Germantown residents celebrated Valentine’s Day at the Young Friends of the Preservation Alliance’s yearly “Heart-Showering” event, this year at the Germantown YWCA building.
Members of the Friends for the Restoration of the Germantown YWCA Building also joined in the event, creating paper hearts and decorations with messages written about the building and its connection to the community.
“I was thrilled with the turnout. It was very heartfelt, and to see the building decorated like that was very moving,” Ann Doley, co-founder of Friends of the YWCA, told the Local. …
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Germantown residents celebrated Valentine’s Day at the Young Friends of the Preservation Alliance’s yearly “Heart-Showering” event, this year at the Germantown YWCA building.
Members of the Friends for the Restoration of the Germantown YWCA Building also joined in the event, creating paper hearts and decorations with messages written about the building and its connection to the community.
“I was thrilled with the turnout. It was very heartfelt, and to see the building decorated like that was very moving,” Ann Doley, co-founder of Friends of the YWCA, told the Local. “It’s hard to not be angry with what has happened to this building in the last 20 years, but it’s so inspiring to see people fight for this building year after year.”
Each year, on or around Valentine’s Day, the Heart-Showering event brings together the Young Friends group and community members to place handmade paper hearts on or near threatened historic sites.
Located at 5820 Germantown Ave., the property is controlled by the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority (PRA), which first accepted a bid from Ohio-based developer KBK Enterprises in 2016 to renovate the building. While the PRA holds the property, due to councilmanic prerogative, district City Council members hold veto power over land-use decisions in their districts.
The property has been vacant since the late 1990s, with KBK mostly maintaining the development rights since 2016.
In previous years, the Young Friends group has held this event at the Francis R. Strawbridge House and Mount Vernon Cemetery in East Falls, Church of the Advocate in North Philadelphia, and the Henry O. Tanner House in Strawberry Mansion.
At this year’s event, attendees hung up paper hearts and posters with phrases like “We love the YWCA” and “Bring it alive again” written on them.
“It was a good crowd, very touching,” Barb Dowdall, a member of the YWCA from the 1950s until its closure, told the Local. “When you come to do something in Germantown, you meet your neighbors and your former colleagues. It’s a very woven together community.”
