The House That Was Here was a temporary installation on a vacant lot, created in collaboration with neighborhood youth and community members. Five sculptural rowhomes evoked the history of the house that once stood at 2025 Federal Street in the rapidly gentrifying South Philadelphia neighborhood of Point Breeze.
Four of the structures told the story of this ordinary house from 1877 into the 1960s through original source material and neighborhood memories. At four “open houses,” the public were invited to layer the fifth house with their own thoughts, memories and hopes about life in Point Breeze, adding the community’s voices to this exploration of the legacy and impact of neighborhood change.
The House That Was Here was funded in part by a grant through the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority’s Fund for Art and Civic Engagement (FACE) through the Percent for Art Program.