Reviving the Wildwoods’ Historic Preservation Commission
Like the Wildwoods, Philadelphia is experiencing a surge of redevelopment that threatens its historic buildings. Although two-thirds of Philly’s buildings are old enough to be deemed historic, only 3% have been formally recognized, leaving the rest unprotected and vulnerable.
Their Department of Planning and Development is in the process of completing a historic survey of its building stock, an intensive inventory that will take years to complete. In the meantime, those unprotected buildings are being demolished so quickly and haphazardly that some are calling the city “Demodelphia.”
Let’s not treat our historic buildings the way Holly Cottage on Rio Grande Avenue, built in the 1880s, was treated before it was unceremoniously demolished in 2002. Photos courtesy David Williams.
Similarly, in Wildwood, our group completed a survey of the Historic Buildings of Pacific Avenue this spring as requested by the Pacific Avenue Redevelopment Advisory board, and now we’ve resumed our survey of the entire city. Ever since we started this project in 2019, we’ve lost dozens upon dozens of buildings that were already surveyed. We still have years more surveying ahead of us and can’t afford to lose much more.
“Philadelphia’s history isn’t a burden, it’s our calling card,” Ashley Hahn wrote in a May Philadelphia Inquirer editorial. “But increasing numbers of old buildings are demolished annually by city contractors and private owners, landfilling reusable materials and untold histories.”
The newspaper called for its city to instate demolition review. “Without demolition review, the city is undercutting its well-intentioned survey before it starts,” Hahn wrote. “It can’t have Historical Commission staff extend a hand to communities promising to protect sites they value, while the other issues demolition permits for the same places.”
Like the Inquirer calling upon Philly, we are calling upon Wildwood to immediately enact demolition review. This could be the job of a Historic Preservation Commission, a volunteer advisory board that answers to the Planning & Zoning department. We have one such commission in our master plan, although it has been inactive for over a decade. We ask the city to dust off the Historic Preservation Ordinance and consider our recommendations for members to appoint to it.
Kathy Fulginiti has lived in Wildwood since 10th grade and was a teacher and librarian in the Wildwood School District for many years. Kathy is a volunteer at the Museum of Cape May County and is a member of a Living History group.
Taylor Henry is a lifelong Wildwood resident and author of the 2018 book Wildwoods Houses Through Time. Taylor has been president of the Wildwoods Historical Society since 2019. In 2021, she authored the Historic Buildings of Pacific Avenue survey.
Michael Hirsch received his B. Arch degree from Pratt Institute (1986), and a M.S. in City and Regional Planning, with a preservation planning certification, also from Pratt Institute (2006). He has served on the advisory board of The Doo Wop Preservation League, in Wildwood, NJ since 2003. Mr. Hirsch is President of the board of the Society for Commercial Archeology, and his family were property owners in the Wildwoods for 40 years.
Dennis Pierce is a Wildwood homeowner and has been spending his free time visiting the Wildwoods since childhood. He is restoring a Victorian house on Taylor Avenue, which he has researched back to the 1890s.
Christopher Tirri is a graduate student in Urban and Regional Planning at Rowan University. His interest in historic preservation stems from spending every summer in the Wildwoods as well as his hobby of studying boardwalk amusement history.
Although our city is younger than Philly, it is no less historic. Now is the time to act by enacting demolition review measures in Wildwood before it’s too late.
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