Note: This history is best understood in the context of the Center in the Park’s and the YWCA’s intertwined histories, which can be read about here.

In 1986, the Center for Older Adults departed from the YWCA building and moved into its new home at the Vernon Park Library, rebranding itself as “Center in the Park.” Despite the physical separation, the Center and the YWCA organization had one key infrastructural element for which continued partnership was essential: the parking lot. Within a year of the Center’s departure, the two organizations came to terms on a ten-year easement granting the Center the right to use parking spaces on the YWCA building’s parking lot, providing much-needed accessible parking for the Center.

The Center’s right to use this parking lot has consistently changed over time, shifting from an easement on the lot to a formal lease on a handful of parking spaces and then into an informal affair with the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority. When the YWCA declared bankruptcy between 2002 and 2005, the property, which includes the parking lot, became entangled in a series of ownership and redevelopment challenges. Ann Marie Doley, a longtime Germantown resident and founding member Friends for the Restoration of the Germantown YWCA Building, explains this story:

In 2006, the non-profit Germantown Settlement, a very large housing and social service agency, purchased the YWCA property with a $1.3 million loan from the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority (PRA). Germantown Settlement never repaid any of the loan nor did the doors ever open again. After the bankruptcy, the PRA had rights to reacquire the property as a creditor. They never did this until 2013. In the meantime, the YWCA was left unsecured. There was a lot of vandalism and two major fires in 2010 and 2012, one ruled arson. After the second fire, the City declared the building “imminently dangerous.”

During this fiasco, the parking lot had legally changed hands from the YWCA to the PRA, then to Germantown Settlement, and then back to the PRA. With little incentive to maintain the parking lot of an abandoned building and even less incentive to organize a formal lease on the parking lot, the Center in the Park has informally used and cared for the parking lot, clearing overgrowth, trash, leaves, and weeds for close to two decades.

According to Renée Cunningham, the Center’s Executive Director, this intensive and uncompensated stewardship of the parking lot is a matter of necessity for the organization. “It can’t be overstated: that parking lot is critical to our operations. Absolutely critical.” Doley explained that the Center has sought alternative arrangements on the parking lot, such as purchasing the lot outright: “when we asked if they could sell the lot to Center in the Park or even make protecting the Center’s use of it a requirement for developers, they told us they can’t legally subdivide the property.”

This legal limbo threatens the Center’s future access to their own building, attended by about 180 elderly citizens daily, many of whom have mobility challenges. Should the future developer of building not offer a leasing arrangement or an easement, the Center in the Park could lose its only accessible entrance. The risk is existential.

In recent years, the future of the Germantown YWCA building has been taken up by local advocates determined to preserve its legacy and ensure its redevelopment serves the community. The Center has fought hard to defend their interests regarding the parking lot, often leaning on the historical partnership of the Germantown YWCA and the Center’s programming. While the YWCA building’s future is uncertain, it is safe to say that threats to the Center’s operations are threats to the preservation of the building’s storied history.

Postscript from the Authors

We wish to thank all the people who provided oral histories, comments and background information for our story. We appreciate the women we wrote about who have passed on. We wish all those who care about the YWCA Building past and future a positive outcome that honors the YWCA’s illustrious history and protects the Center’s position within this history.

Questions? Contact Ann Marie Doley of the Friends for the Restoration of the Germantown YWCA Building at adthyme@aol.com.