3639 Spring Garden Street
(Inquirer, March 2, 1973)
(Nomination of Powelton Village
Historic District, 2022)
1896, Nov. 17: “Mr. John Avery has broken
ground on the north side of Spring Garden street, east
of Thirty-seventh street, for four high grade dwellings. These houses will be
three stories, have fancy brick fronts and will measure 16x63 feet each.” (Inquirer)
3633-3639: “two-and-one-half story,
Pompeiian brick, porch-fronted, Late Queen Anne house with overhanging
second-story above steel lintel of porch. Second-floor, three-sided bay with
Colonial Revival swags. Central pediment of pressed metal above: central
dormer. All infilled porches”
(Inventory of
Buildings in Powelton from the application submitted to the National Register of Historic
Places, 1985)
History of the Building
1897, June 7: Title
transferred to Mary J. Ruby by John Avery, etc.
1897, Aug. 2: Title
transferred to Robert F. Frailey by Mary J. Ruby
1905
Directory: Miller Mary, widow of Washington Miller
The 1901 directory lists her at 623
Vine St.
1906 Directory:
Miller Mary A., widow of J. Washington Miller
1910:
Mary A. Miller 81 Own
income, widowed, 7 children, 6 surviving; renting
Catharine B.
Miller 56
Mary A. Miller 53
Cora M. Miller 39
Emma Gohean 25 Maid
Mary A. Miller died in 1916.
1919, Nov. 8: Title
transferred to Joseph P. Garvey & Mary T., his wife, by Robert F. Frailey
The 1918 directory lists him as a
physician living at 3609 Spring Garden St.
1921 Directory:
Joseph P. Garvey, physician
1940:
Raymond Green 46 Druggist
with own business; 4 years of college; owner, house valued at $3,500
Florence Green 40 Clerical;
2 years of college
Betty Jane Green 13
Florence Green 10
Raymond Green 6
Sarah A. Green 34 Sister;
single; 4 years of high school
They lived here in 1935. His drug
store was on the first floor of the building. In 1950, they lived at 3704
Baring St.
1970, Mar. 1:
Marriage license issued to Lucy Lee Ingram (19 years old) of 3639 Spring Garden
St. and Raymond J. Chandler (25) of 3639 Spring Garden St.
1973: “Tiberino Uses Converted Drug Store to Outflank the System
“The artist Joseph Tiberino has cut through and outflanked the system.
“The system says that a drug store
that doesn't function as a drug store any more in Powelton Village gets its
windows boarded up and its utilities stripped.
“But Joe paints mural-size figure
paintings, as does his artist wife Ellen Powel Tiberino.
They needed a high-ceiling
workshop. So Joe and a neighbor. La Salle College
philosophy professor James C. Fallon, bought the vacant corner store at:
3639 Spring Garden St., unboarded it, replaced window
sashes and glass and s painted the inside.
“For its official opening the other
day, ‘The Building,’ as it's called, was decked out in the first of a planned
series of twice-yearly exhibits featuring 17 area painters, sculptors, printmakers and photographers, including some of our town's
most outstanding black artists Charles Searles, John Simpson, Walter Edmonds,
Earle Wilkie and Ellen Tiberino….
“Greeting visitors above the outside
entrance is a towering, pensive relief-sculpture "Black Prophet,"
just installed permanently by Tiberino to liven up
the drab street scene first of several examples of art soon to dot the
neighborhood, I'm told.
“Once inside, story-telling faithful
to appearances sets certain of the exhibitors apart. Some pictures make an
elusive and low-key point while other work is overbearing, not much of it
touched by urbanization. Opening an artists’ workshop, which the Tiberinos expect to share with others at 37th and Spring
Garden, makes a lot more sense than would a typical dealer's gallery at that
location.
“There's something about a show of
this kind that is both free and human. One gets the feeling that artists are
feeling free to respond to the realities of their environment. Daily 11--5.”
(“Gallery Tour,” Victoria Donohue, Inquirer, March 2, 1973)
In 1999, Joseph Tiberino
opened the Ellen Powell Tiberino Memorial Museum at 3819
Hamilton St. and neighboring lots.
<
3701 Spring Garden St. 3637
Spring Garden St. >