{"nrhp_refnum":"83002265","name":"Baptist Institute for Christian Workers","other_names":["Crown Nursing Home"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"1425-1429 Snyder Ave.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Philadelphia","county":"Philadelphia","state":"PA","lat":39.92459876600003,"lon":-75.17035398499996,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1983-04-21","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Community Planning and Development","Architecture","Social History"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A four-story brick former institutional building at Passyunk and Snyder Avenues in South Philadelphia, built in 1911 as the Baptist Institute for Christian Workers and now used as the Crown Nursing Home.","why_significant":"The building is presented as a prominent South Philadelphia landmark and an expression of the academic Gothic/Jacobean style applied to institutional design. It is also cited as one of the last surviving Philadelphia monuments to the settlement house movement, providing housing for single working men among immigrant communities.","narrative":"Built in 1911 on Passyunk and Snyder Avenues in South Philadelphia, this four-story brick building was designed by Benjamin Rush Stevens for the Baptist Institute for Christian Workers, which was founded in 1892. The institute provided dormitory housing for single working men in a dense immigrant district, reflecting the late nineteenth-century settlement house movement. Its Jacobean design, with a stone frontispiece, terra cotta trim and a carved oak overmantel in the lobby, was chosen to present the institution as a civic and humanitarian presence. The building was completed in 1929 with a fourth floor and extra rooms. Leased to the U.S. Navy in 1952, it has served as a nursing home for the elderly since 1958. It is regarded as one of the principal landmarks of the Snyder Avenue commercial node and a rare survivor of the settlement house idea in Philadelphia.","period_of_significance":"1900-1929","architect_builder":"Benjamin Rush Stevens (architect)","architectural_style":"Jacobean, with academic Gothic influences","criteria":["C"],"status_note":"Now a nursing home; the document states it has served as a nursing home since 1958.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.1-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 17:11:34.188619-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_PA/83002265.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/83002265/4cb61aa0b7-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/83002265/4cb61aa0b7-1600.webp","licence":"Public domain","author":"Smallbones","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Baptist_Institute.JPG\" rel=\"noopener\">Smallbones</a>, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Baptist_Institute.JPG"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/71997240","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baptist_Institute_for_Christian_Workers","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4857649"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/pennsylvania/philadelphia/baptist-institute-for-christian-workers-83002265/"}