Yesterday, we were driving through the neighborhood, and noticed that 4063 Spring Garden St. was being torn down. A block to the north of a number of student housing units on Baring St., this home sits at the end of a row of examples of truly gorgeous West Philadelphia architecture. Take a look.

In the past

Current view

Closer look.

A fire ravaged this building just a couple of months ago, according to PhillyFireNews. We would imagine the damage from the fire necessitated the building’s demolition. We overheard a worker at the property talking to a neighbor, indicating that the whole building had to come down.

As we mentioned, many of the other properties on the block are just beautiful.

Looking east

Hopefully, the building will be reconstructed to fit in with the properties to the east and not to fit in with the property immediately to the west. What a shame that would be indeed.

The next house over, across Budd St.

Landlord Abigail Williams purchased 2063 Spring Garden St. for $45,500 in 2004. And she never felt a particularly strong desire to pay her property taxes, currently owing over $10K going back to 2005. We can’t be certain, but we’re fairly certain that Ms. Williams owns at least half a dozen other properties in the city, and owes thousands of dollars in property taxes on each. We sincerely hope that the city views this fire as a wakeup call and does its job and either gets Ms. Williams to pay her taxes. Or takes her properties to sheriff’s sale, posthaste.

It’s an eerie echo of last week’s tragic Kensington warehouse fire, where a dangerous, tax delinquent property was allowed to languish for years. In both cases, a more organized and proactive local government would have sent the tax-delinquent properties to sheriff’s sale years before they burned.