Building Ghosts
Building ghosts are the imprint and last impression of a demolished building, and offer traces of the past lives of that place. Physically, building ghosts are architectural remnants that could only be found in a rowhouse city like Philadelphia, where the loss of one structure leaves a tangible mark on its neighbors. Since 2013, I have been documenting building ghosts in the city of Philadelphia. In 2020, I was awarded a grant from the Sachs Program for Arts Innovation to support a project to investigate, mourn, and celebrate the ghosts that existed in Philadelphia during one particular four-month span.
The project will result in a book that uses maps, architectural street photography, and archival research as a form of forensic storytelling to retrace the ghosts’ structures and selves. In doing so, the project aims to spark a conversation about shared experiences and divergent neighborhoods across our city, dwelling in the moment between a place’s loss and its erasure.
The project has been covered by Atlas Obscura.