Inside The Divine Lorraine.

Text and images by Teresa McCullough.

Last Wednesday, officials broke ground on the Divine Lorraine redevelopment project. And for a small span of four hours, people were invited to tour the main lobby and take a look around.

The 1894 building represents a time when North Broad Street was one of the country’s grand avenues, featuring two opera halls, several elite, private clubs and the homes of wealthy industrialists like Henry Disston, P.A.B. Widener and William Elkins. The building became one of the first integrated, high-end hotels in  the country. For around 50 years, the building served as the home of Father Divine’s Divine Peace Mission Movement. After the Peace Mission sold the building in 1999, the dilapidated structure became a destination for street artists and urban adventurers.

The Wednesday event featured a pop up gift shop with Philly’s own Divine Lorraine Hotel Collection line. The collection includes apparel and housewares created in collaboration with The Decades Hat Co., Converse, Levi’s and others. With each purchase, a donation was made to Big Brothers Big Sisters of Southeastern Pennsylvania. Each purchaser received a free hotel keychain.

The event page had more than 7,000 RSVPs but only a select few were able to enter the historic building. Cheers if you were one.