Despite two investigations into the circumstances of the event, the effects of the 1985 MOVE fire still resonate on Osage Avenue and with MOVE members today.
On May 13, 1985, after three years of nuisance complaints from MOVE’s Osage Avenue neighbors, a confrontation between MOVE and the Philadelphia Police ended in arguably the most traumatizing event in Philadelphia’s history.
From 1973 to 1978, members of MOVE adopted a radically alternative, anti-technology lifestyle and displayed a political militancy that provoked a devastating assault by the Philadelphia police on the organization’s Powelton Village headquarters.
Shoddily built by a corrupt contractor, the replacements for homes destroyed in the 1985 MOVE bombing have been a source of controversy for Philadelphia.
MOVE members brandishing guns on the porch of the barricaded Powelton Village house in May 1977. The display was non-violent bravado and Mayor Frank Rizzo's police did not press the issue.
MOVE demonstrators marched to City Hall in August 1979 to protest the imprisionment of members charged with murdering a police officer during a confrontation in Powelton Village the previous year.
