September 23–30, 1999

hit and run

National Treasure

Though the National Products Company building on North Second Street will mostlikely be demolished next year to make way for a shiny new structure, local preservationists don’t want the orangeterra cotta tile and chrome palace to be forgotten.

Last week, the Preservation Alliance of Greater Philadelphia, a nonprofit advocacy group, was awarded a $7,970 grantfrom Preservation Pennsylvania’s Philadelphia Intervention Fund Committee, which is funded by the Pew CharitableTrusts, to document the building before its demise.

Local architect Sam Harris couldn’t be more pleased.

"The day the old man [Harry Caplen, former owner of National Products] died, I knew to the instant this buildingwas at risk."

Harris, a member of the Intervention Fund Committee, says saving the building is next to impossible.

Though Old City is a federally designated historic district, when the neighborhood received the designation in 1972,the National Products Building, then a mere quarter of a century old, was deemed "non-contributing" to thehistoric character of the area. In addition, Old City isn’t a locally designated historic district.

The National Restaurant Supply storefront was designed by Israel Demchick, who was known in the ’40s and’50s as one of the best movie-house designers in the United States. A local development firm, P&A Associates,has proposed to build a stepped residential and retail structure on the site and is waiting for approval of permits.According to Harris, "efforts are under way to get the developer to salvage the facade."

Harris will lament the loss of the National’s facade, but he’s not about to throw himself in front ofbulldozers to stop demolition. All he and his fellow preservationists want at this point is the chance to properlydocument it, and to make a record of an 1880s facade that was covered up by the National’s.

—Jen Darr