Understandably, the preservation of historic automotive culture tends to favor the restoration and maintenance of vintage cars. Cars of historical importance can be sold at auction for millions of dollars—but important buildings are valued only according to their purpose and must compete with the value of the land. Number Manhattan gas stations in the past decade, it has decreased with the increase in real estate values. They were the factories of Detroit’s defunct auto plants abandoned and ruined. However, Philadelphia retained its oldest disused gas station with the relocation.
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Chubb, an insurance company, announced a plan for a new office tower in Philadelphia at 2000 Arch Street near Logan Square last December. The lot is currently occupied by a surface parking lot. There is a small abandoned building directly at the 20th Street entrance to the lot. The building is a 93-year-old Gulf gas station.
Based on OCF Real EstateGulf station was built in 1930. It is unclear exactly when the station was abandoned, but it was demolished in 1988. The Philadelphia Historical Commission approved the demolition after Gulf, the Smithsonian Institute and the Henry Ford Museum all refused to accommodate the station in relocation.
Despite the approval, the Gulf gas station was never demolished. Parkway Corporation, the project’s real estate developer, decided to spend $1 million to relocate the station before building the office. WPVI reported that it took a week for the station to mount on the trailer. Then, last night, it took two and a half hours to move the trailer carefully by remote control from 20th and Arch Streets to Fairmount Park.
Robert Zuritsky, President and CEO of Parkway, he told Action News, “You have to stabilize it, you have to pull it off the ground, off its foundations, and then you have to stabilize it so it doesn’t collapse on the way. We believe we did. It took months of planning and approvals and permits and the blessing of all parties to make it happen.”
The Gulf gas station remains on the trailer in Fairmount Park. The park has yet to decide on the final location and prepare the foundation for the historic station. When the relocation is complete, the brick structure will be used by the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia.
