Temple Landed On Me. I Didn't Land On Temple

An Update On Barber's Hall

- Thera Martin

My column today is dedicated to telling the story of the historic Barber's Hall located at 1402 W. Oxford Street in the heart of North Philadelphia. The building, built in 1893, the same year as the historic Philadelphia on North Broad Street, is engulfed Metropolitan by the campus of Temple University.

Back in 1949, Black Barbers in Philadelphia were so well organized that they put their money together and purchased the structure at 1402 W. Oxford Street, and that's when it got the name "Barber's Hall." The Black Barbers organization owned the property until 1978. By that time, the original members of the Black Barbers group had all become older men-- some had passed, and the remaining members knew it was time for them to sell the building.

As the story goes, the Black Barbers had two stipulations in their decision as to whom they would sell the building to: 1) They wanted the new owner to be a Black business owner, and 2) they wanted the new owner to agree to keep the name of the building Barber's Hall.

Jake Adams fit the bill--he agreed to what the Black Barbers organization was asking of him and became the new owner of Barber's Hall. However, there was another challenge back in 1978. Jake Adams couldn't find a bank that would give him a mortgage to make the deal a reality in the purchase. The Black Barbers organization put their money together so that he could get a mortgage on the property. The Black Barbers took the mortgage. They said, "You can pay us, and we'll be your mortgage company," said Adams.

"After my brother and I purchased the building in 1978, "Jake Adams said, "We renovated the building.