Conshohocken Borough Hall – By Jack Coll

Conshohocken Borough Hall
It Took 165 Years, But It’s A Beauty
By Jack Coll
January 1, 2016

Conshohocken’s new Borough Hall and Offices are open for business along with a new Police Station located at Fourth Avenue and Fayette Street. The official move for both the borough’s business offices and police station came in December 2015. While I have not visited the new police headquarters, (I’m assuming they don’t want me anywhere near live firearms and I don’t want to be anywhere near a jail cell) I have visited the borough offices.

It came as no surprise that the facility is first class, I’m well aware it came with a price tag but it’s a facility that our residents can be proud of for years to come. This is the third official home for both the borough and police and while the new facility looks plush, it hasn’t always been that way.

Looking back at the borough’s first two facilities we have to go back to a time when dirt roads and dirt paths were cut through the lower end of town, when horse and buggy were the main means of transportation and the village of Conshohocken was a town without laws.

Conshohocken was officially incorporated on May 15, 1850, and before, during, and after incorporation town meetings were held at Davey Stemple’s Hall once located on Forrest Street between Elm and Hector Street. (Currently a parking lot for the Washington Fire Company) Stemple’s Hall was a rather large two story brick building and was one of the borough’s early landmarks. Conshohocken’s first school was established in Stemple’s Hall in 1850. The town meetings, service organizations ,many Building and Loan Associations that helped this borough grow in the early days held meetings at Stemple’s Hall. Calvary Episcopal Church was established at Stemple’s Hall before purchasing property at Fourth Avenue and Fayette Street to build their first church.

Conshohocken’s first jail cell for drunks and criminals was erected in a one room building along the Pennsylvania Railroad. When the borough’s first full time policeman Jack Harrold would arrest two drunks on a Saturday night and throw them in the lone cell the fight would often continue in the jail cell forcing Harrold to let one drunks go to avoid the jail cell confrontation.
By the mid 1870’s, the borough fathers purchased property on West Hector Street next to the Washington Fire Company. (Washies had one water wagon and had to borrow horses from a Connaughtown farmer to pull the wagon whenever a fire broke out) A two story Police Station/Borough Hall was built on the site allowing the police to operate on the bottom floor where they had two jail cells, (they added two more cells in later years) and borough business was conducted on the second floor. The second floor also served as a meeting room for early town hall meetings but could only accommodate the 15 councilman, Burgess, secretary, and a handful of residents, the room was very small and larger meetings were still held at Stemple’s Hall.

By the mid 1920’s, the borough hall/police station was 50 years old and showing some wear, the town’s population was growing at such a rapid pace due to industry that the borough couldn’t meet the housing demand with the influx of immigrants and Stemple’s Hall was crumbling. By 1926 Stemple’s Hall was declared unsafe when the roof collapsed due to neglect, the pre-Civil War facility had seen better days.

In 1936 the borough in need of bigger quarters entertained the idea of purchasing the former Conshohocken Trust Company Bank Building at Second Avenue and Fayette Street. The one time location of Conshohocken Federal Bank, (Con-Fed) and in more recent years “Light Parker Kids,” and future home of El Limon Restaurant. After many delays and dozens of committee meetings the borough with-drew their offer of $16,000 (which was 80 percent of the lowest bid). The final sticking point of purchase was the method of payment, the bank wanted $1,000 down, $800.00 upon execution of agreement of sale and the balance in cash on the date of settlement. The borough’s offer was $3,000 at settlement, $1000 in 1937, and $3000 a year during 1938-1941. Needless to say the sale never happened.

While conversations continued pertaining to bigger and better headquarters for both the borough offices and police station it wasn’t until more than a decade later when serious conversations continued on a new headquarters.
In the late summer of 1949 the State Welfare Department visited the seventy five year old jailhouse and borough hall on the southeast corner of Hector and Forrest Streets and found the jail cells had been unsanitary for years with more than a dozen violations one being the beds in deplorable condition infested with vermin including mice and other rodents.
At the September meeting in 1949 Council declared that it would take thousands of dollars to comply with the Department of Corrections and Welfare and when finished spending the money they would still be in a 75 year old building. All 15 council members voted unanimously to move all borough operations including the police to the Mary Wood Parkhouse on East Fifth Avenue and leave the infested building behind.

Two weeks later after failing to meet with the Park Commissioners members of council declared that they would remain in Borough Hall and simply take all prisoners to the Montgomery County Jail and not be forced to spend eight to ten thousand dollars on repairs.

In the early 1950’s The First National Bank of Conshohocken merged with Philadelphia National Bank and a new bank location was purchased at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Fayette Street. This presented a golden opportunity for the borough to purchase the old bank building once located on the corner of West Hector and Fayette Street. In the summer of 1954 council voted to purchase the building for $50,000 and planned to pay for the building with a one-mill tax to be levied in 1955. The new Philadelphia National Bank purchased the Jones Estate and planned a modern banking facility complete with the borough’s first drive-thru banking facility, and a new shopping center on the remainder of the property along Fayette Street.
Well for reasons unknown the borough never purchased the old bank building and the planned shopping district along Fayette Street from West Fourth Avenue up to the bank never happened either. A year later in 1956 the Washington Fire Company purchased the bank building where for many years they held their annual banquets, the building was demolished in the late 1970’s under the redevelopment zoning guild lines and several years after Washies purchased the bank building Bell Telephone constructed a massive building in 1958 at the corner of Fourth Avenue and Fayette Street, a building that now serves as Conshohocken Borough Hall/ offices and police station.

In September of 1960 a $90,000 loan issue to refit the Mary Wood Parkhouse for Borough Hall and Police station was placed on the voting ballot approved by council led by President Joseph Burns. The original borough hall by 1960 was nearing 85 years old and could no longer accommodate the borough and police business. A public and legal outcry stalled the move and as we know never happened.

In the summer of 1964, (while the Philadelphia Phillies were still streaking towards the World Series) the borough finally pulled the trigger to purchase a new borough hall headquarters and police station.

John Ellwood Lee, founder of Lee Surgical Supplies and Lee Tire and Rubber Company had his handsome mansion built at the corner of West Eighth Avenue and Fayette Street in 1892-93. Although Lee passed away in April of 1914, his wife Jennie lived in the mansion until her death in 1945. The Walker Brothers, Hervey and Newton purchased the mansion from the Lee estate. The Walker Brothers had at that time and continued to be great donors to the town, Hervey was responsible for building the Conshohocken Elementary School in 1958 that once bore is name and Newton was a major force behind the construction of Conshohocken’s Fellowship House Youth Center in 1952. The Walker Brothers turned the mansion into the Conshohocken Association Industrial Luncheon Club for the borough’s industrial leaders at the time. On most weekdays upwards of more than 50 industry leaders could be found eating lunch and discussing the day’s labor and industry situations.

At the time when they opened in the spring of 1945 Hervey was President of the Association, Albert Slickers was Vice President, and Arthur Paul was the manager of the headquarters.

By the winter of 1963 industry in America was declining, it became very clear to Americans that they had won the war but lost the post war industrial boom. Industrial decline along Conshohocken’s riverfront was the face of America and with declining industry the Conshohocken Association no longer needed a luncheon headquarters.

And so it was the decline of industry that brought borough leaders good fortune when they purchased the building in July 1964 for $85,000, they spent another couple of thousand dollars to set-up the police department in the former Lee stables where Lee once kept his horses and wagons, and although not much was altered in the main mansion it was converted into offices. In the borough’s 114 years history up to that point it was only their second borough hall building.

Incidentally, the vote to purchase the building was undoubtedly made easier by the fact that in 1960 a court mandate reduced council members from 15 to seven, and increased the wards from five wards to seven wards.

In February 1965 the original Borough Hall once located on Hector Street was sold for $2,652.50 to Interior Themes Inc. of 203 West Elm Street, James H. Percher was the president of the firm. The 91 year old building was in need of a lot of work at the time. The newly formed Conshohocken Historical Society (formed in February 1964) showed interested in purchasing the building as their headquarters but backed off the purchase possibly due to the money needed for renovations, although the society did have events and displays in the building for a short time.

Twenty three years after the purchase of the “Leeland” mansion both buildings were still in need of major renovations and in 1987 a Borough Hall Committee was established to raise funds in an effort to make the needed renovations. By the early 1990’s millions of dollars had been raised and spent to up-grade both the police and borough hall building.
By the year 2000, as Conshohocken celebrated their Sesquicentennial (150 years of incorporation) whispers were being floated that it was time to look for a new borough home for a number of reasons. The primary reason was the borough’s office staff was growing, with redevelopment of Conshohocken being one hundred percent successful thanks to nearly a half century of planning and commitment by many residents and members of council, and more needed renovations it was time to start considering a new borough hall home.

And all of that my friends brings me to this, at a borough council meeting held at the former “Leeland” Mansion on September 19, 2007, a motion was made by yours truly to authorize the appropriate officers, Staff, Engineer and Solicitor to take or approve any action necessary for the acquisition of 402 Fayette Street including the execution of a sales agreement with the 402 Fayette Street LLC., the motion passed 7-0.

In the years to follow the borough went through management changes, personnel and staff changes, along with council member changes and although the building sat vacant allowing mold, weather and time to take a toll on the facility the wheels of renovation never stopped and as of December 2015, 140 years after purchasing our first borough hall and police station the residents of our town have a facility we can be proud of for years to come.

The first thing to come up when the new borough hall is mentioned is finances, so perhaps I can address that with my OPINION. It cost a lot of money, upwards of 15 million dollars. This borough hall is brand new in the center of town with parking, and generates an income with rentals. I would expect the rentals to off-set some of the cost of construction. I would also expect the rentals that generate an income to take care of future maintenance cost, and finally I would expect the rental income in the future to keep my taxes down.

If you haven’t stood at the riverfront and spun your head around 360 degrees, you need to do so cause if you’re like me, it’s time we realized that this isn’t the Conshohocken we grew up in, this is no longer the Conshohocken we knew, it’s 2016, and our police department has more than 25 full time police officers not to mention staff. Our borough has more than 30 employees including the Streets Department.

You should also know that we live in one of the safest communities in America, IN AMERICA, because we’re a rich town. Our trash gets picked up twice a week, TWICE A WEEK, go to Upper Merion, High Society, they call it King of Prussia, your trash gets picked up once a week and you pay a private trash hauler, by the way if you have one bag of trash per week you pay the same amount as your neighbor who has seven bags of trash per week.

Everyone who lives in this town that I’ve talked to in recent years is proud of the town they live in, new residents in the town are thrilled to be here, welcome to Conshohocken, the only difference between the old residents and the new residents is the older residents have known about Conshohocken and its charm a lot longer than the newer residents. We’ve all said at one time or another Conshohocken is about the people, the good people, and that includes me and you, and everyone else.
The borough intends to hold an open house sometime in February, 2016. I think we should all show-up, we should all ask questions, and we should all be proud of the borough facility that now represents us.

Photos Below
The small two story building once located on West Hector Street was built in 1874-75 and the second story was added in 1878. The building served as the police station on the first floor with borough hall on the second floor. The building was used by the borough until they purchased the former “Leeland” in 1964, (photo below) the original building sat vacant for more than a year before it was sold.
The building was demolished in June 1984 as part of the redevelopment project and the site is currently a parking lot for the Washington Fire Company.

Borough officials stand outside the Leeland Mansion after it was purchased for $85,000 in July 1964. From left included Ben Hannum, David Hayes and Mayor Pat Mellon.

The current Borough Hall located at Fourth Avenue and Fayette Street will serve as this community for the next century.

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