Philly's Chinatown Makes List of ‘America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places'

The National Trust for Historic Preservation has released this year's annual list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places for 2023 and two local historic icons have made the list.

The entire Chinatown neighborhood in Philadelphia has been named to the list, as well as the Henry Ossawa Tanner House in the city's Strawberry Mansion neighborhood.

Calling Chinatown "one of the oldest remaining active Chinatowns in the United States," the trust notes that the neighborhood has been a "sanctuary for working class Asian immigrants since 1871."

The community, the trust notes, includes more than 40 locally designated landmarks, and a district listed on the state and national registers.

In explaining why the neighborhood made the list, the trust said that a "long-history of inequitable land-use planning decisions" has led to the neighborhood losing a quarter of its land. The trust also pointed to a new stadium for the Philadelphia 76ers that was proposed in Center City, as a project that could jeopardize the future of the neighborhood.

Neighbors and community leaders have been pushing back against the proposal since it was first announced.

As for the Henry Ossawa Tanner House, it was the former home of famed artist, Henry Ossawa Tanner, and is said to be where he fell in love with painting before moving on to study at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.

This property, built in 1871, is reportedly at risk of collapse and in need of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of stabilization and restoration work.

A friends group for the property is working on raising the funds needed to preserve the Henry Ossawa Tanner House.

For a full list of properties on this list, or more information on Chinatown or the Henry Ossawa Tanner House, you can read the trust's full list of America's 11 Most Endangered Places for 2023, here.