Philip Price Jr., former state senator, Fairmount Park commissioner, attorney, and community service executive, has died at 88
He followed in the footsteps of his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather as a compassionate custodian of Philadelphia's parks, museums, and historical buildings.
Philip Price Jr., 88, of Philadelphia, former Pennsylvania state senator, executive director of the Allegheny West Foundation, public defender, attorney, and Fairmount Park commissioner, died Wednesday, Feb. 1, of respiratory failure at Einstein Medical Center.
Devoted to community service throughout his life, Mr. Price was a public defender in Philadelphia in the 1960s, director of Allegheny West and its many neighborhood development projects in the 1970s, state senator from 1979 to 1982, and executive director of Allegheny West from 1982 to 1988.
Like his father before him, Mr. Price was an energetic and effective Fairmount Park commissioner who valued and protected Belmont Plateau, Lemon Hill, Strawberry Mansion, the rock gardens, the East Park Reservoir, and other attractions that define the park. He was also a board member emeritus of the Fairmount Park Conservancy and worked tirelessly to improve funding for all city parks.
“Fairmount Park is an irreplaceable urban treasure,” he said in a 2005 editorial in the Daily News. “The very first property named Fairmount Park was created by an ordinance charging City Council to maintain ‘open public places for the health and enjoyment of the people forever.’”
He testified before government committees on the importance of urban open spaces and commended the Fairmount Park Commission in 2005 by saying: “The commission was created during the administration of Mayor Morton McMichael two years after the end of the Civil War. Twenty-eight administrations have followed during periods of great change, but Fairmount Park has remained intact.”
His great-grandfather Eli Kirk Price, also a state senator, was a founder of Fairmount Park, and Mr. Price detailed recommendations in the Daily News in a 2006 editorial that he said could “identify new civic leaders who would work together with city officials and the community to maintain and improve Fairmount Park. This would be a remarkable legacy for this or any city administration.”
His grandfather Eli Kirk Price II helped finance the construction of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Civil War Gen. George Gordon Meade and Zachary Taylor, the 12th president of the United States, are counted among his ancestors. In a 2017 audio interview for the Art Museum about his family’s Philadelphia legacy, Mr. Price said: “I am humbled by being asked to do this.”
At Allegheny West, Mr. Price directed neighborhood projects designed to increase affordable housing and employment, nurture business development and educational opportunities, and strengthen the area’s social fabric. He represented Chestnut Hill and nearby communities in Philadelphia during his time as state senator.
He was a delegate to the 1976 Republication National Convention in Kansas City, Mo., and on the boards of the Civil War Museum of Philadelphia, Christopher Ludwick Foundation, Pennsylvania School for the Deaf, Woodlands Trust for Historic Preservation, and other organizations.
“It was a privilege for all of us to know him,” a friend said in an online tribute. Another friend said: “He was the ultimate gentleman and brought a good deal of common sense to whatever was being discussed.”
A third friend said he was “devoted to helping those strangers, compassionately culled from different creeds, colors, degrees, languages, and continents, most distressed and disadvantaged.”
Born Oct. 28, 1934, in Philadelphia, Philip Price Jr. grew up in Chestnut Hill and graduated from St. Paul’s School in New Hampshire in 1952, Harvard University in 1956, and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, now Penn Carey Law, in 1961.
He served in the Army Reserve in 1957 and 1958, and worked for a few years at his father’s firm after law school. He married Sarah Dolan in 1961, and they had daughters Aly and Emilie, and son Philip III, and lived in Society Hill and Chestnut Hill.
Mr. Price had a deep, infectious laugh and a playful spirit. Family and friends called him Phil, and he liked to spend time with his children and grandchildren. He won the Gordon Medal as St. Paul’s best athlete in high school, sang in an a cappella group at Harvard, followed politics, and pored over Philadelphia history.
He enjoyed family vacations along the coast of Maine and played tennis into his 80s. In a tribute, his family said they “will miss his humor, generosity, integrity and his unwavering dedication to the City of Philadelphia.“
His daughter Emilie said: “He always knew he wanted to help other people.”
In addition to his wife and children, Mr. Price is survived by six grandchildren, two sisters, and other relatives. A brother and sister died earlier.
A celebration of his life is to be held later.