PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The Fifth Street Methodist Episcopal Church once stood at Fifth and Spring Garden streets in the 1830s. In the nearly 200 years since, the site was replaced by houses, a gas station, then a parking lot and strip mall.
The strip mall stores are set for demolition next month to make way for a multi-use apartment building. The ground has been cleared and construction fences will go up on Monday.
But last winter, Philadelphia real estate company RREI, which owns the property, learned of a possibility that there was a disinterred church cemetery on the grounds.
Upon its closure, the church started the long process of removing bodies from its cemetery, which spanned the 1860s and ’70s.
In May, RREI hired an archeology firm to conduct research on the matter. Archeologists researched the history of the property and dug field test pits in June.
A statement from the developer reads, in part, “Since we became aware of the possibility that there was a disinterred cemetery that closed in the mid 1800s on the property, we engaged a respected archeology firm to advise us. … When the archeologists found a debris field of urban fill which included remnants of the disinterred cemetery, they cleared the soil carefully. Lastly, the team of archaeologists as well as a bio-archeologist carefully and respectfully removed what we found.”
The statement did not expand on what was found.
The company plans on reaching out to descendants of the church and working with them on a proper conclusion.
The multi-use building is scheduled to be completed in the spring of 2023.