This weekend, we stopped over at Blackbird for a delicious vegan hoagie and noticed orange zoning notices at the corner of 6th and Addison Sts., in Society Hill.

Check it out

Vacant lot

This lot, which is currently used for parking, is associated with 601 Lombard St., a two-story, double-wide building that contains four 1-bedroom rental apartments.

Rentals fronting Lombard St.

The lot and the building together sit on a 43’x115′ lot, of which the building occupies about 40%. James Li and Pamela Jin, the folks who purchased the property for $730K back in 2010, are proposing two homes on the currently vacant lot which will each rise four stories and will have included garage parking. We imagine the sizable, extra-wide homes, will front Addison St., but don’t expect them to look too much like the other homes on the block.

Hopefully something that fits a little better with the neighborhood?

Thanks to the magic of Phillyhistory.org, we learned what this corner looked like back in 1961, and probably for the hundred years that preceded it.

Current view, looking west on Lombard St.

Back in 1961

The now empty lot, future home of two new homes

No clue when the original buildings were torn down or why, though we would imagine that it happened before the Society Hill Historic District was established in 1987. Also, for the life of us, we have idea why someone decided to replace the four-story building on Lombard St. with a piddling two-story structure.

And finally, does anybody know what kind of business took place at Eckstut’s?