(Photos taken by me)North Broad would hold the fortunes of the future, augured the kings of the Gilded Age, and the Lorraine would be its gem. She was built in grandeur on a 4-acre swath of land at the intersection of Broad Street and Ridge and Fairmount avenues. Ten stories of Pompeian brick and ornate marble. Oversized, lavish suites with tile-lined fireplaces and private servant staffs. A grand banquet hall. A polished barroom. Rooms even had electric lighting and telephone service.
In the early 1900s, North Broad began a shift from residential mansions to a commercial district, and the Lorraine was transformed into a luxurious hotel. Great galas and debutante balls were hosted in its banquet hall.
Now, aside from a horror-flick crew using the Divine as a backdrop, only David Peace traverses the grounds, on the lookout for squatters, scroungers, breached or busted windows, or signs of infestation. Many rooms contain only a few pieces of furniture, strewn about and covered in plaster. Others have neatly made beds and wrapped cakes of soap in the bathrooms. In one room, a threaded needle rests on a knitting tin. In another, a Bible sits on a nightstand opened to John 11:11: "Our friend, Lazarus, has fallen asleep, but I am going so that I may awake him out of his sleep."
Some say sounds of music and laughter echo from the banquet hall at night and that the unsettled spirit of a murdered woman roams the seventh-floor corridors. Peace scoffs at the ghost tales.
"Ain't nothing here but the presence of God," he says as he cranks up the elevator, which leaks oil and shakes like a jalopy.
In 1939, God rolled into Philadelphia on a 16-car train, dubbed the "Divine Special," in the form of Father Divine, a bald, squat, itinerant African-American preacher whose real name is believed to have been George Baker. He had centered his Peace Mission in New York City, but he ran afoul of the authorities there and former mission members who claimed he bilked them out of their finances.
A self-proclaimed deity and ardent civil rights activist, Father Divine also oversaw a real estate empire. In 1948, he acquired the Lorraine for $485,000, assigned the deed to 300 of his followers, and commissioned the two-story, neon-red Divine Lorraine Hotel sign that still stamps the North Broad skyline. His properties were looked upon as "heavens" by his followers and were considered part of the "promised land."
Father Divine opened the doors of the Lorraine to people of all races and creeds, and his rates were dirt-cheap. The hotel's 246 rooms were often completely booked with clientele ranging from businessmen to holy rollers, traveling students to reformed stumblebums. Scores of Peace Mission Members lived and worked at the Divine.
He converted the grand 10th-floor auditorium into a place of worship and opened up the first floor kitchen as a public dining room. Wholesome meals were offered to the working class of North Philly for only 25 cents.
Food was bountiful in the "promised land," but there was no beer in the icebox. Guests had to abide by Father Divine's "International Modest Code." No drinking. No smoking. No undue mixing of the sexes. No vulgarity. No blasphemy. Evangelical attire at all times: men in Sunday's best, women in stockings and long skirts.
"The atmosphere here has been purified," says Peace.
With his thick hands and strong back, David Peace was assigned to work in the boiler room of the Divine. He lived in the hotel for close to a decade and now resides at a Peace Mission property along South Broad Street.
(When Father Divine died in 1965 and did not rise from the dead as his followers thought he might, his wife, Mother Divine, 50 years his junior, took over leadership of the Peace Mission's numerous properties in Pennsylvania, including the Divine and a 73-acre estate in Gladwyne.)
Most of the time, Peace refuses to become nostalgic about his former home. "It's served its purpose," he often says. "I look at it like a pair of shoes. If my shoes wear out, I don't go barefoot. Brother, I buy a new pair of shoes. I'm not thinking about yesterday. Brother, I'm thinking about today."
But on this bleak winter's day, Peace is reflective as he stares out upon the city, which seems sad and beautiful from the eerily silent banquet room on the 10th floor of the Lorraine.
Headlights snake down Broad Street and paint a gold cylinder through the gray mist. Hard-bitten men stand hunch-shouldered in front of the Ridge Avenue homeless center. A woman lugs groceries up the subway steps. Scraps of dirty newspaper blow along the dirty street.
The world below seems foreign and distant, removed.
"There is something about this place," Peace says respectfully. "It is something set apart."
2 comments:
Pat,
My mother told me that during the war she used to volunteer to cook and sometimes sing for the soldiers out this building which once housed the Salvation Army.
do you know of any way to get in touch with david peace?
Post a Comment