Advocacy Alert

The Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia and docomomo-PHL find the wholesale demolition of commercial buildings on Market East, including the former Robinson department store at 1020 Market Street, to be deeply concerning.



The Alliance nominated the Robinson Building to the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places in 2016. It was designed in 1946 by architect Victor Gruen, widely regarded as a pioneer of the modern shopping mall, and his then-wife, Elsie Krummeck. The building’s curving, tile-clad façade is a rare surviving example of mid-century modern commercial design in Philadelphia and one of the few Gruen buildings remaining in the country. Although the Philadelphia Historical Commission voted to designate the property, that decision was overturned on appeal.

Robinson Store in 1946. Image courtesy of Library of Congress

Docomomo-PHL hosted a wake for the building following its de-listing in 2017

We have long believed that the Robinson Building could be a valuable component of a larger redevelopment of Market East, its distinctive modernist façade serving as a bridge between the corridor’s storied retail past and its potential future as a vibrant, mixed-use destination. Integrating historic fabric into new development presents an opportunity to create projects that are authentic, distinctive, and economically viable.

The 900 and 1000 blocks of Market Street feature the kind of small-scale retail structures that contribute to the success of streets like South 13th Street in Midtown Village. Such fine-grained, pedestrian-scaled urban fabric, once common along Market East, has become increasingly rare, to the detriment of the corridor’s appeal and vitality.

To destroy these structures without a clear plan for redevelopment is shortsighted. Instead, planners should focus on strategies that increase consumer demand and bring new life to Market East, through residential, commercial, and hospitality investment on the many long-vacant parcels that have languished in the area. The Alliance and docomomo-PHL urge the City and the development team to take a measured approach to demolition and to consider how existing buildings might be reused, adapted, or temporarily activated in the interim.

The loss of the Robinson Building, without a vision for what will replace it, risks repeating past planning missteps of the past that have left enduring voids across Philadelphia’s urban landscape.