Hope flows for historic water plant

By Cynthia Burton
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

The fire-damaged Fairmount Water Works will be restored again, and soon, Fairmount Park Commissioner Ernesta Ballard vowed yesterday.

"It will be repaired, believe me," said Ballard, who spent more than a decade raising money for the $4.5 million restoration of the 189-year-old complex, the nation's first municipal water system. "This is a little detour in the road. This is a building and a facility that will not die."

City Managing Director Estelle Richman said the city, which is self-insured, would finance the repairs out of taxpayer funds if it could not determine that a contractor was at fault.

Richman estimated that the New Year's Day fire - believed to have started in electrical wiring - caused $500,000 worth of damage.

Mark Thompson, an architect who worked on the project for a decade, said he was optimistic after inspecting the building yesterday. He said that beams were charred but that insulation on pipes and rubberized flooring were still intact. Windows were broken, but "otherwise the building is really in good shape," he said.

The fire started in electrical wiring leading to a ceiling lamp in the newly renovated building's ballroom, according to Fire Department Executive Chief William Brightcliffe.

It smoldered undetected in a foot-thick support beam for what might have been several hours before it generated enough smoke to trip an alarm, he said.

Richman said she did not know whether the city's Department of Licenses and Inspections had inspected or approved the work.

She said the building's electrical contractor was Goldhorn Inc., of Clifton Heights. Company owner Jim Goldhorn said his firm had not worked in the building for about two years. He said he did not recall his firm installing the wiring believed to have started the fire. The firm brought electrical service in and installed the fire alarms, which obviously worked, he said.

Goldhorn said that more work, including additional electrical work, had been done inside the room where the fire occurred since his firm completed its job at the site.

Richman said that she did not know who did the inside wiring but that her office would try to find out. She said city workers were continuing to investigate the cause, adding: "It could just as easily been a squirrel coming in [that] chewed through the wires."

Barry Bessler, of the Fairmount Park Commission, acknowledged it was unusual for a fire to start in new wiring.

Bessler said the park commission was trying yesterday to restore heat and electrical service to the building so that pipes do not freeze and burst. Richman said services should be restored by early next week.

Renovations to the Engine House were completed last spring after 27 years of fund-raising and starts and stops for repairs to the entire three-building Water Works complex.

The Engine House, the oldest of the three buildings, was last damaged in the 1980s, when vandals set it on fire.

The restored Engine House was to lead to a rebirth of the 12-acre Water Works complex, situated near the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

The job was paid for with funds raised from private contributors as well as state and city governments.

At a Sept. 8 party celebrating completion of the work, nearly 1,000 guests walked through the rooms and on the decks of the once cutting-edge water facility.

The yellow Engine House sits at the head of the Water Works site, built in 1812. At the time, it was a marvel of civil engineering and was the nation's first city water system.

The Engine House's two turbines pumped river water up a reservoir where the Art Museum now stands until 1909, when the complex was closed. It once held an aquarium, a swimming pool, and a restaurant.

Beth Ounsworth, president of the Friends of Fairmount Park, said the restored Water Works complex was to be a grand entrance to the park. It was to contain a restaurant, and park commissioners have been negotiating with Catelli Ristorante & Cafe Inc., of Voorhees, to open a 200-seat restaurant in the very room damaged by the Jan. 1 fire.

"The restaurant, which has been held up for a while anyway, is going to be held up a little longer," Ounsworth said. "We wonder how long it will take."

A visitors' center to be located at the level below the ballroom fire will still open as planned in June, according to Ed Grusheski, the Water Department's spokesman.