Fire destroys The Castle, a once-proud school turned asbestos hazard

On August 3, a 4 alarm fire raged at the former Julia de Burgos Middle School/ Edison High School/ Northeast Manual Training School at 8th & Lehigh in North Philadelphia. (Photo: David Maialetti for The Philadelphia Inquirer)

August 3rd, 2011 was a sad day for Northeast, Edison and  de Burgos grads, as well as for lovers of architecture, but perhaps a good day for the children of Fairhill, one of the poorest neighborhoods in Philly.


This past Wednesday, the Castle (as the old Gothic structure was known) went up in a four-alarm blaze. It had been unoccupied since 2002, when the Julia de Burgos Magnet Middle School closed. The beautiful building, long fallen into disrepair, was little more than an asbestos hazard and scrappers' free-for-all at the time of its incineration, though plans for demolition and rebirth as a shopping center were (and still are, as far as I know) in the works.


In the nine years since the building's last occupant--a magnet school named for the famous Puerto Rican poet-- has been closed, 701 Lehigh Avenue has been a magnet for vandals, drug sales, metal scrappers, and other illegal activity.


Much like the abandoned Roberto Clemente Middle School I wrote about in July, the Castle posed a danger to the community, in that it was easy to access, and full of dangers like broken glass and friable asbestos.


Philly News' Stephanie Farr gave a brief summary of the 109-year-old school's varied history:

The school, which has sat vacant since 2002, began as the boys-only Northeast Manual Training High School in 1903. It then became Northeast High School, until a new Northeast High was opened in 1957.

The building then housed Thomas Edison High School, which lost 66 of its former students in the Vietnam War - more than any other public high school in the country.

Edison High was eventually moved as well and the building became home to the Julia DeBurgos Bilingual Middle School in 1988. In 2002, that school closed. 

701 Lehigh, before the fire. (photo: Annie Bydlon for NewsWorks)

WHYY's Mara Zepeda interviewed the site's developer Scott Oren standing "amid broken glass, rusty nails, asbestos, and shattered beams." These are the sort of dangers the developer, authorities, and the community would love to keep children safe from, but with insufficient funds to guard or seal the large property, have not been able to do.

 Any Northeast, Edison or de Burgos grads in the peanut gallery care to comment? Sad or glad to see the Castle go? I'm torn, frankly--it was a beautiful school, but you can see what had become of it. Asbestos in the schools is an issue whether or not the school is open, because, as the articles I've linked to attest, kids still find a way in, even after the school's shut down. 

Forensic sculptor/ North Philly native Frank Bender dies of mesothelioma

Frank Bender called himself "The Recomposer of the Decomposed".

Philadelphia and the crime-solving community lost a legend last Thursday when Frank Bender died of pleural mesothelioma in his home. He is survived by his two daughters, three grandchildren, and sister. He was predeceased by his wife Janice, who died of cancer in 2010. The New York Times and Philadelphia Inquirer both ran obituaries for the late, great forensic sculptor.

Talking about his mesothelioma--the aggressive asbestos-related cancer of the lining of the lungs and other internal organs--Frank Bender once told a reporter, "It's interesting that I have cancer, because I have always said through the years that catching fugitives and identifying people takes a piece of cancer out of our society." 



Mr. Bender believed his exposure to asbestos happened in the engine room of the Navy ship where he and the rest of the crew worked. Mesothelioma rates are high among naval veterans, due to the large amounts of asbestos used to insulate the boilers, engines, and other high-temperature areas of military vessels. 


Even during the last months of his life, Frank Bender was committed to solving crime. His last sculpture, The Woman in the Woods, is a hand-sculpted bust of a woman (estimated age 25 to 40) whose body was found in the woods near Easton in December of 2001. For more about The Woman in the Woods, visit http://coldcase.squarespace.com/ to learn more about this unsolved crime.

The Woman in the Woods--Frank's last case. Her death remains unsolved.

Though his busts of unidentified bodies have helped many families find closure, Frank Bender's most famous sculpture was of a suspected murderer who had eluded the police for eighteen years. When America's Most Wanted asked Mr. Bender to create a time-adjusted sculpture of John List, a New Jersey man accused of killing his wife and family in 1971, a woman watching the show in Virginia recognized the bust as her neighbor, "Bob Clark." Mr. List was subsequently arrested and convicted of the murders.

"In many ways, Frank's bust of John List really launched America's Most Wanted into a national force for catching fugitives," AMW host John Walsh said in 2009. "Whenever I get the tough cases, I call Frank."


If you want to learn more about Mr. Bender and his colleagues' pro-bono work in The Vidocq Society, visit http://www.vidocq.org/index.html.