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 Northwest 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 of Germantown 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 and street access 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 to an informal agreement with the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority (PRA), the City agency that now owns the YWCA Building. When the YWCA declared bankruptcy in 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 of Friends for the Restoration of the Germantown YWCA Building, explains this story:

Unfortunately, this is a sad and long story, still unfinished. I’ll start in 2006 when the non-profit Germantown Settlement, a large housing and social service agency, purchased the YWCA property with $500,000 from the state and a $1.3 million loan from the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority (PRA) then the Redevelopment Authority (RDA). The City’s problematic relationship with Germantown Settlement is a story for another day; let me just say, it was public knowledge that the organization was in deep debt and teetering on financial collapse when the loan was approved. Germantown Settlement never made a single payment and the building never reopened – at least not legally. Worst of all, the YWCA was never sealed or protected. Beginning as early as 2006, Center in the Park (CIP) repeatedly tried to get the PRA to properly seal the building. Seems to me, this was their obligation as the main creditor, and one getting no payments. They should have been protecting their investment and respecting the community by protecting our treasured, historically designated building.

Instead, this beloved, beautiful, highly decorative building was left vulnerable. People hung out there; at times, they slept there. There was theft and vandalism. Worst of all, there were two fires! One in 2010;a worse one in 2012. Arson was involved. After the 2012 fire, the City declared the building “imminently dangerous.” The roof had a gaping hole; windows were shattered. From seeing interior photos from 2012, the upper floors were severely damaged. All the beautiful wood destroyed. Adding insult to injury, the City did nothing after the fires. They just let the rain come down.

In 2015, the PRA told a packed community meeting in Germantown that the YWCA might need to be demolished. They said they didn’t have the money to clean it out, stabilize and seal it. That’s when the first version of our Friends group got up a petition to stop demolition and protect and preserve the building. I wasn’t involved then, but it was organized by Yvonne Haskins and my daughter Emaleigh Doley. Thanks to the initial Friends to Save the Germantown YWCA, the City suddenly found $4 million and the building was saved. The work took ‘til 2016 to complete.

Bringing this saga up the present, Center in the Park, Friends for the Restoration of the Germantown YWCA Building, other stakeholders like Friends of Vernon Park and West Central Germantown Neighbors plus literally hundreds of Germantown residents, have been advocating for saving, preserving and redeveloping the YWCA Building. We have called for a local developer with experience in historic preservation, committed to community engagement and preserving the mural. We have called for affordable housing, ideally senior housing, a pressing need here in Germantown. And very importantly, we want a permanent use agreement for Center in the Park to use the sections of the parking lot that give them vehicle access to the street and to their only ADA accessible entrance, which can only be accessed through the YWCA lot. Despite our efforts, the building remains vacant. It’s been two decades now. That too is a story for another day.

During this unstable period, 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 for the PRA 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, ensuring it has lighting, tending to snow plowing, and clearing overgrowth, trash, leaves, and weeds for close to two decades.

According to Renée Cunningham, the Center’s current 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 the building not offer a leasing arrangement or an easement, the Center in the Park could lose its only accessible entrance. The risk is existential.

As spoken about above, 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.