Again seeking more space, the College moved in 1912 to a five-story apartment house
in the city’s Colonial neighborhood (Society Hill). Around the corner, at 410 South
9th Street, the first osteopathic hospital to be chartered in Philadelphia was also
established. Before and after the turn of the century, several other medical institutions
were nearby: Pennsylvania Hospital, the Pennsylvania Dental College and the Pennsylvania
Institute for the Deaf and Dumb.
The Pine Street building had an interesting use in 1889: a small chapel on the second floor housed a Black Catholic congregation led by Rev. Patrick McDermott, who had taken charge at the request of Mother Katharine Drexel, the Philadelphia philanthropist, nun and later saint (canonized by Pope John Paul II in 2000). McDermott’s expanded congregation would become the basis of St. Peter Claver, Philadelphia’s first Black Roman Catholic church, in 1892.
Watch the Reel for More History
Digest, the magazine for alumni and friends of Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, is published by the Office of Marketing and Communications. The magazine reports on osteopathic and other professional trends of interest to alumni of the College’s Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (DO) and graduate programs at PCOM, PCOM Georgia and PCOM South Georgia.
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