Over a year ago, we directed your attention to the northwest corner of Broad & Jefferson, to a building that's been sitting blighted for as long as we can remember. A vacant building is nothing out of the ordinary in this area per se, but a vacant historic mansion next to Temple's campus is a little more noteworthy.
In case you don't feel like reading our post from before, the building, known as the Burk Mansion, was built in 1907 as a private residence, served as the home of the Upholsterers International Union for a couple of decades, and was acquired by Temple in 1971. For twenty years, the Temple's School of Social Administration and a daycare were in the building. Then a fire in 1993 caused considerable smoke damage to the building, and it was finally closed down in 1995.
In the last couple of days, a few readers have reached out, sharing the news that the building has been getting a little work done. New windows have filled in the boarded up openings, and there's white curtains in those windows. Check it out.
As of a couple of years ago, Temple had no clear plans for the building. Do the new windows mean that Temple will be bringing the property back into active use in the near future? Or were they just tired of such visible blight on campus and they wanted to improve the property cosmetically while they figure out its ultimate fate? Ideally, it's the former. But the latter is certainly better than the previous situation, at least for now.