Demolition

A City Council committee hearing is scheduled tonight on a Philadelphia Housing Authority proposal to raze eight dilapidated high-rises at the Raymond Rosen Apartments in North Philadelphia and replace them with townhouses. PHA needs Council's approval to demolish the high-rises and replace them with 814 townhouses that would be built or rehabilitated on or near the site at 23rd and Diamond streets. The agency has applied to the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development for $60 million to fund the project.

A Victorian home on East Ridley Avenue came tumbling down this week, and if a few Ridley Park residents are correct, the uproar over the demolition has just begun. Council member Jack Petrie announced at a council meeting Tuesday night that 201 E. Ridley Ave. was about 80 percent demolished. A Zoning Hearing Board meeting is scheduled for 7:30 tonight to debate the development of the site, Petrie said. The subject of the demolition sparked disapproval from council member William Pilson, liaison to the borough Historical Commission, and two residents.

Newtown Township supervisors have approved a plan that would allow the demolition of the Dunwoody Home on West Chester Pike, which has provided care to the elderly since 1924. But the 4-0 vote Monday was overshadowed by complaints that Dunwoody's trustees have failed to communicate their plans to relatives of current residents - many of whom must now find other accommodations. Dunwoody plans to house 10 of the 40 current residents of the home in a proposed medical facility and relocate the others to different institutions.

Plans to demolish one of Narberth's 18th-century buildings have left preservationists in the borough feeling helpless. "There doesn't seem to be an awful lot we can do legally," said David Brawer, president of the Narberth Preservation Committee, which was formed to raise the community's consciousness about the historic value of some of the borough's older buildings. Brawer was bemoaning the impending demolition of a rundown old house at 1226 Montgomery Ave. that dates back to 1725.

Owners of Devonshire townhouses have sought help from the Easttown Township supervisors, saying that First Devon Corp. has failed to maintain structures and grounds at the Sugartown Road development. The residents attended Monday's board meeting to get the supervisors' support for the proposed demolition of outbuildings, which the residents described as being in poor condition and a hazard to children. They won partial support: The supervisors passed a motion approving issuance of a demolition permit for one structure and part of a second structure.

A pile of rubble and tread marks from the earthmovers were are all that was left of the Saginaw lodge in Cooper River Park last week. But, if the wreckage of the lodge temporarily marred the scenic beauty of the area, no one was complaining. For many residents of the immediate area, demolition of the lodge and closure of the parking lot next to it was a dream come true. It was a chance to take back the section of the park on which their homes border from the drunks, drug-users and rowdies that they say have overrun it in recent years.

Gene Smith's family business became a casualty of progress yesterday. A heap of bricks, from a nearby building that was being demolished to make way for the city's convention center, tumbled into Smith's drapery hardware store at Camac and Quarry streets, resulting in a chain reaction that Smith says caused fatal damage. "I don't feel I can stay in business," Smith said. "We're not just talking physical damage. We're talking the death of a company. " The falling bricks smashed through Smith's roof, breaking a support beam.

The owner of the Forum Theater obtained a permit Thursday to demolish the Market Street property, according to records from the city Department of Licenses and Inspections. Richard Basciano said he wants to knock the property down as soon as possible as part of a plan to redevelop the 2100 and 2200 blocks of Market Street, where he owns multiple parcels. The Forum, believed to be Center City's last porn theater, for decades inhibited development because other businesses did not want to locate near it. After the demolition, the Forum will be a parking lot. - Miriam Hill

Felicia Hill, 36 and a mother of seven, was pricing clothing in the rear of the Salvation Army thrift shop Wednesday when she felt an earthquake-like shake, heard a whoosh of wind, then saw a wall fall in, kicking up a cloud of choking dust. Through the haze, she saw only the hand of a fast-buried coworker, Kimberly Finnegan, with whom she'd been speaking moments earlier. "I started running for my life, and all I could think about was my children," Hill said Monday at a news conference in which her attorneys announced they were filing several lawsuits in the building collapse that killed six workers and shoppers and injured 13. A firefighter and a passerby whose name she never learned help pull Hill, who had been battered by falling debris, from the wreckage, she said.

Barring a last-minute reprieve, the wrecking ball may soon descend on Ardmore Junior High School. Although area residents are seeking a way to continue a court fight to save the school, the Lower Merion School District has issued contracts for demolition of the school. The contracts were issued after Commonwealth Court on Friday denied a petition by the residents seeking permission to appeal an earlier court ruling that permitted demolition. The state Supreme Court had issued an emergency stay of demolition pending the Commonwealth Court decision Friday.