Fire Damages Center City Landmark

Fire broke out early yesterday morning at the Fairmount Park Welcome Center, an iconic Center City landmark. Crews were busy yesterday sweeping up glass from approximately 20 windows shattered by firefighters. The Welcome Center, which is adjacent to LOVE Park, is considered an important city institution for greeting visitors to the city of Philadelphia.

This is what the Welcome Center looked like before the fire. City officials hope to get it back in shape soon.

The Welcome Center, located at 16th Street and JFK Boulevard, was built in 1960 and is representative of the mid-century modern architecture of that era. Mark Focht of Philadelphia’s Parks and Recreation Department points out that the Welcome Center’s look is fairly unusual for the area, but that it “goes” with the Penn Center office buildings that surround it. It’s definitely unique, to say the least.

Witness Arthur Shinholster told ABC Action News that he and some friends were in LOVE Park just after 3am when they saw smoke coming from the building. They called 911, and soon saw Mayor Michael Nutter on the scene – two police officers on duty nearby had seen evidence of the fire and called the fire department.

Evidence shows that the fire started in the basement of the Welcome Center. The building’s smoke detector and sprinkler systems activated as they should have, and the sprinklers were going when firefighters arrived on the scene. It still took 40 firefighters 15 minutes to put out the blaze.

Focht points out that, with the Holiday Village display planned for LOVE Park and the big Temple/Notre Dame game right around the corner, the Welcome Center needs to be up and running again as soon as possible. News outlets reported that city officials will be meeting in the next few days to regroup and figure out how to quickly get the Welcome Center repaired and operational.