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Penypack Theatre

Art Deco architecture in PennsylvaniaHolmesburg, PhiladelphiaTheatres in Philadelphia

The Penypack Theatre is an historic Art Deco style movie house located on the 8000 block of Frankford Avenue of Holmesburg in the northeast section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Built in 1929 and designed by architect William Harold Lee, the theater was designed with a 1,364 seating capacity. Among its features is a sizable stage house at its back which suggests it was likely designed both for motion picture presentations as well as live performances. Originally it was called the "Holme Theatre," but in 1946 it was renamed in honor of nearby Pennypack Park.Constructed at the start of the Great Depression, it appears the theater was never used to its full potential. Operating through the Depression years as a movie theater, its significance was seemingly forgotten, and thus it was never upgraded to be competitive with newer theaters built after the Depression ended. Some time during the late 1950s it was shut down as a theater and then tested as an auction house for a time. When this alternative use failed, it became a carpet outlet for many years, and finally a furniture and appliance store, before being boarded up completely soon at the start of the 21st century. Currently the building houses a Pizza Hut/Wing Street and a Dollar Tree store.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Penypack Theatre (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors).

Penypack Theatre
Frankford Avenue, Philadelphia

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Wikipedia: Penypack TheatreContinue reading on Wikipedia

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N 40.0419 ° E -75.0261 °
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Frankford Avenue 8081
19136 Philadelphia
Pennsylvania, United States
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Holmesburg Prison
Holmesburg Prison

Holmesburg Prison, given the nickname "The Terrordome," was a prison operated by the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Department of Prisons (PDP) from 1896 to 1995. The facility is located at 8215 Torresdale Ave in the Holmesburg section of Philadelphia. It was decommissioned in 1995 when it closed. As of today, the structure still stands and is occasionally used for prisoner overflow and work programs.It was the site of controversial decades-long dermatological, pharmaceutical, and biochemical weapons research projects involving testing on inmates. The experiments and research conducted on prisoners soon influenced ethical standards that are used today in modern research. The creation of the Nuremberg Code with the rule of informed consent was drafted based on this case as well as several others, like the Tuskegee experiments in Alabama.The prison is also notable for several major riots in the early 1970s as well as a report released in 1968, the results of an extensive two-year investigation by the Offices of the Philadelphia Police Commissioner and the District Attorney of Philadelphia documenting hundreds of cases of the rape of inmates. The 1998 book Acres of Skin: Human Experiments at Holmesburg Prison, by Allen M. Hornblum, documents clinical non-therapeutic medical experiments on prison inmates at Holmesburg. Currently, the Philadelphia Department of Prisons's Training Academy still operates near the jail.