Rossi said the committee hoped to get a general contractor by autumn and begin construction by year's end. In a comparable case, the Polish American Cultural Center next door easily obtained such a permit 20 years ago, said director Michael Blichasz. Rossi said the center would be operated by the archdiocese, probably out of the chancery office, which oversees the archives. The archives' current, woeful state is apparent at a glance. For 50 years the collection has occupied five gloomy chambers beneath a chapel at the seminary.
Climate control is nonexistent.
Since 1989, the archives have received twice-monthly shipments of old parish records, resulting in a glut of boxes that fill the shelves and overrun a small exhibit area. One surface holds a magnificent, scale-model carving of the cathedral in Milan. On another sits a bust of the Pope, donated by the pontiff to Cardinal John Krol. The building itself occupies the site of a colonial-era Quaker almshouse that was the forerunner of Philadelphia General Hospital. Old St. Joe's and Old St. Mary's.