I get it. There's the ginormous gap between the NY and DC temples. There's also a ginormous gap in the amount of Mormons between NY and DC.

So, NJ, DE, and PA mormons get to go to Philly to do silly stuff.

You know where the majority of Mormons are in Philadelphia? They are students at Penn! That's it. That's the only ward house I've seen in Philly. That. Is. It. I'm sure they're are some in like Scranton or something, but this situation is ridiculous fucking ish.

There are wards in Scranton, Honesdale, Montrose, several in Allentown area, Hazelton, Reading, Bloomsburg etc and so on. More than enough to support a McTemple, or even a Venti Temple in Philly. Plus there are wards in Philly suburbs, if not downtown.

The amazing places for temples are Bismarck, ND, and Winnipeg, MB. The entire temple district for Winnipeg consists of about 5 wards and 6 branches iirc. some of the branches are 500 miles away (Thompson MB, for instance).

More than enough MoMos floating around the Delaware and Susquehanna valleys to justify a temple. OK, on another level, there is never a justification for a temple, but that's another thread.

There are five stakes in New Jersey, but most of them are much closer to New York City than Philadelphia. The one in Cherry Hill is quite close to Philadelphia, but that's it. (And I'd be surprised if the "stake" in Cherry Hill has more than a branch's worth of members.)

Personally, I think the LDS Church is building a temple in Philadelphia for two reasons, and neither has to do with serving local members. First, they want it as a enormous white billboard advertising their religion. Second, they are building it as an excuse for their large land purchase in the city, with the real reason for the purchase being the for-profit apartment building that's also being constructed.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/14/2014 07:11AM by mysid.

"(And I'd be surprised if the "stake" in Cherry Hill has more than a branch's worth of members.)"

How many are in a Stake and Branch?

isn't a stake, the 2 or 3 shifts of mormons that attend the same chapel/church and the Branch is a few of these churches in a given area?

Stake is a group of wards, each ward is a single congregation. A stake is usually made up of around 7 wards, give or take, depending on the area. A ward used to try and have less than 300 active members, and then it would split. I suspect this has relaxed, and now they are splitting earlier to keep the growth illusion alive. A branch is a ward that doesn't have enough penises in the pews in order to be considered a full fledged congregation. It has nothing to do with size of the congregation, and everything to do with the penis count. I have no idea how many it takes, I think it is done on a regional basis, but I haven't seen official data.

So they are building a for profit apt. building too? Wow.Is that to entice people to move to Philly to make the area grow with more Mormons. Well, good luck with that. I am from PA originally and it is just not a place that engages in "silly stuff" as you put it. There are many small towns in the state - in fact more than any other state. In all the smaller towns, etc. the people are very family oriented. BUT never would they shun a family member who did not join THEIR religious group. Never would they keep family who were not like them away from a wedding. And undies....don't get me started.

Oh and that LDS Temple someone showed is just plain UGLY!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/15/2014 10:27AM by honestone.

two of every hundred Americans have been identified as Mormon ... somehow, by someone, at some point in their lives! Worldwide, it's two of every thousand!! Of course, some of these people may be dead, and some of them are embarrassed. But you don't have to be all negative Nellie about it.

Love,
Negative Nellie :-P

This temple and now the new commercial property... I feel like someone is putting a garbage dump in my playground.

I've been wondering if maybe they decided to build this complex instead of the temple.

The idea of a whole building full of Mormons seems weird to me, outside of Utah. I'd walk by it and get that creepy flashback thing that I get.

this fug thing: http://www.ldschurchtemples.com/philadelphia/construction/

But until yesterday, I didn't know about the apartments and the retail stuff. I knew that they had bought two properties and were trying to buy another. One was that contaminated parking lot down the street from The Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of Pennsylvania: http://www.pagrandlodge.org/

The other is the site of the Shite and Fallacious Building.

The last one was land adjacent to Shite T. The last time I was following the land grabs (and they are - I think the apts., etc. will get a tax abatement of close to 30 years if that parcel is deemed a redevelopment zone), was when the purchase of the last parcel was still in the works. It was supposed to be a parking lot for Fug T, BUT now that the Fug T has underground parking -- I guess it's being used for commercial purposes. HAHAHAHAHA! Everything they're building is for commercial purposes, but, whatever.

Here's the deal: No money whatsoever will make into the city's coffers except for the grease-the-wheels "donation" made to public schools. I think it was $300K, but I'm too lazy to check. The only way I can see anything positive coming out of all of this is if people stay at The Four Seasons across the circle from Fuggish Temple, and I don't think that's going to happen.

Philly is poor. Our schools are in bad shape. Twenty-four have been closed not because of lack of students but because, well, this explains the crap position Philly students are in: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/11/education/philadelphia-school-chief-faces-down-budget-cuts-and-crises.html?hpw&rref=us&_r=0

:-(



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 02/15/2014 12:50AM by Beth.

Four thousand workers! JoSmithCo could afford to fix that. And you'd think they'd want to, while expecting to add a bunch of their members to that school district.

I'm also wondering about the cost estimate of $120M compared to at least $1.5B on City Creek. Is it really that much smaller, or are they just taking advantage of a depressed area, hoping to mormonize and revitalize it at the same time? OMG, the bragging will be insufferable.

I've lived in the NW 'burbs of Philly for 25 years and grew up in NE PA. There's a ward in Pottstown and one in Audubon (they would be about 20 miles apart) and the only way I knew that was checking LDS.org. They have ZERO visibility here. Atheist/freethinker groups are more well-known though their visibility is also quite small.

DH & I are involved in a tutoring/mentoring program for at-risk kids that is based out of her Christian school in Pottstown. There's also a weekly soup kitchen that is held there. Both programs are supported by a number of area churches. Is the LDS church one of those? Nyet, nein, no.

A couple of months ago, there was a thread about missionary blogs and I found one for a female missionary who was posted to the Pottsville branch, which is the area I'm from. It was a hoot to read because the only folks that showed any interest were the poor, the lonely and the odd. And the culture shock for a kid from Utah was priceless. They're not going to find new, long-term members to sustain the branch. Being a Mormon is too much work compared with being a Catholic or Protestant church member.

I am willing to bet that most of the active Mormons in the Philadelphia/SE PA/SJ area are transplants from the Morridor.


*** Forgot to add - the NW suburbs where I live are growing fairly rapidly and are a hotbed for church plantings. You'd think that if the LDS message were worth hearing, they'd have more success in a religiously receptive area like mine.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/14/2014 11:31AM by janebond462.

Out of curiosity, anyone here from South Jersey? Cherry Hill NJ stake???

I grew up in South Jersey. In fact, it's where my family joined the Morg years ago.

The population of the members there isn't what it once was.

When we joined we were in one ward, that split into two, then wound up being combined probably fifteen years after the fact. It seems that were there were meeting houses that had two wards meeting, now seem to be back down to one ward. So the herd is thinning.

This is just wrong!!!!

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700165125/Vais-View-Planting-seeds-of-faith-in-the-Sacred-Grove.html?pg=all

nevermo1 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> This is just wrong!!!!
>
> http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700165125/Vais-
> View-Planting-seeds-of-faith-in-the-Sacred-Grove.h
> tml?pg=all

I thought we would eventually see a Vai Sikahema connection in this discussion. Sikahema, former NFL special teams player and uncle-by-marriage to Jon Heder of "Napoleon Dynamite" fame, was the author of the article linked above, He's now the president of the Cherry Hill NJ stake.

My only connection to Sikahema was that his late father-in-law, Dr. Heder, was the only MD between Hauula and Kahuku. My mom thought Dr. Heder was a lousy doctor, so she drove us all the way into Honolulu for medical care.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/15/2014 12:56PM by scmd.

Not alot of mos in Delaware. My sister has been teaching courses in world religion for various colleges/universities in the newark, Del. area for nearly 15 years. She didnt include moism as a world religion until 8 years ago until I started telling her of all the weird sheet. I was interested in moism due to losing a roommate to an RM, and mo coworkers at Dept of Energy in germantown, MD. Once my sister realized the psycho bizzaro entertainment value, she started teaching about moism. She had one student who admitted to being lds in that time.

Beth, carry on with your complaining. Everyone needs a good rant, now and then!

Lesson in PA/NJ/DE Funny Speak. Newark, DE is pronounced "newARK," and Newark, NJ is pronounced "NEWerk."

Gotta schlep to work, but I love you guys. Yah. 'Tis true.

It looks like the church is targeting the baby boomers with a temple and a place to live and shop. Location is just PR (fixing a poor area) and central to the area of retiring members.

It all looks a lot like city creek? A temple, housing and shopping.

Whether or not there are enough members around does not matter. Temples are for laundering money, not serving people.

When I was a kid, Cherry Hill was one of those legendary places where LDS Inc was apparently growing like crazy. They were in a different mission, so it was hearsay, not first-hand, but still, ...

Mormon hot spots were Cherry Hill, wherever Bell Labs was (I should know that, but am drawing a blank - Murray Hill?), Boston, because of all the grad students and engineers, White Plains (IBM), Schenectady (Kodak and GE), and suburban Washington, D.C., because of the Marriotts, CIA, FBI, and government employment in general.

Even back in the 1960s, most LDS growth was fueled by LDS move-ins from the west, job transfers.

Smaller cities struggled, and growth was glacially slow. I still hear from TBMs in NE PA, and they are claiming wards in Allentown, Wilkes-Barre and Scranton are growing like crazy, using overflow seating in the cultural hall.

I find that hard to believe. Maybe next time I am back there, I should go to church to see what's happening. Sociology research. :) I still imagine it is move-ins from BYU coming for jobs.

I think the Tastycake and Breyers factories are open. Maybe. Dr. J bought a Coca Cola bottling plant (IIRC) and we still have some oil refineries going with a shitton of NIMBY.

Comcast and pharmaceutical Co.s run the Delaware Valley.

Cherry Hill was pretty tony when I was growing up.

Oh, and all of the colleges in the DE Valley help keep people in the city, but no one in govt cared until a Penn student was killed. So, Univeristy City has a greater police presence than most other places. I grew up in that area. I loved it.

Camden has serious problems, but Chester, PA, right next to Swathmore, has the highest rate of violent crime per capita.

(I'm bouncing along on the bus. Please ignore typos. Thx!)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/15/2014 11:00AM by Beth.

I was inconsolable about the temple in Philly, too. Until I realized that someday it will be a museum.

Maybe it'll cost $20/ticket to see an example of the silly temple ordinances played out. Maybe the celestial room will have an exhibition about pioneers on the western frontier, or "Fraud: the intersection of god and money".

It's a slice of Americana, weird as it is, and maybe, perfectly placed as a monument to change.

It will definitely be on par with some of the strange and ghastly architecture and art (George Washington and Ben Franklin in a toga...). Do you think it's more or less bizarre than the Mutter Museum?

Philadelphia freedom... Damn I love this town!

The temple as a museum? Sounds good to me.

Say hi to Devon for me.

My husband did his schooling in Philly a few years ago. Most of the members in our ward were students as well, mostly transplants from Utah and other western states. There were tons of Dental/Medical students in the Audobon area, NW Philly where we were (Roxborough), some downtown (Wharton students) & some in the NE. They even built a new chapel while we were there. We had to go to the NE building while it was being built. I can't remember name of street it was on. It was a rough area.

I think the person hit the nail on the head who suggested the temple and chapel are just a disguise for what they really wanted...the prime land close to Center City to put their for-profit apt. building.

My parents with three young children were golden converts in the Philly area in the 1960s.
We met in the Media Women's Club building.
We've all since moved away.
The church was growing back then, and my parents gave generously to all the building funds.

I lived in Pottstown, eastern PA when I went to middle school. I was the only Mormon kid in the school. At that time, Pottstown had only one branch, which was run by my father. It was a sorry mess.

Speaking of Delaware, my in-laws moved to Magnolia, just outside Dover AFB, a few years ago. First time we go to visit, as we turn off Route 10 what do I see but an "adopt-a-road" sign from the local ward of the Morg. I've passed the unassuming bldg which is on a stretch of the road with other, much larger and seemingly more active/populated, churches. I suspect most of those members are probably military at the air force base.

Center City Philly is having a residential renaissance the past 10 yrs or so. So those apts will be a financial boon to the Morg. Lots of empty nesters moving to condos in the city and recent college grads are staying in the city too.

At least until they have kids and they realize that the public schools are crap & municipal services blow. Move out of the city and they'll get a defacto 3-4% pay raise by not paying Philly's 4% wage tax.