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Good morning. My name is Gerhart Klein.
I am executive vice president of Anne Klein & Associates, which is the largest independent public relations consulting firm in the Philadelphia region. Before joining that firm, I was a member of the litigation department at one of Philadelphia's leading law firms, Montgomery McCracken Walker & Rhoads.
I am here today to urge you to not allow the demolition of Thomas Hall on the campus of Temple University.
I spent a total of seven years on the Temple campus. I graduated from Temple's School of Communications in 1970, and from Temple's School of Law in 1980.
When I started at Temple in 1966, I immediately got involved with the campus radio station, WRTI. It was housed in the basement of Thomas Hall, as it had been since 1948, the year I was born. So the facilities obviously weren't modern. But there was something special about working in that building. It was the sense of community that came from being part of something that had some tradition, some history to it. And the building was a big part of that.
I remember, my first two years at Temple, that equipment was always breaking down, but we weren't allowed to spend any money to replace things, because we were eventually going to move to "the new building"... Annenberg Hall. It was going to be the most modern, the most advanced radio facility in the entire country.
So we kept things working in Thomas Hall with chewing gum and paper clips, and waited for the new building. It was to be such a magnificent place that it took on almost mythic proportions. We called it Camelot.
I was named station manager of WRTI-FM in 1968, when we first moved in the new building. I presided over the very first broadcast from Annenberg Hall, and produced the first program aired, which was a documentary on the history of WRTI.
I might add parenthetically, that I was also the last STUDENT station manager before the university took WRTI away from the students in 1969, and changed it from a teaching laboratory into a quasi-professional station playing only jazz.
But even in that one year, there still was something missing in the new building. It was all shiny and new, glass and steel, bricks and painted cinder blocks, but the soul was missing. The history that had been such an important part of WRTI was still across the street, in Thomas Hall.
Now they want to destroy what's left of that history.
They want to destroy a 112 year old church where the founder of Temple University preached to his congregation. They want to destroy one of the finest works of an architectural firm that also produced the historic Mother Bethel AME church in Philadelphia.
They want to destroy history.
But I challenge you to not let them do that. I challenge you to visit Thomas Hall, and go inside the sanctuary, and look at those magnificent stained glass windows that Temple is already negotiating to sell. Look at those windows, feel the history in that building, and then look me in the eye and tell me that building should go.
This commission has received numerous letters from Temple alumni and others who feel that this is one piece of history that should not meet the wrecking ball. And we have brought additional messages with us today. I want to read one of them in particular, because it goes to the heart of the matter.
This is a message I received Monday from a Temple alumna named Marsha Goldstein.
Dear Jerry - I strongly support your efforts to save Thomas Hall. In November, my husband, also a Temple alumnus, and I, took our son to visit the campus for the first time. He was unimpressed by the newer towers, but he loved the older buildings-the few that actually remained, and our stories about classes and activities. In 1973 I was news director at WRTI, which, of course, was in Annenberg by then. I used to love to go to Thomas Hall and listen for the "ghosts" because when I first visited the school, the radio station was still housed there. I would hope that as much of Temple's history would be left standing for as long as physically possible. I cannot believe that from November until now the building has been left to such disrepair that it warrants destruction. For what? More glass and concrete or a parking space? Thomas Hall is a truly valued piece of history, not just for those of us who worked at WRTI or graduated from the RTF program, but for all Temple students - current and alumni. Best of luck in your efforts.
Ladies and gentlemen of the commission, you know even better than I that once an historic building is gone, it's gone. We can't get it back.
I urge you... I challenge you... not to let that happen.
Thank you.
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