Queen Lane Apartments

As a housing authority they were 'authorized to exercise the power of eminent domain to clear slum areas and to provide safe and sanitary dwellings through new construction or rehabilitation of existing structures.

Philadelphia’s public housing program was halted in 1940 when the newly elected mayor Robert Lamberton rejected proposed projects and federal aid.

The building itself, designed by architect partners Gabriel Blum Roth and Elizabeth Hirsh Fleisher, would be a single, jutting 16-story apartment block, despite its situation amongst a sea of three-story rowhouses.

[11]" "Of the 10 projects designed and built between 1949 and 1955, only the 120‐unit Queen Lane in Germantown loomed as a solitary, 16‐story elevator building, uncomplemented by adjoining row house.

[13]" Eventually, the PHA decided that the Queen Lane Apartment tower needed to come down and be replaced by low-rise affordable housing units with open green spaces and modern conveniences like in-unit washers/dryers and Energy-Star certified appliances.

The agency also reimbursed residents for reconnection of their telephone and cable TV service and provided a dislocation allowance of a hundred dollars.

The bones of thousands of men and women were buried beneath a plot of land adjacent to where the Queen Lane Apartments stood.

[17] Additionally, the area contained within the Potter's Field had to be legally separated from the remainder of the project and no excavation could be performed within those limits.

The overall project consists of five buildings including fifty-five housing units, a community center, and management office set on 2.5 acres in the Germantown Section of Philadelphia.