A Centennial Treasure

John Gallery, executive director of the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia, remembered going to a costume ball there in 1969.

"It's been a long, long story of never finding the right use to restore and maintain the building," he said. "Some buildings are interesting because of their great architecture, some because of the stories behind them. Memorial Hall is interesting for its architecture and history."

Then came Please Touch to the rescue, with an 80-year lease on the building. When its efforts to move to Penn's Landing fell through in 2002, Kolb lobbied the board of directors to move to Memorial Hall. "It was built as a museum and it is going back to being a museum," she said.

Architect Jim Straw, whose firm Kise Straw & Kolodner worked on the makeover, said, "What we have tried to do is use the building as a lens through which we view not only Philadelphia and its role during the Centennial celebration, but all the things the building has seen within it. It's a national historical landmark. Just to have the honor of working on a building of this significance is career-defining, a project made in heaven."

And now, inside the dimly lit basement, the model waits in its vaultlike room to once again thrill the crowds with a special view of the nation's and Philadelphia's past.

Contact staff writer Edward Colimore at 856-779-3833 or ecolimore@phillynews.com. To comment, or to ask a question, go to http://go.philly.com/

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A longer version of this article appeared in The Inquirer on July 4, 2007.