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On April 11, 2025, the news announced that coffins and human remains were found during excavation for a new building on the Temple University campus in Philadelphia. Temple supposedly expected this. And they should have, since this former parking lot at Broad and Berks Streets had been home to 28,000 graves. Its kind of odd how NBC reports that the bodies were relocated in the 1950s to Lawnview Cemetery in Rockledge, a northeast Philly suburb. Well, obviously not all the bodies. The gravestones were not relocated there – they were dumped into the Delaware River.
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| Gravemarkers along the Delaware River, under Betsy Ross Bridge |
Like so many other sites in Philadelphia formerly occupied by burial grounds, buildings that require deep foundations are seldom constructed. Guess why. Typically, a playground, ball park, or a parking lot is built on the land. Temple shelved plans for building a new football stadium where their Geasey Field is, most likely, because they were afraid to unearth graves. That complicates things. The current excavation has stopped. Temple was prepared, says the news, and immediately brought in the police, Philadelphia Coroner’s Office, a medical examiner, and an archeologist.
When I reached into the mud to pick up a few pieces of the stone that had been broken away from the old cemetery wall, there was mud all over my hands. I got a jarring feeling as it covered my fingers – this is the same soil that held 28,000 bodies in 1956.
Its like what Mark Twain said when he visited the Holy Land in 1867: you don’t need to be a Christian to realize and respect that something significant happened here.
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| Current construction showing cemetery wall that borders North Broad Street |
Why has Philadelphia abandoned and moved so many cemeteries throughout its history? We put forth great effort to memorialize ourselves, only to find that our monuments to immortality have not stood the test of time. As the city grew, cemeteries were unceremoniously destroyed. People actually now make stipulations in their burial contracts that their remains shall never be disturbed. There are, however, some recent and ongoing success stories in and around Philadelphia, where faltering cemeteries have been stabilized and restored by volunteers. Is it because we now care more than we used to?
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| Barnes and Noble link to preorder |
It will be interesting to see how this situation at Temple plays out. The coffins and bones were found about six feet below the surface of the original parking lot. As we all know, burials can be stacked. There could be layers of coffins deeper down. I am curious about Temple’s “protocol,” as they call it, for when human remains are found. In Philadelphia, if the remains are found on private property, the land owner (in this case Temple University) can do whatever they please.
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| Original cemetery gatehouse on Broad Street |
The plot of land where the discovery was made is to be the future home of Temple’s Klein College of Media and Communication, with planned completion in 2027. I wonder if the cemetery wall will remain, which still borders Broad Street? (You can see the wall in the gatehouse lithograph at left.) Current Temple students being interviewed find this all rather spooky. One student states that it's a weird history for a building where students will have to take classes. They will know that the building was constructed over a cemetery, and they did not remove all the bodies. Obviously the developer never saw the movie, Poltergeist.
As Temple’s online newsletter states, “This is a developing story, check back for updates.” (Click here for CBS News video.)
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I have been saying for years that given the size of the cemetery and how many monuments ended up in the river, plus Philly’s stellar history of “relocating” bodies that this would happen. I have waited years to see if I was right. Philly, you never disappoint.
ReplyDeleteOur organization takes issue with one key statement included in this posting. Contrary to what is said here, private property owners in Philadelphia cannot do what they please with cemetery related human remains found on their land. Existing law clearly states that private owners (in this case Temple U.) can own a property but cannot own any human remains interred in that land. Under PA law any such remains are under the control of next of kin/descendants and the courts - in this case the Orphans' Court Division of the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas. Moreover, human burial remains within private or other property cannot be disturbed or removed without prior authorization from the Orphans' Court. To do such a thing is a violation of established PA law, and the OC has upheld and reaffirmed its legal mandate related to unmarked human remains in multiple prior court proceedings. Curious that none of the stories about this recent discovery of human remains from Monument Cemetery mentions the Orphans' Court or the receipt of authorization to disturb burials.
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