Heiding Behind the Morgue – Thirteenth and Wood Streets, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

The newest national historic district in Philadelphia is not what you might expect. It isn’t a mall of Revolutionary landmarks, a neighborhood of Colonial homes, or a row of 19th-century brownstones. It is instead a collection of industrial buildings spanning more than a century of commercial construction in a gritty, often forgotten slice of the city. In late June, 2010, the National Park Service approved the listing of the Callowhill Industrial Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.

The nomination of the Callowhill district was sparked by the owners of the Heid Building, 323-329 North 13th Street, who were pursuing historic tax credits to transform the 1928 concrete and steel structure, where accordion envelopes were once the major product, into a residential and commercial building.

In the foreground of this picture is the Roman Catholic High School’s annex, which was designed as the City Morgue by Philip Johnson in the 1920s in the Mission Revival style.