At Temple, a grand old church is reborn

At Broad and Berks Streets in North Philadelphia, the 36,000-square-foot Baptist Temple, a once-upon-a-time Romanesque church now owned by Temple University, stands like a mysterious, lifeless elephant. At a ribbon-cutting April 14, the 119-year-old building will shake off its dust and take in a breath of new air.

Through a $30 million renovation funded partly by the state, the building's innards have been ripped out and refurbished, and its core has been transformed into a grand multipurpose center to be used by the university and community for concerts, presentations, and other performances.

The building, closed since the mid-1970s, will be the flagship in the effort to extend the Avenue of the Arts north on Broad Street, said Charles Bethea, executive director of the Baptist Temple.

The Baptist Temple's existence began in 1891 as Grace Baptist Church under the care of Russell H. Conwell, Temple's founder. It was a place of rich religious significance and community engagement in North Philadelphia, Bethea said.

Conwell, a Massachusetts preacher with a knack for drawing a crowd, used the building to house his congregation. In 1884, he founded the university in conjunction with the temple.

Although the congregation dwindled and moved on, the university grew and took on the Baptist Temple as its own, Bethea said.

The decision to renovate and transform the building did not come lightly to the university, Bethea said.

"It deteriorated rather dramatically. The roof was starting to come apart and there literally were birds and elements in the building," he said.

Initial support for tearing down the structure changed as university officials saw its possibilities. "It was just on the cusp of that time that we were really starting to, as a nation, begin to appreciate our heritage and our architectural art," he said.

The City of Philadelphia agreed.

In 1984, the Historical Commission certified the building. With that, it had to be saved, Bethea said.

The university put a roof on the building, he said, and it sat while its future evolved.

Ken Jacobs, project manager of the architecture firm RMJM Hillier, which handled the renovation, said the main point was to keep as much of the building as possible.

"Ultimately, everything had to be taken out and put back in," Jacobs said, "but most of what you see, with maybe a few exceptions, is what you would see if you walked in before the project started."

Jacobs, who attended Temple from 1965 to 1969 and teaches architecture there, said the building had been a ghostly presence in North Philadelphia.

"This was a dead space, and that's not going to be the case anymore. The gateway to the campus is going to be reestablished," Jacobs said. "Thirty years ago, nobody could have imagined this. The notion was, 'Tear the buildings down on Broad Street,' and that's a complete change. It's wonderful."

The main part of the new space, named Lew Klein Hall, is designed as a concert hall with a 40-by-40-foot stage, an orchestra pit, an acoustical reflector, and more than 900 seats.

"At its base line, it's a concert hall. But with a stage that size, it is a dreamland for a dance company," Bethea said.

All of the 140 stained-glass, secular-design windows were refurbished because of their beauty, he said.

"It would have been simpler to say, 'Let's take out all the windows at the top and block them off so we can control the light,' " Bethea said. "It takes a little forethought and a little care to say these are integral to what we want for this place."

He said the rejuvenated Baptist Temple, though striking in structure, might have a difficult time overcoming the negative stereotypes of the neighborhood and illuminating the community appeal of the space.

He hopes the university and community use the space to its full potential rather than feel intimidated by its beauty.

"This happens a lot on college campuses. They build these wonderful, beautiful places, and they become more like ivory towers than they do really welcoming spaces," Bethea said. "Students sometimes feel a little intimidated by it and the space is sitting there empty and dark except when there is a performance that they bring in."

Bethea said he hoped the building becomes a welcoming place for community members and organizations.

"So when they walk in they feel like a part of what we do," he said.

The building's first event is set for April 17, a concert by Tony-winning performer Patti LuPone.