Source: Philadelphia Inquirer
Date: June 16, 2010
Byline: Stephan Salisbury

Independence Park archaeology lab closed for transition to new home

The popular public archaeology lab at Independence National Historical Park will be shuttered Friday for several months, a park spokeswoman said Tuesday, attributing the long closure to "some issues" at the lab's planned new home in the First Bank of the United States.

The lab is analyzing more than one million artifacts related to early life in Philadelphia, pulled from the ground before and during construction of the National Constitution Center, completed in 2003. The lab has been in the park's old visitor center at Third and Chestnut Streets.

That site, however, will soon be transferred to the privately operated American Revolution Center. The center, in turn, is transferring 78 acres of land it owns within Valley Forge National Historical Park to the custody of the National Park Service.

The land swap is expected to be completed within several weeks, park officials said.

Park officials, who have long foreseen the move of the archaeology lab to the First Bank location across the street, were unable Tuesday to forecast how long it would be before visitors could again observe the archaeological work.

Jane Cowley, park spokeswoman, said that the artifacts would be stored in the bank building and that the actual lab work — piecing together artifact fragments and studying their relationships to each other — would be conducted in a building around the corner. That site, 325 Walnut St., will likely be closed to the public.

The archaeological work, which is mandated by the 1966 Historic Preservation Act and has already been delayed for years, is funded by the National Constitution Center.

Following the outpouring of interest in archaeological explorations of the President's House site in 2007 — more than 300,000 visitors were transfixed by the dig at Sixth and Market Streets — overall interest in the park's archaeological work has remained high.

Cowley said the park remained committed to the lab, suggesting that the Walnut Street location might be open by appointment. "We are absolutely committed to [the public lab], no question," Cowley said. "We do have an obligation to keep it open to the public."