Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min<\/p>\n
As Philadelphia rounds the corner into spooky season, fans of all things gothic, literary, or historical may be disappointed to learn that the Edgar Allan Poe National Historical Site remains closed.<\/p>\n
The three-story brick building in Spring Garden<\/a> shuttered in summer 2024<\/a> for fire safety upgrades costing over $931,000. It was initially slated to reopen that fall, but renovations grew into a broader improvement project, according to the National Park Service. <\/p>\n More recently, Philadelphia\u2019s tourism agency had said the site was expected to open this fall<\/a>, and an Oct. 31 event celebrating Poe<\/a> as the father of the modern detective novel is planned at the site. But the National Park Service says there is still no official reopening date for the public. <\/p>\n \u201cI can tell you that we can offer no date for when the house will reopen,\u201d said National Park Service spokesperson John Warren. <\/p>\n Calls to a supervisor at Independence National Historic Park, which manages the Poe house, went unanswered Thursday and Friday. <\/p>\n Warren said park service officials didn\u2019t provide more details to him on the timeline, adding that there were \u201cmultiple, complex infrastructure projects going on at the site all at once.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf you have ever owned an old home, you know that repair projects often lead to discovering more issues, so it\u2019s wisest not to speculate on an end date,\u201d Warren said.<\/p>\n What\u2019s holding things up?<\/p>\n At the site Friday, volunteers tended to flowers and plants while National Park Service workers wrapped up another day renovating the building\u2019s first floor. <\/p>\n National Park Service plasterer and painter Joe Palumbo said the house\u2019s issues should have been addressed a decade earlier. He said when he started working there, the property \u201csmelled awful\u201d from likely water damage.<\/p>\n Palumbo said construction crews redid the restrooms, re-plastered and painted the first floor, and rehabbed the woodworking. <\/p>\n He estimated it would take another week to complete first-floor renovations. From there, outside contractors are set to replace the carpets and blinds. <\/p>\n Palumbo said a plan to renovate the building\u2019s exterior is \u201con hold,\u201d and he\u2019s not sure why. <\/p>\n What\u2019s the significance of the site? <\/p>\n Built in the 1800s, the home is the only remaining residence where Poe lived during his six years in Philadelphia from 1838 to 1844. <\/p>\n Retired National Park Service worker Helen McKenna spent 25 years at the site, educating people about Poe and his ties to Philadelphia. During her time working there, the house had exhibits, poetry recitations, a short biographical film, and a reading room styled after one of Poe\u2019s published articles. <\/p>\n Back then, the house still had the original plaster, which was mouldering and falling away from its lathe. Of course, she said, the walls would have been gleaming white when Poe lived there in 1843 and 1844. <\/p>\n Spring Garden wasn\u2019t even part of the city at that time, she said, and Poe would have traveled on horse-drawn omnibuses. These kinds of details help people imagine Poe, she said, not just as a literary figure, but as a person.<\/p>\n To her, the house captures the contrast between Poe\u2019s literary stature \u2014 with his influence stretching across detective fiction, science fiction, poetry, and short stories \u2014 and the alcoholic, struggling writer who lived there with his mother-in-law and his wife, who had tuberculosis.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s that sense of place. This grand, admired author, was living in really humble circumstances on the outskirts of the city,\u201d she said. \u201cHe didn\u2019t own the place, he was paying rent, and he wasn\u2019t always able to pay the rent.\u201d<\/p>\n What did Poe do while in Philly?<\/p>\n Many cities have memorials to Poe, McKenna said. That\u2019s because he traveled. He was born in Boston, grew up in Richmond and in England, lived twice in New York, had a stint in Delaware, and died in Baltimore. <\/p>\n Poe\u2019s time in Philly, however, marked a creative high-water mark, McKenna said. <\/p>\n He moved to Philly after failing to find success with a novel in New York City and turned his attention to short stories. While in Philly, he published \u201cMurders at the Rue Morgue,\u201d \u201cThe Black Cat,\u201d and \u201cThe Tell-Tale Heart,\u201d McKenna said. He also became known as a charismatic speaker and acerbic critic.<\/p>\n At his best, McKenna said, Poe was \u201ca genius of compression,\u201d creating haunting, memorable stories at a time when interest in American writers was growing.<\/p>\n \u201cI won\u2019t say that Poe is the best writer that America ever produced, but he\u2019s certainly had a ton of impact, globally,\u201d McKenna said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min As Philadelphia rounds the corner into spooky season, fans of all things gothic,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289826,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[120343,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-289825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-edgar-allen-poe-historic-site-philadelphia-opening-date","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}