This weekend, I led a teach-in at the President’s House Site organized by the Association of Philadelphia Tour Guides.
There was a steady stream of visitors to the site. Most were aware that the National Park Service removed the interpretive signs and were ordered to reinstall them. However, they were surprised the President’s House Site has not been restored to its physical status as of January 21, 2026 as ordered by U.S. District Judge Cynthia M. Rufe.
The Department of the Interior appealed Judge Rufe’s order to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. Full restoration of the site was paused by Judge Thomas M. Hardiman. As the lawsuit, City of Philadelphia v. Doug Burgum, Secretary of the Interior, et al., moves through the federal courts, the President’s House Site will remain partially restored.
On the two-month anniversary of the removal of the interpretive panels, CBS Sunday Morning aired a report, “Signs of the times: Removing stories of America’s past from our national parks.”
Jim Axelrod interviewed Alan Spears, Senior Director for Cultural Resources at the National Parks Conservation Association.
Spears has a clear message for those who cannot handle the truth about the “nuanced nature of our history”:
If you are thinking about visiting a national park, if you don’t want to tackle any of these large issues that make you think critically about race and slavery, and gender and other things like that, there are hundreds of thousands of places in the United States where you can go. Knock yourself out at Six Flags but don’t ruin it for the rest of us who have come to rely on national parks as places for that learning.
We want to maintain their ability, unimpaired, to be able to talk about the full scope of our history – wonder, warts and all.
President Trump wants to erase the fact-based history told at the President’s House Site. Removal of the interpretive panels is a “sign o’ the times.”
This is Sunshine Week, a time to celebrate transparency, and the public’s right to know what government officials are doing and saying behind closed doors. PHL Watchdog is a Sunshine Week partner. It is serendipitous that I will be at City Hall in Courtroom 275 during Sunshine Week.
For more than two years, the City of Philadelphia has fought release of records related to the Philadelphia 76ers’ now abandoned proposal to build an arena atop SEPTA’s Jefferson Station. Perhaps the City thought I would give up. But giving up is not in my DNA. And an awesome team of lawyers, led by Paula Knudsen Burke of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and Temple University Law Professor Mary E. Levy, has my back.
The City appealed the Office of Open Records’ final determination to turn over responsive records to the Court of Common Pleas Philadelphia County on June 27, 2025. Judge Christopher Hall will hear oral arguments on March 18, 2026.
While 76 Place is as dead as the 76ers’ chances of winning an NBA championship, the public has the right to know how unaccountable and self-serving billionaires hijacked city planning. The latest Market East fiasco shows that the City has learned nothing from the arena debacle.
It is imperative that public officials are held accountable. Transparency must undergird future development projects. So, let the sun shine in.
Invoking President Trump’s Executive Order, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” the National Park Service executed “a jarring alteration to the integrity of the [President’s House] site” on January 22, 2026.
On Washington’s Birthday, better known as Presidents’ Day, U.S. District Judge Cynthia Rufe rebuked President Trump’s claim to “the truth.” In her opinion granting the City of Philadelphia’s motion for a preliminary injunction, Judge Rufe invoked George Orwell:
And yet, in its argument, the government claims it alone has the power to erase, alter, remove and hide historical accounts on taxpayer and local government-funded monuments within its control. Its claims in this regard echo Big Brother’s domain in Orwell’s 1984, where:
The largest section of the [government’s] Records Department . . . consisted simply of persons whose duty it was to track down and collect all copies of books, newspapers, and other documents which had been superseded and were due for destruction. A number of the Times [a newspaper] which might, because of changes in political alignment, or mistaken prophesies uttered by Big Brother, have been rewritten a dozen times still stood on the files bearing its original date, and no other copy existed to contradict it. Books, also, were recalled and rewritten again and again, and were invariably reissued without any admission that any alteration had been made. Even the written instructions [for workers in the Records Department] . . . never stated or implied that an act of forgery was to be committed; always the reference was to slips, errors, misprints, or misquotations which it was necessary to put right in the interests of accuracy.
Much to his dismay, President Trump does not have the authority to dictate “the truth”:
The government here likewise asserts truth is no longer self-evident, but rather the property of the elected chief magistrate and his appointees and delegees, at his whim to be scraped clean, hidden, or overwritten. And why? Solely because, as Defendants state, it has the power.
Judge Rufe made it clear that she’s not telling the government what message to convey; rather, whatever message is conveyed at the President’s House Site must be done in consultation with the City:
The government can convey a different message without restraint elsewhere if it so pleases, but it cannot do so to the President’s House until it follows the law and consults with the City.
Judge Rufe ordered the Department of the Interior and the National Park Service to restore the President’s House Site to its physical status as of January 21, 2026 and “reinstall all panels, displays, and video exhibits that were previously in place.”
When Judge Rufe made a site visit, she saw that the Park Service cleared the snow on Independence Mall and left the President’s House Site covered in snow and ice.
Judge Rufe ordered the Defendants “to provide immediate, continuing, and proper maintenance to the Site, its exhibits, grounds [emphasis added], artifacts, video monitors, and recordings which SHALL remain operable.”
Dr. Carter G. Woodson launched Negro History Week in 1926 to honor African American contributions that were “overlooked, ignored, and even suppressed by the writers of history textbooks and the teachers who use them.” February was chosen because Black Americans already celebrated the birthdays of the Great Emancipator Abraham Lincoln (February 12) and the Great Orator Frederick Douglass (February 14).
One hundred years ago, to help highlight these achievements, Dr. Carter G. Woodson founded the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History. We are grateful to him today for his initiative, and we are richer for the work of his organization.
Freedom and the recognition of individual rights are what our Revolution was all about. They were ideals that inspired our fight for Independence: ideals that we have been striving to live up to ever since. Yet it took many years before these ideals became a reality for black citizens.
Fifty years later, President Donald Trump is sending a different message. Trump aggregates unto himself the authority to overlook, ignore and suppress Black history, and whitewash “what our Revolution was all about.”
Without notice to the City of Philadelphia, the National Park Service dismantled the President’s House Site which opened on December 15, 2010 after years of cooperation between the Park Service, the City and the public.
On the eve of Black History Month, a hearing was held (here and here) in federal district court on the City’s motion for a preliminary injunction to stop the suppression of the history of slavery. The City wants U.S. District Judge Cynthia M. Rufe to order the Defendants to restore the President’s House Site to its status as of January 21, 2026.
The Defendants claim “the National Park Service is the sole decision maker as to what is exhibited on its property.” They claim that President Trump has absolute authority to order the signs removed. The “administration issued the executive order that resulted in this action… The government gets to choose the message it wants to convey.”
Judge Rufe said “that’s a dangerous statement. That’s horrifying to listen to. [History] changes on the whim of someone in charge? Sorry. That’s not what we elected anybody for.”
Judge Rufe plans to inspect the displays removed from the President’s House. She also will visit the site. When she does, she will see the Park Service cleared the snow on Independence Mall and left the President’s House Site covered in snow and ice.
Judge Rufe is likely to issue her ruling in March 2026.
In the meantime, I spent the first day of Black History Month at the President’s House Site. I posted the “runaway slave” ad that Frederick Kitt, steward of the presidential household, placed in the Philadelphia Gazette & Universal Daily Advertiser offering a ten-dollar reward for the return of Oney Judge who “absconded from the household of the President of the United States.”
It was heartwarming to see the steady stream of visitors in the bitter cold and the creative forms of resistance.
As soon as the weather breaks, I plan to reserve People’s Plaza, the public square near the President’s House Site where protesting is allowed. I will set up my boombox and play protest songs. I expect the Park Service will “say my music’s too loud.”
UPDATE: On February 2, 2026, Judge Cynthia M. Rufe conducted a visual inspection of the signs removed from the President’s House Site by the National Park Service. Thirty-four panels were removed, some of which “exhibited damage.” The panels are stored in a secure location at the National Constitution Center.
“The government is ORDERED to continue to securely store all removed panels and to mitigate any further deterioration or damage.”
With respect to the Memorial, the enclosed space near the entrance to the Liberty Bell Center that is in the footprint of President Washington’s slave quarters, “no further removal and/or destruction of the President’s House site will be permitted until further order of the Court.”
President Trump likely has not read George Orwell who warned us: “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” Trump wants to control the American narrative. So on his directive, the National Park Service is acting like it’s 1984.
On January 22, 2026 – without notice to the City of Philadelphia – the National Park Service unilaterally removed artwork and interpretive panels from the President’s House Site that “tells the story of the paradox of liberty and enslavement in one home – and in a nation.” The story reflects decades of scholarly research about the nine enslaved Africans who were brought by President George Washington from Mount Vernon to work in the executive mansion.
The panels and artwork were unceremoniously tossed in the back of a pickup truck and taken to a “secure location.”
Before the signs were unloaded in the still undisclosed “secure location,” the City of Philadelphia filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
The City contends that the Department of the Interior and the National Park Service violated a 2006 cooperative agreement that “through a series of amendments, detailed the design of the President’s House Project as well as the rights and responsibilities of the parties.” According to the complaint, “the City has an equal right with the NPS under these agreements to approve the final design of the President’s House Project.”
The City asks the Court to declare that the Defendants’ removal of the artwork and interpretive signs violates the Administrative Procedure Act. The City argues the Defendants “have provided no explanation at all for their removal of the historical, educational displays at the President’s House site, let alone a reasoned one.”
The City maintains “there is no statutory or other authority for the Secretary to remove and destroy [National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom] sites after designation and doing so runs counter to the express purpose of the Administrative Procedure Act.”
The bottom line: The City seeks “An order restoring the President’s House Site to its status as of January 21, 2026.”
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro posted on X that “Donald Trump will take any opportunity to rewrite and whitewash our history. But he picked the wrong city — and he sure as hell picked the wrong Commonwealth. We learn from our history in Pennsylvania, even when it’s painful.”
Shapiro said he will file an amicus brief in support of the City’s lawsuit.
Facts are stubborn things. On May 23, 1796, Frederick Kitt, steward of the presidential household, placed an ad in the Philadelphia Gazette and Universal Daily Advertiser offering a ten dollar reward “to any person who will bring [Oney Judge] home. Oney “ABSCONDED from the household of the President of the United States” on May 21, 1796.
The National Park Service designated the President’s House a National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom site in 2022.
Trump’s attempt to alter the facts and whitewash the history of the President’s House will not stand.
One year ago this week, the billionaire owners of the Philadelphia 76ers pulled the rug out from under Mayor Cherelle L. Parker and City Council. Their proposal to construct a basketball arena atop SEPTA’s Jefferson Station was a dream for the billionaires and a nightmare for everyone else.
A year later, we don’t have answers about this debacle. The City is still fighting release of documents that I requested from the previous administration.
SEPTA was twice ordered to turn over records. Rather than comply with the orders, the cash-strapped agency continued to pay outside counsel to fight disclosure. With their back against the wall, SEPTA claimed the records were deleted.
In this new year, I will submit new RTKL requests for 76 Place records for the period of January 1, 2024 to January 14, 2025. I will keep on pushing until we get answers to how the billionaires hijacked the public policymaking process.
The Philadelphia 76ers abandoned their plan to build an arena atop SEPTA’s Jefferson Station. But SEPTA is still playing games to block disclosure of communications with the Sixers’ billionaire owners and their representatives.
SEPTA lost their appeal of the Office of Open Records’ Final Determination to the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania. The beleaguered transit agency was directed to conduct a good faith search for records responsive to my Right-To-Know Law request for, among other things, invoices, reports, feasibility studies, traffic impact studies, architectural designs and cost estimates.
In a sworn statement, Allison DeMatteo, SEPTA’s Manager of Records and Information, claimed her search using the keywords “76 Place” and “76 Devcorp” returned 7.60 gigabytes of data, including 5.71 gigabytes of email.
According to ChatGPT, one gigabyte of email data is roughly 100,000 pages. As of this writing, SEPTA has produced 30 records.
Meanwhile, the City of Philadelphia has petitioned the OOR to reconsider its final determination, dated May 30, 2025. The OOR should tell the City: We said what we said. “[T]he appeal is granted in part and denied in part, and the City is required to provide unredacted responsive records, as designated in this Final Determination, to the Requester within thirty days.”
UPDATE: Office of Open Records Deputy Chief Counsel Kathleen A. Higgins to the City of Philadelphia: The Petition is DENIED:
Therefore, after a review of the complete appeal file, including the Final Determination Upon Remand and the arguments set forth in the Petition, the record indicates that all evidence and submissions before the OOR were considered and given proper weight, and as a result, I cannot conclude that the Appeals Officer committed an error of law or an abuse of discretion. Accordingly, the Petition is DENIED.
In other words, the City of Philadelphia got to give it up.
Josh Harris, David Blitzer and David Adelman have moved on. 76 Place Facebook and X (Twitter) accounts, and website were scrubbed from the internet on January 16, 2025, less than a month after City Council caved in to the billionaires’ demands.
But the internet never forgets. 76 Place falsehoods, factoids and disinformation live on the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, including this pledge.
From Day One, the billionaires were all in for themselves. They pledge allegiance to the almighty dollar. More money is what they want.
The City of Philadelphia and SEPTA are fighting release of records related to the Sixers’ proposal to build an arena atop Jefferson Station as ordered by the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records in 2023. The city and SEPTA appealed the OOR’s final determination. Their lawyers have asked whether I want to continue to pursue my records requests. If they want to end litigation, the city and SEPTA can simply stop litigating and turn over the records.
For more than two years, Philadelphia’s misleaders gaslighted the public into believing that all that was needed for the Sixers’ half-baked proposal to become “a done deal” was the approval of enabling legislation by City Council.
It is said that common sense is not so common. Neither Mayor Cherelle L. Parker nor City Council can grant the right to build on SEPTA property. Someone on Mayor Parker’s bloated staff should have had enough common sense to ask whether SEPTA was on board with the transit-oriented development.
We now know SEPTA was not on board. Then-interim General Manager Scott Sauer’s testimony before City Council’s November 19, 2024 public hearing should have ended the nonsensical notion that 76 Place would keep the transit agency from falling off the fiscal cliff:
The reality is that SEPTA simply cannot assume these new costs within the framework of its operating budget… SEPTA cannot shoulder the burden of expanded transit costs at 76 Place which would be in addition to the existing fiscal challenges.
Mayor Parker and 12 City Council members ignored the red flags. As I wrote in an opinion piece for the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Sixers’ billionaire owners knew the Federal Transit Administration was the shot caller in the 76ers arena saga:
SEPTA received federal funding to make improvements to Jefferson Station. In order to protect the “federal interest,” changes to the use of the station must be approved by the Federal Transit Administration. In other words, federal officials call the shots.
Sixers co-owner David Adelman tacitly acknowledged the crucial role played by Washington in a social media post following City Council’s 12-5 vote: “We look forward to pursuing the remaining approvals to make 76Place a reality.”
The Philadelphia 76ers billionaire owners gamed Philadelphia’s “corrupt and contented” ecosystem. When building an arena atop SEPTA’s Jefferson Station no longer served their interest, it was game over. The 76ers are staying in South Philly with their landlord-turned-partner, Comcast Spectacor.
The team has struck a deal with Comcast Spectacor to remain in the South Philadelphia sports complex, after more than two years of heated debate over moving to a potential new arena on East Market Street.
[…]
The reversal is a stunning end to a saga that has dominated city politics for more than a year and a setback for Mayor Cherelle L. Parker and others who championed the $1.3 billion Center City proposal.
At a press conference, Mayor Parker said, “This is a curveball that none of us saw coming.” Well, I saw it coming. It was only a matter of time before the Sixers abandoned their public transit-oriented project.
The ballyhooed legislation City Council passed was little more than a zoning permit. Neither Mayor Parker nor City Council can give the billionaires the right to enter Jefferson Station. They need SEPTA’s and the Federal Transit Administration’s approval of the development project. The review process could take years.
So, the billionaires were negotiating a deal with Comcast Spectacor while Mayor Parker and City Council were carrying their water. Philly’s misleaders were not just played. In the immortal words of Malcolm X, they were had, took, hoodwinked and bamboozled.
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