Historical Society of Pennsylvania presents Researching Building Ghosts: A Talk and Booksigning

Join author Molly Lester and photographer Michael Bixler to discuss their new book, Building Ghosts: Past Lives and Lost Places in a Changing City (Temple University Press, November 2024), and the ghosts that reveal new truths and provocations about the changing city. For this engaging event, Lester and Bixler explain and explore “Building ghosts,” the idiosyncratic remnants or imprints of demolished buildings, left behind on the sides of neighboring structures. Mostly seen in older Northeastern cities with rowhomes or party-wall adjacencies, they can reveal remarkable things, such as an old staircase going up the side of a building or plaster traces left by a set of shelves in an attic gable. As history in our changing cities is erased and remade, these ghosts can be ephemeral or enduring. They can be quickly revealed and replaced in a neighborhood seeing rapid change or unveiled and never re-covered in a neighborhood that has not seen new construction in substantial time. The Historical Society of Pennsylvania proudly offers this evening of discovery onsite and virtually with the book available for purchase onsite.