Heritage West excavated bricks, bones and jewelry from the former Black Bottom. Now, you’re invited to come see them.

The Heritage West Community Archaeology Project, an effort to uncover artifacts and histories from the Black Bottom neighborhood in West Philadelphia, is readying its findings for everyone to see.

The members of the collaboration between the University of Pennsylvania, the Penn Museum, and local community organizations and neighbors began excavating a plot of land at 3500 Lancaster Ave. in 2023. They were in search of neighborhood artifacts where records showed that three brick rowhouses and twin wooden structures once stood.

The groups sought to illuminate the history of the neighborhood beyond the memories passed down through the elders who still remain in West Philly.

Heritage West excavated nearly 20,000 objects that give insight to what life looked and felt like for people in the neighborhood. There were the bricks and colorful plaster used to make homes, and the chunks of coal that heated them. There were the animal bones, seeds, and beans that nourished residents, and the beer bottles they drank from to wash that nourishment down. There were pieces of the vinyl records they listened to, and even the jewelry they wore.

Now, after spending countless hours sorting through those artifacts, Heritage West is inviting the public to take its first look. The project is hosting an open house event at the Penn Museum on Saturday from noon to 3 p.m., so people can explore their findings firsthand and contribute their own histories of the neighborhood.

More information about the open house and the project is available at heritagewestphl.org.

Megan C. Kassabaum, Heritage West codirector, associate professor of anthropology at Penn, and an associate curator at the Penn Museum, said the open house is meant to be the beginning of the next stage of the project, where Heritage West becomes more accessible for anyone interested in the Black Bottom.

While the project’s purpose has always been to benefit West Philly, that can only be realized if people are able to see, touch, and feel its findings and contribute their own memories. Kassebaum said there is still much of that to be done.

“By no means did we succeed in reaching everyone who has a connection to that neighborhood [yet],” she said.

In the 1960s, Penn, Drexel University, and Presbyterian Hospital began buying up properties in the Black Bottom and redeveloping the area to create present-day University City, leaving a bounty of artifacts buried beneath the surface. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the neighborhood was a hub of Black businesses, homes, and cultural centers. Roughly 5,000 residents were estimated to have been displaced as it was cleared for redevelopment.

After Heritage West finished pulling those pieces of that life from the ground, the real archaeological work began. During spring 2024, Heritage West members, including 33 volunteers, cleaned, categorized, and stored all the items for further study and use.

The forgotten items helped outline how and what people cooked, entertained themselves with, or decorated their homes with. But Sarah Linn, Heritage West codirector and associate director of academic engagement with the Penn Museum, said the lab work also gave community volunteers a chance to share what they remembered about the neighborhood.

“We’re getting really interesting stories as people hold and manipulate objects. It brings up different types of memories for them as opposed to when you ask, ‘What do you remember about the neighborhood?’” she said.

When handed pieces of coal, she said, residents would start to flash back to how that coal used to be delivered to their neighborhood to heat their homes.

» READ MORE: They dug deep for the Black Bottom neighborhood in West Philly. Here’s what was found.

Then came time to figure out how best to make these bits of history accessible. Heritage West convened several meetings of a community advisory board, made up of 11 community members with deep connections to the Black Bottom, to discuss different options for public displays. Some artifacts will also be reserved for future research.

Latiaynna Tabb, a Heritage West codirector working with partnering organization HopePHL, grew up in West Philly, and both sides of her family have deep roots in the area. She was thrilled that the Penn Museum is committed to not simply storing the artifacts where only a small group of people ever see them. She’s most excited by plans to give artifacts like the bricks and coal to artists who would repurpose them into public art installations.

“The things that were found are reflections of families and community members that live in this space,” she said.

Jantra Morris, 68, another board member, said she would like to have an exhibit of the artifacts that is mobile so it reaches as many people as possible. She currently lives in the home where she grew up with her parents and four sisters at 41st and Lancaster. Morris’ parents bought the building and operated a soul food restaurant on the ground floor, Leo’s Restaurant, from 1949 until 1994, she said.

“It’s a wonderful, high-vibrational feeling,” she said about living in the same place that used to be a fixture of the Black Bottom.

While the redevelopment began when Morris was a child, she said it was clear that her neighborhood was changing by the time she was a teenager. Homicides were sharply rising in the city, and Morris said she noticed more drugs and gangs in place of the people she once knew.

She remains heavily involved in her West Philly community even as it has changed. After she read about Heritage West, she started volunteering for lab work and later joined the advisory board. Morris said that whatever comes of the project, she expects it will be a way to evoke memories of what the neighborhood was those decades ago.

“They will be able to reminisce for a few minutes, which is awesome,” she said.

Tabb said she hopes it inspires moments of reflection about people’s heritage, their family legacies, and community history. But she wants people to do so with an understanding that while the Black Bottom has dramatically changed, the people who lived through its history, like Morris, remain.

“People are still there. The community members are still alive. They’re aging, but they’re still alive, and they are really adamant about ensuring that they are not forgotten,” she said.