Divine Lorraine Hotel

The Divine Lorraine Hotel, also known as the Lorraine Apartments, stands at the corner of Broad Street and Fairmount Avenue in North Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Designed by architect Willis G. Hale and built between 1892 and 1894, the building originally functioned as apartments, housing some of Philadelphia's wealthy residents. Lorraine Apartments was one of the most luxurious and best preserved late 19th-century apartment houses in Philadelphia. In 1900 the building became the Lorraine Hotel when the Metropolitan Hotel Company purchased the apartments. Later it would become the first hotel in Philadelphia to be racially integrated under Father Divine.

The hotel was abandoned and deteriorated, with graffiti all over the walls, broken windows, and crumbling stone. On September 16, 2015, a massive renovation project was begun, one of the City of Philadelphia's massive reconstruction projects between 2015-2035.

Early history

Both the location of the building and the architecture itself reflect the changes that were occurring rapidly in the city of Philadelphia and in the country at the time. North Philadelphia of the 1880s attracted many of the city's nouveau-riche, those individuals who became wealthy as a result of the industrial revolution. The Lorraine was a place of luxurious living, providing apartments with new amenities such as electricity. In addition, the building boasted its own staff, eliminating the need for residents to have private servants. There was also a central kitchen from which meals were delivered to residents.

Divinity

In religious terms, divinity or godhead is the state of things that come from a supernatural power or deity, such as a god, supreme being, Creator-God or spirits, and are therefore regarded as sacred and holy. Such things are regarded as "divine" due to their transcendental origins, and/or because their attributes or qualities are superior or supreme relative to things of the Earth. Divine things are regarded as eternal and based in truth, while material things are regarded as ephemeral and based in illusion. Such things that may qualify as "divine" are apparitions, visions, prophecies, miracles, and in some views also the soul, or more general things like resurrection, immortality, grace, and salvation. Otherwise what is or is not divine may be loosely defined, as it is used by different belief systems.

The root of the word "divine" is literally "godly" (from the Latin deus, cf. Dyaus, closely related to Greek zeus, div in Persian and deva in Sanskrit), but the use varies significantly depending on which deity is being discussed. This article outlines the major distinctions in the conventional use of the terms.

Lorraine

Lorraine (French pronunciation: ​[lɔʁɛn]; Lorrain: Louréne; Lorraine Franconian: Lottringe; German:  Lothringen ; Luxembourgish: Loutrengen) is a cultural and historical region in north-eastern France, now located in the administrative region of Alsace-Champagne-Ardenne-Lorraine. Lorraine's name stems from the medieval kingdom of Lotharingia, which in turn was named for either Emperor Lothair I or King Lothair II. It became later the Duchy of Lorraine before it was annexed to France in 1766.

From 1982 until January 2016, Lorraine was an administrative region of France, when it became part of the new region Alsace-Champagne-Ardenne-Lorraine. As a region in modern France, Lorraine consisted of the four departments Meurthe-et-Moselle, Meuse, Moselle and Vosges, containing 2,337 communes. The regional prefecture was Metz, although the largest metropolitan area of Lorraine is Nancy.

Lorraine makes up nearly half of France's border with Germany, and also borders Belgium and Luxembourg. Its inhabitants are called "Lorrains" in French and number about 2,356,000.

North Broad (SEPTA station)

North Broad (known as North Broad Street until 1992) is a SEPTA Regional Rail station at 2601 North Broad Street (PA 611) south of Lehigh Avenue along the SEPTA Main Line, in the Cecil B. Moore section of Lower North Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Unlike most stations, such as Wayne Junction, only the Lansdale/Doylestown Line and Manayunk/Norristown Line serve this station, while most trains pass by the station. The station has low-level platforms on the outside tracks, with "mini-high" platforms for wheelchair and ADA accessibility.

North Broad Station is within a few blocks of the North Philadelphia SEPTA-Amtrak station (formerly belonging to the Pennsylvania Railroad), which serves Amtrak's Keystone Service and Northeast Regional and SEPTA's Trenton and Chestnut Hill West Lines, and the North Philadelphia subway station on SEPTA's Broad Street Line.

History

North Broad Street Station replaced an earlier Reading Railroad station, named Huntingdon Avenue, on the same site in 1929. The historic station building on Broad Street, closed and sold by the Reading in the early 1960s, is now in use by a different occupant and is sealed off from the platforms, although the name engraved on the building ("North Broad Street Station") remains.

Broad Street

Broad Street may refer to several streets around the world.

In the United Kingdom:

In the United States:

Elsewhere:

See also