates by Robert Phillips, a metal artist whose workshop was in Fishtown. He died last month at age 50.

El Bar, so named for its location under the elevated railway that runs along Front Street. It may look at first glance like an old-school dive bar, but don’t be fooled. It’s hip.

The plants on the Juliet balcony are a hint that someone lives above these commercial garages on Frankford

Above, a high-end, limited-edition motorcycle shop is coming in next to a hair salon called Parlour

A fine converted carriage house

As-yet-unrealized potential in a building next to a music venue called Barbary

Restauranteur Steve Starr’s Frankford Hall, above, an indoor/outdoor beer garden that opened a couple of years ago, has been a major turning point in the development of Frankford Avenue. A Korean barbeque spot is coming in next door.

Heart of NoLibs 2-Family 329K

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Northern Liberties street scene

283847941NoLibs? WTF is NoLibs? You might well ask. It’s a silly acronym (is there any other kind?) for Northern Liberties, one of the most happening neighborhoods in Philadelphia. Think of it as the Williamsburg of Philly — established enough to be a secure real estate investment, yet still with development potential aplenty.

Just north of Center City — an easy walk or bike ride — the neighborhood is old and historic, with 3-and 4-story row houses in a variety of styles. It dates back to William Penn’s 1680 plan for the city, when the area was carved up into 80-acre plots (“liberty lands”) to be given away as incentive to those who bought 5,000-acre parcels elsewhere in the colony of Pennsylvania.

I own two buildings in Philly and covet more. When I get listings emailed to me, I look at them. Usually I’m not moved to act, or even blog. But this one, left, is a corner building in a prime spot and apparently decent shape. The ask (down recently from 350K) is in line with current market conditions, and the possibility of renting both units and being immediately in the black makes it seem worth a closer look.

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data=Ay5GWBeob_WIPLDYoIWcfVXxvZu9XwJ55OX7Ag,vdn7d-fpjAqTDBft27wBVuuLm3uD_HXVRyJO3BEEF8EgwOeamOmJ187hWjVKu-p76vUhawZrKt4vPrhjn_1RMOJ3_WaZVFqIFcrFmF0_There are two apartments: a 700-square-foot one-bedroom on the ground floor, with outdoor space in back, and an upper duplex with a loft-like living space, above, two attic bedrooms, and a deck.

It’s clear that a cardinal rule of real estate sales has been broken here: the listing photos suck. Bad for the seller; not necessarily so for prospective buyers. I’ll be down in Philly next weekend and will take a few of my own. In the meantime, for more lousy-but-better-than-nothing images, go here.

And for an appointment to view this or other Philadelphia properties, I can wholeheartedly recommend Ken Krauter, the broker I used when I bought my house in Old Kensington, one neighborhood over, in 2007: ken.krauter@ziprealty.com, 215/450-0605.

Italianate Investment in NoLibs 619K

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I THINK WE’D CALL THIS PAIR OF TOWNHOUSES ITALIANATE, or maybe Second Empire, with their mansard roof and curving window lintels. Whichever, they’re 1850s through 1880s, so pay no attention to the listing, which says 1930.

The house for sale is half the pair in the picture, by the way — the left half, with the green door.

The location is prime Northern Liberties, Philadelphia, which is beyond hip these days, and very convenient.

Three or four years ago, I drove all the way down to Philly to look at something very similar one block over. By the time I got there, the house had been spoken for. I was heartsick for at least a day. It was priced around 400K, which says a lot about the direction in which things are moving in Philadelphia. Oddly, the city seems to have escaped the downturn in housing prices, probably because it also escaped the previous escalation in housing prices.

This house, 702 N. 5th Street, has been on the market less than a month. It has four rental units. There’s a garden behind and a deck on top.

Paul Sabia, the listing agent, says it’s in decent shape. Mechanicals have been updated within the last 10 years, though the apartments themselves have “older kitchens.” In his words, “You wouldn’t have to spend any money on it right away.” Each apartment is separately zoned for heating and has central air; tenants pay all utilities.

For more info (no more pictures, unfortunately), go here.

Chip Off the Old Block

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WELL, I HOPE I’M SLIGHTLY MORE DELICATE THAN THE PHRASE ‘old block’ implies. But I use the expression because my 25-year-old son and his girlfriend just closed on an old house in Philadelphia, following my lead in acquiring vintage real estate. It’s in Fishtown, an old working-class community just north of Center City — a wonderful corner building that once housed a shop selling newspapers and cigars, according to an elderly neighbor. I’m guessing from the decorative brickwork around the cornice and the Eastlake-style fireplace that the house is from the 1880s.

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I encouraged this purchase all the way. In fact, I looked at the place myself back in ’06 when I was shopping around for an investment in the area, but it was too expensive for me. The owner was asking 360K at the time, with one rental unit. I ended up buying a smaller, much cheaper place in nearby Old Kensington.

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Then, when my son and his girlfriend were house-hunting this past winter, hoping to take advantage of the Federal first-time home buyers $8,000 tax credit, the Fishtown house was on the market again (same seller). They got it for nearly 100K less, with a 3% down payment and an interest rate under 5%. Extraordinary opportunity, and one that some of their friends in Philly also took advantage of.

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The house is in very decent condition, with a new heating system, though they’ll need to totally renovate the kitchen and bathroom.

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They’re moving tomorrow. Very exciting for them and for me.