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Back to Nature
By Heather Newlin
Founded in 1855, Fairmount Park was created by the City Council in an effort to protect both the Philadelphia's water supply and the general health of the people. Several epidemics across the city, including an outbreak of yellow fever in the 1790s, prompted this interest in protecting municipal drinking water. In addition, rising pollution from factories and industry endangered the waterways.
As time passed, the park grew both in size and in popularity as a recreation spot. The park, like many of the Victorian era, was intended to be a quiet area for relaxation...
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The Hidden River, Part Two
By Jay Wyatt
In the early decades of the twentieth century, Philadelphia matured into a fully-grown industrial city. Awash in new office buildings, new factories, new neighborhoods, and new citizens, the city underwent a dramatic transformation. Immigrant newspapers proliferated. South Philadelphia developed into an enclave for Italian immigrants. German immigrants headed into North Philadelphia and Germantown. And many middle-class workers capitalized on their newfound economic stability and headed across the Schuylkill River. There they made West Philadelphia the city's first true suburb.
As the largest tributary of the Delaware River, the Schuylkill River was an integral...
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Fires, Fights and Benjamin Franklin: Philadelphia's Volunteer Firemen, Part One
By Spencer Willig
"The alarm of fire being given
Onward we did go
Their house we broke, and their engine took
And beat their members also."
(From "The Franklin Hose Song," c. 1850)
Tracing their roots back to a proud roster of founding fathers and fires fought, the volunteer fire companies that preceded the establishment of the Philadelphia Fire Department combined the best and worst traits of the city they served. Community-minded, innovative and tough, Philadelphia's amateur firemen also earned a reputation for brawling, boozing and bitter rivalry equal to anything ever reported to...
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I Remember Arch Street
By Ron Kushnier
Picture, if you will, walking down a street in Center City Philadelphia; and lining both sides, as far as you can see, are nothing but stores packed full of electronics goodies. A mere fantasy you say? Not really. Because such was Arch Street in the late Nineteen Fifties and early Sixties, as I remember it.
"Radio Row", as it was called, started around 12th Street with Herbach & Rademan, or H&R as it was fondly known. The company still exists today on Erie Ave (actually Moorestown NJ, now), and features as it...