Advancing Alumni

33RD AND ARCH STREETS, PHILADELPHIA

1903–1908

As the number of students and faculty grew, the College moved to larger quarters, establishing a campus at 33rd and Arch Streets. Located in the suburban Powelton Village section of West Philadelphia (across the Schuykill River from downtown Philadelphia), the academic building was a seven-story Victorian stone mansion with gas lighting and a big wrap-around porch, surrounded by grassy lawns. Didactic classes were held in the mansion’s ornate parlor; the second floor housed osteopathic treatment and operating rooms. Anatomic dissections were consigned to the basement. During this time [1906], PCIO also opened the Osteopathic Dispensary at 1617 Fairmount Avenue. The three-bed facility directed a clinic for the underprivileged of the community seeking osteopathic treatment.

1715 NORTH BROAD STREET, PHILADELPHIA

1908–1912

PCIO migrated to yet another site in 1908 in search of more adequate facilities for the growing classes that were to begin a mandatory four-year, eight-month curriculum. The College rented an Italianate brownstone building in a residential neighborhood. The area was positioned north of the Market Street railroad viaduct and was steeped in Gilded Age grandeur. The high-rise structure at 1715 North Broad Street comprised two large lecture halls, three classrooms and a gynecological operating room. It had a separate division for the anatomical and other laboratories as well as a gymnasium.

1903

The College establishes a campus at 33rd and Arch Streets. The College opens an Osteopathic Dispensary on Fairmount Avenue.

1906

832 PINE STREET, PHILADELPHIA

1912–1916

Again seeking more space, the College moved in 1912 to a five-story apartment house in the city’s Colonial neighborhood (Society Hill). Around the corner, at 410 South 9th Street, the first osteopathic hospital to be chartered in Philadelphia was also established. Before and after the turn of the century, several other medical institutions were nearby: Pennsylvania Hospital, the Pennsylvania Dental College and the Pennsylvania Institute for the Deaf and Dumb. The Pine Street building had had an interesting use in 1889: a small chapel on the second floor housed a Black Catholic congregation led by Rev. Patrick McDermott, who had taken charge at the request of Mother Katharine Drexel, the Philadelphia philanthropist, nun and later saint (canonized by Pope John Paul II in 2000). McDermott’s expanded congregation would become the basis of St. Peter Claver, Philadelphia’s first Black Roman Catholic church, in 1892.

19TH AND SPRING GARDEN STREETS, PHILADELPHIA

1917–1929

Shortly before the United States entered World War I, PCIO moved into new quarters in Philadelphia’s Fairmount section. A $60,000 fundraising campaign enabled the College to purchase its first buildings, including a hospital. The Reyburn Mansion, located at 19th and Spring Garden Streets, became the cornerstone of the campus. The home had belonged to John Edgar Reyburn, mayor of Philadelphia. With the design services of Philadelphia architects DeArmond, Ashmead & Bickley, the brick and terra-cotta mansion was transformed into classrooms and laboratories. The College erected a three-story, 52-bed hospital building to the rear of the property in 1918. This was the first osteopathic hospital to be built with funds contributed by the public. It boasted a considerable surgical amphitheater. In 1919, the College acquired two adjacent townhouses located to the east of the mansion—one became the College annex, Dispensary and Clinic, and the other the Nurses’ Home for the College’s new Training School for Nurses.

1908

The College rents a brownstone building at 1715 North Broad Street. The College purchases its first buildings, including a hospital.

1917

48TH AND SPRUCE STREETS, PHILADELPHIA

1929–1972

In 1927, the 19th and Spring Garden Street buildings were placed on the market, and a search began for a new location that could accommodate the need for enlarged educational and hospital facilities. A public fundraising campaign was launched; various sites in North Philadelphia were explored by the Board before selecting a residential neighborhood in West Philadelphia known as “Garden Court.” A tract of land was purchased at the northeast corner of 48th and Spruce Streets. Ground was broken in the winter of 1929, and construction by the William Steele Company proceeded at a rapid pace. The 75,000-square-foot building, designed in Collegiate Gothic style by Camden architects Lackey and Hettel, opened for occupancy— almost simultaneously with the Stock Market Crash. Picturesque and dramatic, the building was magnificent in both mass and composition. It was created of stone and brick with a slate roof and casement windows. The main entrance on Spruce Street was flanked by two towers. It opened into a large lobby that connected the College and hospital units. The basement consisted of 40 treatment booths—an outpatient department for third- and fourthyear students to gain clinical skills (booth doctors). The College unit boasted a 500-seat auditorium, offices, classrooms, laboratories and dissection areas. The hospital portion could accommodate 80 patients. The third floor of the hospital featured a surgical amphitheater that could seat approximately 200, a private operating room and an anesthetizing room.

1921

The College is officially renamed Philadelphia of Osteopathy (PCO).

Construction begins on a 75,000-square-foot building at 48th and Spruce Streets.

1929

CITY AVENUE, PHILADELPHIA

1973–PRESENT

Board Chairman Frederic H. Barth initially led PCOM to City Avenue; he had outlined an ambitious plan for a modern academic medical center to include a hospital. In 1957, the College purchased 16 acres of land and the Tudor Revival–style Moss Estate (today, Levin Administration Building) housed on it. The estate was renovated to become an administration building situated at the heart of the new campus. Construction of the College campus site was phased over several years. Designed by architects Supowitz and Demchick, the 228-bed hospital, Frederic H. Barth Pavilion, was completed and dedicated in 1967. The facility featured a state-of-the-art surgical center with five operating room suites; a 12-bed psychiatric unit; a clinical laboratory; and coronary care, intensive care and cobalt units. Construction of a six-story combined classroom, laboratory and library structure with sophisticated equipment— Dr. Barth’s noble vision—began in 1970. The campus’s principal building, Evans Hall (pictured above), was named for H. Walter Evans, DO, professor of obstetrics, who organized and chaired the Department of Preventive Medicine and guided the College’s program during the post-war years. The building was billed as “the last word in osteopathic-medical educational facilities.” In August 1977, PCOM acquired a five-story, 150,000-squarefoot office building adjacent to the campus, located at 4190 City Avenue. Erected by a New York City firm, the building was constructed of glass window walls wrapped around steel-reinforced concrete support columns. It was renovated by the College to include classrooms and lecture halls, conference rooms, research and OPP labs, faculty offices, outpatient offices for staff physicians, a bookstore, business offices and a print shop, and a School of Allied Health.

1957

The College purchases 16 acres of land and the Moss Estate (City Avenue). The Frederic H. Barth Pavilion is dedicated.