At the corner of 24th and Cecil B. Moore Avenue, a vacant house sits quietly as overgrown bushes threatening to consume its side. Besides its chipped and worn condition, the original facade hasn’t changed much since its construction in the final years of the 19th century.

The house is the last standing property associated with famed African American printmaker Dox Thrash. Last month, the Historical Commission of Philadelphia added the Dox Thrash house and thirteen other properties to the city’s historic register, protecting it from dramatic alterations and destruction. Today, its interior is hollow, waiting to be remembered and restored.

Until last year, Dox Thrash was preserved for the community in an iconic mural on the side of a foreclosed house at 2442 Cecil B. Moore Avenue, a tribute to the artist who documented the lives of working-class African Americans in the early to mid-20th century. However, in November of last year, contractors hired by the U.S. Housing and Urban Development agency mistakenly covered the mural with inky black paint, erasing the public display of history.

Since then, Thrash’s legacy was preserved only through his artwork--until his house’s historic designation in June. To the community, however, the house remains a vacant hazard on a quiet block.

James McCain works at the Cecil B. Moore branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia, a neighbor to the Dox Thrash house. McCain was unaware of the new historic designation, which didn’t change the house’s vacant status.

“It’s not being used so it’s still no different than any other abandoned building,” McCain said.

Abandoned buildings plague neighborhoods by attracting crime, vandalism, and animals among other hazards, providing nothing but eyesores that could otherwise be businesses or residences. North Central Philadelphia’s percentage of vacant buildings is three times the city’s, according to the University of Pennsylvania Cartographic Modeling Lab. More than one in six buildings in North Central Philadelphia are vacant.

The Preservation Alliance, who submitted the nomination for the house’s historic designation in October of last year, recommended that the house be rehabilitated as an arts facility or community center, “to help rekindle the artist’s vision of a dynamic creative community in North Philadelphia.”

McCain said that the fate of the house should be determined by life-long residents who, much like the house itself, have seen the neighborhood change over time.

“I’m a part of the community but you have some people who’ve been around here a long time,” McCain explained. “I think they can best speak to what this building should be used for.”

“If it’s historical it should be preserved--for the rest of the community,” he concluded.

Tim Johnson, a resident of the 2400 block of Cecil B. Moore, expressed concern that as the area developed further, the community would lose architecturally significant houses.

Born and raise in the neighborhood, Johnson recalled that the Thrash house was once a store that sold incense before it was left vacant around 15 years ago.

“It needs to be restored,” Johnson said with finality, as if there were no other option.

And now there isn’t. While the house’s use is uncertain, its historic designation will ensure that it continues to occupy its corner, just as it has for over a century. Like Thrash, the house tells a story of change in the neighborhood, with the future left up to the present.

For more on Dox Thrash, visit the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s online exhibit Dox Thrash: Revealed.