Kim Broadbent

Favorite Spot: Wayne Mills
Neighborhood: Nicetown/Germantown (on the border)
Address: 4501 Wayne Avenue/130 West Berkley Street

I am: A supporter and scholar of historic preservation with an uncanny ability to attract stray animals.

Years in Philly: 8
Current home: Roxborough

My love note: My favorite complex of buildings in Philadelphia is Wayne Mills, built in 1885 for New Glen Echo Mills, and in use as a textile factory ever since. That’s a pretty amazing feat. This brick complex, strategically located next to the Wayne Junction train station, occupies nearly an entire city block. That’s a lot of room to house the many processes necessary for a textile mill, including a dye house!

Very soon after New Glen Echo Mills built this site, other manufacturers built factories across the street and workmen’s housing soon followed, creating the industrial landscape that you see from the Wayne Junction station platform. Although Philadelphia will never again be the Workshop of the World, it makes me glad to know that there are family-run manufacturers still successfully operating in this city. Wayne Mills creates the specialty products that Philadelphia was once known for – and that’s why I love these buildings.