Keeping Society of Philadelphia

12/04/2025

The Keeping Society of Philadelphia has submitted a letter asking the Planning Commission to delay their review of Bill No. 251030, sponsored by Councilperson Mark Squilla. The bill proposes harmful amendments to the Historic Preservation Ordinance, disempowering communities all across the city.
Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia
National Trust for Historic Preservation

12/02/2025

Support Philadelphia’s Unprotected History This

This Giving Tuesday, we invite you to stand with the Keeping Society of Philadelphia as we fight to protect the city’s most vulnerable historic places. As a small, independent preservation nonprofit, we focus on the buildings and districts that lack official protections—sites whose stories, architecture, and cultural meaning are otherwise at risk of being erased.

This year alone, we advanced one major historic district, two smaller district efforts, and more than a dozen endangered individual buildings, while launching additional initiatives to secure recognition and protection for overlooked resources across the Quaker City. Every nomination, every survey, and every emergency intervention takes time, expertise, and sustained advocacy.

Your donation—whether $10 or $1,000—directly fuels this work. It helps us research, document, and defend the historic places that define Philadelphia’s character and identity.

On this Giving Tuesday, please consider supporting the Keeping Society’s mission to ensure that all of Philadelphia’s history—not just the most famous landmarks—survives for future generations.

Donate today and help us keep Philadelphia’s heritage standing.

https://keepingsocietyphila.allyrafundraising.com/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQKNjYyODU2ODM3OQABHua4L5FJSk4yWDWgvJpkiiFz7Q91zth3EXl_YPzf6_VqCzjWAq_nh8JUHVhA_aem_f9gW8fomKJlLLywDqhZ2gw

12/03/2024

is a chance for you to support the Keeping Society of Philadelphia, a small, but effective non-profit dedicated to preserving undesignated historic properties in Philadelphia. In 2024, we worked with communities and owners to protect three historic districts and numerous individual landmarks all across the city. Check out the photographs to see some of these special buildings and sites.

Please help support our ongoing work by making a donation at the following link:

https://keepingsocietyphila.wedid.it/?fbclid=IwAR0s7IO_m-neyX0xngilAEcAJWjUjMj3AAbBCgEnG6DrfsLrakkzv4yccjI_aem_ARtKZQQTS9qTuerEDKOEAXDTWqzU0QdOTYq0nUPTnUCBVMsQrQX5bIAwlEbT6dnE0iQ&mibextid=2JQ9

11/28/2023

is a chance for you to support the Keeping Society of Philadelphia, a small, but effective non-profit dedicated to preserving undesignated historic properties in Philadelphia. In 2023, we worked with communities and owners to protect four historic districts and numerous individual landmarks all across the city. Check out the photographs to see some of these special buildings and sites.

Please help support our ongoing work by making a donation at the following link:

https://keepingsocietyphila.wedid.it/?fbclid=IwAR0s7IO_m-neyX0xngilAEcAJWjUjMj3AAbBCgEnG6DrfsLrakkzv4yccjI_aem_ARtKZQQTS9qTuerEDKOEAXDTWqzU0QdOTYq0nUPTnUCBVMsQrQX5bIAwlEbT6dnE0iQ&mibextid=2JQ9

11/27/2023

For , please consider contributing to the Keeping Society of Philadelphia. We are a small, but mighty historic preservation non-profit that works with communities to designate unprotected historic resources. In 2023, we have been lucky to nominate buildings throughout the city, but especially in Germantown. Check out some of the buildings we've worked on this year in the attached photos.

Please consider making a donation at the following link to support our ongoing work in 2024:

https://keepingsocietyphila.wedid.it/?fbclid=IwAR0s7IO_m-neyX0xngilAEcAJWjUjMj3AAbBCgEnG6DrfsLrakkzv4yccjI_aem_ARtKZQQTS9qTuerEDKOEAXDTWqzU0QdOTYq0nUPTnUCBVMsQrQX5bIAwlEbT6dnE0iQ&mibextid=2JQ9

11/29/2022

On this , check out some of the undesignated historic buildings that the Keeping Society of Philadelphia helped save over the last year. If you think our work is important, please make a donation:

https://keepingsocietyphila.wedid.it

Thank you in advance for your support!

11/30/2021

Remember just a few weeks ago when the Southwark Municipal Piers Nos. 38 & 40 seemed to be in development peril? Who else would have filed a cogent nomination in less than 72 hours to ensure protection?

The Keeping Society of Philadelphia broke records in 2021 with the designation of three historic districts, including Chestnut Street East and Disston-Tacony. The list of individual nominations designated and pending is even longer. Feast your eyes on the diverse array of historic resources protected during the last year in the attached photographs. Please consider donating this to support our labors in 2022. A donation to the Keeping Society funds direct action.

On this , please help the Keeping Society save more endangered historic properties through a donation. Despite COVID-19, we have continued our work in 2021 with an impressive list of properties designated, nominated, and pending review.

11/30/2021

Remember just a few weeks ago when the Southwark Municipal Piers Nos. 38 & 40 seemed to be in development peril? Who else would have filed a cogent nomination in less than 72 hours to ensure protection?

We broke records in 2021 with the designation of three historic districts, including Chestnut Street East and Disston-Tacony. The list of individual nominations designated and pending is even longer. Feast your eyes on the diverse array of historic resources protected during the last year in the attached photographs. Please consider donating this to support our labors in 2022. A donation to the Keeping Society funds direct action.

https://keepingsocietyphila.wedid.it/campaigns/8445-help-save-philadelphia-97-unprotected-support-the-keeping-society

01/09/2021

One of the most distinctive commercial/industrial properties to survive on the Delaware River, the Philadelphia Warehousing & Cold Storage Company at 500 N. Christopher Columbus Boulevard was designated today by the Philadelphia Historical Commission. Our nomination was especially successful as we were able to negotiate a compromise with the property owner, who plans to reuse the complex. A special thank you to the property owner, his lawyer and consultant, the Alliance, the PHC and its staff, et. al.

12/01/2020

Despite COVID-19, Philadelphia is still experiencing record demolitions and the endless loss of historic fabric. The Keeping Society of Philadelphia continues its efforts to protect Philadelphia’s incredible, but vulnerable, historic resources. This year alone we have more than 50 historic buildings, structures, and places designated, nominated and/or under review and more underway. On this , please consider supporting our 2021 efforts to protect more of what makes Philadelphia unique. Donate:

On this , help the Keeping Society of Philadelphia save endangered historic properties through a donation. Despite COVID-19, we have continued our work in 2020 with over 50 historic resources designated, nominated, and pending review.

11/16/2020

Last Friday we succeeded in gaining local landmark status and protection for the Penn Home, the former Penn Asylum for Indigent Widows & Single Women, on behalf of numerous concerned Fishtown residents. The charitable organization was established at the present site in 1858 to provide housing for indigent windows and single women in their old age. It was one of the oldest continually operating “old age homes” in Philadelphia. The complex of buildings includes West Hill, the mansion house of a modest country seat, dating to ca.1769, at its core—the oldest known building in Fishtown. Founded long before social security and Medicare, the Penn Asylum was an unusual organization in the mid-1800s for many reasons, including that it was almost entirely under female leadership and patronage from the time of its founding until the 1980s. Sadly, landmark status does not halt its closing, a process which began earlier this year, another devastating casualty of COVID-19. This is particularly unfortunate given that the organization has provided an affordable, home-like place for local elderly residents to live for more than 150+ years. This is the type of local landmark that really belongs to the entire Fishtown community.

Created by several volunteers in less than one week, the nomination can be found at the following link:https://www.phila.gov/media/20201008104201/1401-E-Susquehanna-Ave-nomination.pdf

11/13/2020

We are excited to announce that the Philadelphia Historical Commission officially designated “The Chestnuts” at 5848 City Avenue, a significant and possibly unprecedented local triumph in protecting a designed-landscape. The plan was executed in 1869 by Eugene A. Baumann, an important Alsatian-born, American landscape gardener, the bones of which are remarkably intact to-date. The property also features all of its original buildings designed by Quaker architects Addison Hutton and Will Price for prominent Quaker David Scull, Jr. We were pleased to work with the Overbrook Farms Club to add this property to the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places.

The nomination is available at the following link:https://www.phila.gov/media/20201008104315/5848-City-Ave-nomination.pdf