Few would tag this former department store annex on 11th Street - once Snellenburg's men's store - as a state courthouse, a branch of the venerable Common Pleas Court's Family Division. Despite all the stories The Inquirer has run in the last two months about the scandal-plagued effort to construct a new Family Court, we haven't published a photograph of its Domestic Relations branch. Its more elegant sibling, the columned, neoclassical Juvenile Court next to the Free Library on Logan Square, gets all the face time. The same holds true on Family Court's Web page.
But the grim Domestic Relations operation is a big reason why so many people continue to advocate for the $200 million Family Court building at 15th and Arch Streets, despite the gusher of fees paid to Jeffrey B. Rotwitt, a rich and connected lawyer, and his developer partner, Donald Pulver.
Their millions in pre-construction payments might have covered some crucial improvements at the existing Juvenile Court, which currently has only a handful of working security cameras. Asbestos tile was raining from the ceiling in the DNA lab the day I visited, and workers wore blue face masks as they tapped at their computers.
Still, that building is a palace in comparison to Domestic Relations. At Juvenile Court, you walk through arched stone portals into a soaring lobby outfitted with murals from the 1930s promising a better life. At Domestic Relations, you run the same security gauntlet as shackled convicts.
