The Thunderbird crew pulled out dozens of letterpress printing trays full of block letters in dozens of fonts, a room full of anatomical drawing models, and a literal ton of aluminum printing plates. In the woodshop, they hope to retrieve several drill presses and a woodworker’s jointer table, if they can figure out how to get them out.
Thunderbird Salvage has cleaned out countless homes in Philadelphia and a few high-profile buildings, such as the Bok Building in South Philadelphia and the personal mansion of Father Divine in North Philadelphia.
In the coming months, Thunderbird will also be clearing out Hamilton Hall, another UArts building across the street from Anderson Hall that was sold to the redevelopment group Scout. Mathes expects to find another trove of left-behind art there.