Urban Planning

Creativity in Cast Iron: Strickland Kneass’s Chestnut Street Bridge

PhillyHistoryTeam — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 16:41:11 GMT

By Christopher R. Dougherty

For Strickland Kneass (1821-1884) engineering was not about letting tradition dictate uninspired designs nor did the profession thrive in clannish fiefdoms of expertise. Trained in the era before formal engineering curricula, Kneass saw engineering as an organic profession whose rules, though important, were always secondary to imaginative solutions. In his nearly half century of work in the private sector and his seventeen years of service to the City of Philadelphia as Chief Engineer and Surveyor, as a sewer and drain expert, as a bridge builder, and as Fairmount Park Commissioner, Kneass distinguished himself as a polymath designer and organizer who deftly navigated between the shoals of tradition and innovation.

The remains of Kneass’s boldest design, a bridge whose scale and use of cast iron made it singular in the United States and throughout the world, stands ignored by hundreds of thousands of motorists, pedestrians, and joggers who pass it. A vestige of his Chestnut Street Bridge (1861-66): the eastern granite abutment and the central pier, though ignobly incorporated into the current highway overpass, still testifies to the creativity and vision of one of the city’s most talented builders.

The son of a Philadelphia engraver, Kneass attended the Rensselaer Institute, later Polytechnic Institute, when that institution began developing its own idiosyncratic approach to training civil engineers. For a young Kneass attending the Troy, NY school in the late 1830s, the curriculum—which still included geology, law, Biblical history, and surveying—was far from a dry inculcation of mathematical formulae. Despite a rigorous schedule that roused students at dawn, “there was considerable flexibility, informality, and probably even laxity in the actual operation” of the school. Students were taught to work through problems, develop their own conclusions, and report on their findings during examinations. A Rensselaer engineer, an advertisement touted, “are taught all these things (23 subjects of civil engineering) and many others, with the appropriate instruments in their hand, accompanied by short lectures of their own.”

Graduating in 1839 at the age of 18 with full honors, Kneass reaped the benefits of this diverse technological education and soon lived up to the reputation of the multifaceted Rensselaer engineer. In 1847 he assisted the Pennsylvania Railroad in laying out a portion of their Harrisburg to Pittsburgh segment. He also worked as a draftsman at the Naval Bureau of Engineering and as a topographer for the British Commission mapping the U.S.-Canadian border. Later, in 1869, he assisted James Worrall in surveying the famous 12 Mile Arc border between Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

In 1855, Kneass resigned as chief engineer for the North Pennsylvania Railroad to become Chief Engineer and Surveyor of the City of Philadelphia. He found the bureaucracy of the recently-consolidated city in shambles. He soon concentrated all the operations of the seven survey districts and standardized grade plans, weights and measures, and designs for sewerage. In 1865 he organized a Registry Bureau as the central repository for property data and building plans. All the while he made recommendations for the improvement of the city’s sewer and storm water systems.

Undoubtedly, Kneass stayed abreast of the new developments in bridge construction; he knew of popular ornamentation then in vogue in Europe and construction management methods. He probably followed the reorganization of his alma mater on the pattern of the progressive French Ecole Polytechnique. He certainly knew of the iron bridge at Colebrookdale, England over the Severn River—the often-reproduced icon of the Industrial Revolution built in 1791. Perhaps closer to home, he knew of William Strickland’s use of iron members at the Chestnut Street Theater. And he may have recalled the work of two innovative Army engineers at Dunlap’s Creek in Brownsville, Pennsylvania. There, Captain Richard Delafield and Lieutenant George W. Cass constructed the country’s first metal arch bridge in 1836 as part of the Cumberland Road.

The success of these projects, and a willingness to try new materials, may have influenced Kneass’s design for the Chestnut Street Bridge in 1857 which included an unprecedented amount of cast iron. Though it is unclear who supplied the cast iron, two features made iron attractive. One was the adaptability of the casting process. Artistically and practically, cast iron offered designers great flexibility. Bridges made of a multitude of smaller, mass-produced components could be assembled easier and were inherently safer. This, coupled with the proximity of Philadelphia’s cast iron suppliers, led Kneass to build a bridge around two sweeping 184’ arches using six cast iron ribs. Yet Kneass was no bare functionalist and his line and watercolor drawings abound with Gothic arches in stone and iron. And though Kneass was applying an untested material to a major arterial bridge, he still followed an important standard practice: overbuilding the bridge to ensure safety redundancy. Each rib, he estimated, could sustain a transient load of 486,000 lbs. Anticipating increasing traffic, Kneass wanted wider approaches—a detail the shortsighted city councils wrong-headedly vetoed as the bridge had to be widened in 1911.

Construction began in 1861 and by 1864 the center pier was completed as evidenced by the date “1864” etched into the stone shield on the central pier’s southern side. Two years later the bridge opened to the public at a cost of $500,000. For most of the latter half of the nineteenth century, the bridge remained a point of pride for American civil engineers. “As far as known, with the exception of the Chestnut-street bridge, Philadelphia,” wrote engineer Malverd Abijah Howe in 1897, “there are no cast-iron arch bridges of any magnitude in the United States.” Despite its apparent stolidity Strickland Kneass’s Chestnut Street Bridge did not last a century and it was demolished in 1958, perhaps because its massive western abutment sat right in the path of the Schuylkill Expressway.

Works Cited:

Gilchrist, Agnes. “Chestnut Street Bridge,” Historic American Engineering Survey, (Washington: National Park Service, 1958), 2.

Graff, Frederic. Obituary Notice of Strickland Kneass, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 21, No. 115. (Apr., 1884), pp. 451-455.

Howe, Malverd A. A Treatise On Arches: Designed for the Use of Engineers and Students in Technical Schools (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1897), xvii.

Rezneck, Samuel. An Education for a Technological Society: A Sesquicentennial History of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Troy: RPI, 1968).

The Olmsted Brothers' Artificial Nature: South Philadelphia's League Island (F.D.R) Park

PhillyHistoryTeam — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 15:00:00 GMT

By Christopher Dougherty

When author Christopher Morley sauntered around "the Neck" one hot summer evening in the early 20th century, to his surprise he found Philadelphians living an almost rural existence amid the marshes, ash heaps and junk yards. But Morley saw that the boggy land where the Delaware met the Schuylkill - "the canal country of South Philadelphia" - held great promise. He longed to see the "wonderful Dutch meadows of the Neck reclaimed into one of the world’s loveliest riverside parks."

Perhaps Morley knew of the city's plan for a South Philadelphia park -perhaps he did not- but as early as 1899 the New York Times was announcing with subtle hauteur that "the winning plan for the new League Island Park at Philadelphia was drawn by a New Yorker, Samuel Parsons Jr." But to the Times, the conditions of the site looked bleak: "the territory where it is proposed to lay out this park consists of 300 acres of low-lying land on the Delaware River…. Irrigation ditches, a sluggish, winding stream, and a small amount of what may be termed upland are all that at present represent the park."

Though city planners placed Parsons's design on its 1904 Plan of Park and Parkway Improvements in South Philadelphia and began laying out his design, by 1910 work had ground to a halt. Then in 1912, the city's director of public works, Morris Cooke, asked the preeminent landscape architecture firm, Olmsted Brothers, to produce designs for League Island Park, Oregon (Marconi) Plaza and the stretch of Broad Street connecting the two parks known as the Southern Boulevard. The Olmsted firm, helmed by the son and stepson of noted landscape architecture pioneer Frederick Law Olmsted, produced two plans that worked with the low lying tidal conditions of League Island's site. An earlier Olmsted plan borrowed Parson's design feature of a large plaza in the center of the park along Broad Street. Later plans omitted this formal plaza. But all three designs were not short on water.

The final Olmsted plan situated Meadow Lake and Edgewood Lake inside a ring of carefully segregated lawns, meadows, and "playsteads". While the area east of Broad Street was designed for active recreation, the western portion was to be a "landscape park." Incorporating the design features developed by their father, the Olmsted Brothers ran curvilinear paths throughout the complex of open space and water. Just like their father's Central and Prospect Parks in New York, a combination of altered topography and tree screens effectively walled off the city. The Olmsteds also sought to remake portions of Parson's design: they adjusted the drives, simplified the drainage system, and made features of the park more "natural". Thus, lawns and marsh plantings near the lakes replaced severe concrete retaining walls. (Note: some of the photos included in this essay show the retaining wall prior to demolition.) The whole effect was to create a series of well-structured, picturesque natural views and to segregate recreation spaces according to their function.

Beneath the surface, a sophisticated drainage system connected the lakes to the alluvial waters of the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. This connection allowed them to "breathe" or expand and contract depending on the tides. Portions of Hollander Creek, the "sluggish, winding stream," was banished to a viaduct and connected to the rivers.

Although the Olmsteds considered their design inalterable, League Island Park underwent substantial modifications almost as soon as it was completed in 1921. New structures were added for the Sesqui-Centennial of 1926 and the original boathouse on Edgewood Lake was converted into a Russian Tea House. The John Morton Memorial Building, now known as the American Swedish Historical Museum was added north of Edgewood Lake in 1926. Other portions of the Olmsted design have been irrevocably obliterated. The decision to construct a municipal stadium on the recreation space land to the east of Broad Street ensured that this part of the park would forever be a stadium complex. A golf course, added in 1940 in response to changing recreational tastes, removed the western portion of the Park. By the late 1940s, even the Park's name had changed to honor America's Depression-era and wartime leader. And although the encroachment of I-95 appears the most grievous assault on the park; its looming presence has given an unmistakable ambiance to Philadelphia's world-class FDR skate park.

While recreational tastes may change, officials at the Fairmount Park Commission have seen the practical wisdom and natural simplicity of the Olmsteds' plan. When tidal waters began to seep up through the bottom of FDR's large concrete pool made from Meadow Lake, park landscape architects converted the pool into a natural marshland.

References:

Morley, Christopher. Travels in Philadelphia, (Philadelphia: David McKay Company, 1920), 65.

Heilprin, Angelo. Town Geology: The Lesson of the Philadelphia Rocks, (Philadelphia: Academy of Natural Sciences, 1885), 125.

"Proposed League Island Park at Philadelphia," The New York Times, 2 April 1899.

"League Island Park (F.D.R. Park) Historic District Building Inventory" (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Historical Commission, 2001), 1-6.

Fairmount Park Commission Archives.

The Schuylkill Expressway: Modern Highway or "Worst Mistake"?

PhillyHistoryTeam — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 12:00:00 GMT

By Christopher R. Dougherty

Though he later regretted his steadfast support for the intrusive road, mayor Richardson Dilworth saw the construction of the Schuylkill Expressway as a necessary component of the region's postwar transportation overhaul. To Dilworth and other transit planners, the specter of gridlocked colonial streets loomed large. As early as 1931, a regional planner had derided Philadelphia's lack of interest in the public infrastructure, calling the city a "growing child in late adolescence," or "an ailing adult . . . rotting at the core." With the Depression and World War II intervening, Philadelphia's situation was dire. In 1955, the Urban Transportation and Traffic Board, an organ created by mayor Joseph Clark to better coordinate transit infrastructure, advised the creation of an 11-county transportation authority with wide control over mass transit, parking, traffic control, buses, and transportation in the air and on water. And pro-growth citizen groups like the Greater Philadelphia Movement and the Philadelphia Citizens' Council on City Planning joined the official planners in support of a regional network of modern multi-lane limited access freeways. For the businessmen who comprised these organizations, an integrated transit and highway system would assure that center city would remain the healthy cultural and commercial core of the region. Richardson Dilworth understood what was at stake. In an editorial in the New York Herald Tribune, Dilworth portrayed the economic health of a central business district as a general barometer of regional health. "This center city," he wrote in 1958, "must serve as an effective capital to its area by providing the headquarters for industry, business, banking, hotels, merchandising, medicine, entertainment and culture."

As early as the 1930s, planners had dreamed of a woodsy, genteel parkway through the Schuylkill River Valley that would connect the then-state park at Valley Forge with Philadelphia's Fairmount Park. The parkway, limited only to automobiles, would offer an aesthetically-controlled and measured movement through the natural landscape. Yet this vision of a sedate, visually appealing drive fell to the exigencies of regional planning and traffic engineering. By 1947-48, the design favored by the Philadelphia City Planning Commission sought to interface with the state's extension of the Turnpike at King of Prussia. To the delight of civic boosters, the City Planning Commission reported in 1950 that the state had "recognized that inter-regional highways connecting industrial and consumer centers can be fully effective in building up the economic vitality of the state." Far from a leisurely parkway, the city's new highways were designed to be people movers and catalysts for growth.

Although highway construction enjoyed popular support in the postwar years, topographic conditions, funding problems, and public resistance combined to make the Schuylkill Expressway one of the nation's most idiosyncratic highways. Engineers cast the concrete ribbon through a landscape beset by natural and man-made obstacles, designing solutions that were unthinkable after standards set by the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956. Engineer Bill Allen's narrow stretch under 30th Street Station, the left-hand South Street Exit, and scant acceleration lanes are engineering curiosities which tell of the difficulty of building an urban highway on marginal space. The monumental traffic jams that formed at City Line Avenue when the first stretch of road was completed in 1949 foretold an ominous future. Clearly, the road was so attractive that "expressway" was a misnomer.

By the time the last stretch opened in 1959, Dilworth could boast of a new urban highway, the Roosevelt Expressway, and an embryonic mass transportation authority. But he could not forgive the road's blunt incursion into Fairmount Park. Truly, Fairmount Park had been irreparably changed. Gustine Lake, a large public swimming hole in East Park near Ridge Avenue and City Line Avenue Bridge had been filled in for the aptly named "Gustine Lake Interchange." Greenland Mansion in Fairmount Park stood right in the path of the Expressway - it would have sat right where the Greenland Road bridge now stands. Much sculpture was displaced and the large impervious surfaces of the road now affect the park's watersheds. And the ever present drone of traffic interrupts the stillness. Allowing the road to bisect West Park was "the worst mistake in my Administration," Dilworth later lamented.

References:

Bauman, John F., "Expressways, Public Housing and Renewal: A Blueprint for Postwar Philadelphia, 1945-1960," Pennsylvania History, Volume 57, Number 1, January 1990.

Clark Jr., Joseph S. and Dennis J. Clark, "Rally and Relapse, 1946-1968," Philadelphia: A 300-Year History. Russell F. Weigley, ed. (New York: W.W. Norton, 1982), 695-698.

Conn, Steven. Metropolitan Philadelphia: Living with the Presence of the Past (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006), 176-178.

http://www.phillyroads.com/roads/schuylkill/ (Accessed October 17, 2007).

The Broad Street Subway

PhillyHistoryTeam — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 15:00:00 GMT

By Heather Newlin

Providing around 1 million rides a day, SEPTA is an important resource in the city of Philadelphia. The man pictured in one of the accompanying photos was just one of the many involved in building a part of that transportation system, the Broad Street Subway. The photograph was taken December 14, 1925 as the unidentified man worked on the subway at Broad and Master Streets.

Work began on the line in 1924. In the four years it took to build the initial section of the subway, enough dirt was excavated to theoretically create, as another photo (also pictured) illustrated, a column 220 feet square and 2280 feet high. The Broad Street line eventually opened for service on September 1, 1928. On this new subway, riders could travel between City Hall and Olney Avenue. Round trip fare, at this time, was only 15 cents.

Several years later, service on the Broad Street Subway was extended farther south. By 1930, riders could travel as far south as South Street, and by 1938 this was extended to Snyder Avenue. Expansion then continued to the north, with the Fern Rock stop being added in the 1950s. Finally, in 1973 the line was extended again to the south to run to Pattison Avenue, completing the line that exists today.

References:

2005. Broad Street Subway. http://www.septa.org/inside/history/bsl.html (accessed 8 March 2006).

Darlington, Peggy, John Jones, George Metz, and Bob Wright. 2005. SEPTA Broad Street Subway. http://world.nycsubway.org/us/phila/broadstreet.html (accessed 8 March 2006).

WHYY. "SEPTA. " Secrets Beneath the Streets. http://www.whyy.org/tv12/secrets/subway.html. (accessed 4 January 2007).

Driveway to the Arts

PhillyHistoryTeam — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 12:00:00 GMT

By Heather Newlin

Cutting diagonally across William Penn's original grid-like plan for Philadelphia's streets, the Benjamin Franklin Parkway is center city's connection to recreation and cultural resources.

When planners first entertained the idea of building a parkway through the city, this street was intended to be a direct and interesting link between City Hall and the Art Museum. It would be at the same time an enjoyable drive down a wide grass and tree lined street as well as a quick way to escape the congestion of the city. Drivers could use this road to take in the healthy fresh air of Fairmount Park (interestingly, the parkway is a part of the Fairmount Park system), to view art, or later to peruse the holdings of the Free Library.

Originally, the parkway was expected to be lined with large civic buildings and centers of education, much like Paris' Champs d'Elysee. Some even went so far as expecting to one day have new campuses for Temple University and the University of Pennsylvania lining this new thoroughfare. However, this did not happen.

Construction began on the Parkway in 1917 following the plans of urban Planner Jacqués Gerber, who went on to become the chief architect and planner for the 1937 World Exposition in Paris. The parkway was completed in 1926.

Eventually more impressive buildings were added to the path of recreation, education and culture created by the parkway. The Free Library opened its doors at its current location along it in 1927, followed by the Franklin Institute's move from its location on 7th street (now home to the Atwater Kent Museum) to its current site on the parkway at 20th street in 1934.

References:

Fairmount Park. "Benjamin Franklin Parkway." http://www.fairmountpark.org/BenFranklinParkway.asp (accessed 20 September 2006).
National Park Service. "The Benjamin Franklin Parkway: Rehabilitating an Historic Urban Designed Landscape." http://www.cr.nps.gov/hps/hli/currents/franklinpark/ (accessed 20 September 2006).
Wikipedia. "Benjamin Franklin Parkway." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Franklin_Parkway (accessed 20 September 2006).

The Convention City

PhillyHistoryTeam — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 12:00:00 GMT

By Zach Lechner

The 2008 presidential election already looms on the horizon. In addition to selecting candidates, the two major parties must decide where to hold their nominating conventions. Although it is not in the running in 2008, Philadelphia has a strong history of welcoming presidential conventions, most recently in 2000, when the Republican Party nominated George W. Bush at the First Union Center (now the Wachovia Center). The Republicans have met in the city six times. They held their first presidential convention here in 1856. Why this strong legacy? Because of Philadelphia's overwhelming support for Democratic candidates today, it is easy to forget that Republicans dominated city politics from the mid-nineteenth century until the mid-twentieth century. The city voted for Herbert Hoover in 1932, and although Democratic support increased in response to Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal policies, voters continued to elect Republican mayors until 1952.

During this period of transition, the Republican, Democratic, and Progressive Parties held their 1948 conventions in Philadelphia. They met at Municipal Auditorium, or Convention Hall: the Republicans in June and the Democrats and the Progressives in July. The hall had last held a presidential convention in 1936, when the Democrats renominated FDR. The Art Deco-style building, located on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania, southwest of Franklin Field, was completed in 1931.

The City wooed both major parties in 1948 with donations of $200,000. The accommodations proved less than ideal; not enough hotel rooms were available, prompting approximately half of the attendees to seek lodging in college dorm rooms and private residences. Other participants had to stay as far away as Trenton and Atlantic City. Even worse, the summer of 1948 was a scorcher. One hundred eight people fell victim to heat exhaustion at the Democratic meeting.

Still, the delegates soldiered on. The active, unscripted nature of these conventions contrasts with the rubber-stamping of nominees that occurs today. Take civil rights, a major issue of contention within the Democratic Party. Minnesota's Hubert Humphrey pressed the delegation to "get out of the shadow of states' rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights" (quoted in Niemela). Southern Democrats resisted a plank calling for strong civil rights legislation and subsequently walked out. They formed the short-lived and staunchly segregationist States' Rights Democratic, or Dixiecrat, Party. Their candidate Strom Thurmond went on to carry four Deep South states.

Demonstrating the political sea change wrought by the New Deal, the Republican platform included a variety of proposals involving government aid. Republicans called for civil rights legislation, including an anti-lynching law and a measure abolishing poll taxes. They also supported an extension of Social Security benefits and federal funding for slum clearance and low-cost housing. The party nominated Thomas E. Dewey for the second election in a row. In light of a divided Democratic Party, elections expected that Dewey would coast to an easy victory. The presence of the Progressive Party, which siphoned off some of the Democrats most left-leaning constituents, looked like more bad news for the Democratic nominee Harry S. Truman.

The Progressives' Philadelphia convention showcased their emphasis on major reforms. It was an enthusiastic affair attended by delegates from ordinary backgrounds. Many of them had no previous political experience. Journalist Howard K. Smith attended the event. Observing the attendees at Convention Hall, he noted, "The throng certainly was not affluent. It included hundreds who had hitch-hiked to the convention; scores who lived in tent-towns on the convention hall parking lot" (quoted in Epstein). The Progressive Party platform promoted a broad leftist agenda, including a women's rights amendment to the Constitution, federal funding for education, the end of Jim Crow laws, and an expansive, nationwide system of Social Security, health, and unemployment insurance. Nominating Henry A. Wallace, former Secretary of Agriculture, Secretary of Commerce, and Vice-President, the Progressives also called for rapprochement with the Soviet Union, a policy that contradicted the prevailing Cold War mindset. Wallace received the endorsement of the Communist Party, prompting a smaller number of left-wing Democrats than expected to support his campaign.

The convention summer marked perhaps the most exciting period in Convention Hall's history, although fans of the 76ers and the Warriors, who played in the building before the construction of the Spectrum, may disagree. American politics has rarely been more vital and rough-and-tumble. On Election Day, Truman lost Pennsylvania but his "give 'em hell" candidacy carried 28 states, garnering 49% of the popular vote and 303 electoral votes.

References:

Epstein, Marc. J. " The Progressive Party of 1948." From Books at Iowa 16 (April 1972) http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/spec-coll/Bai/epstein.htm (accessed August 11, 2006).

"GOP Convention of 1948 in Philadelphia." USHistory.org. http://www.ushistory.org/gop/convention_1948.htm (accessed August 11, 2006).

Niemela, Jennifer. "Humphrey's Civil Rights Legacy Honored." The Minnesota Dailey Online, June 24, 1998. http://www.mndaily.com/daily/1998/06/24/news/humph/ (accessed August 11, 2006).

Further Reading

Donaldson, Gary A. Truman Defeats Dewey. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1999.

Gullan, Howard I. The Upset That Wasn't: Harry S. Truman and the Crucial Election of 1948. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1998.

Views from Center City

PhillyHistoryTeam — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 12:00:00 GMT

By Zach Lechner

As the geographic heart and Central Business District (CBD) of Philadelphia, Center City is busy hub of activity. It is bounded by South Street to the South, the Delaware River to the east, the Schuykill River to the West, and either Vine Street or Spring Garden Street (depending on whom you ask) at the North. While Center City continues to grow and transform, the following images from the past offer unique glimpses of the area's physical continuities and changes.

The first markets were held at the corner of Front and High (Market) Streets during Philadelphia's early years. The location of market houses shifted and expanded over time. One impressed traveler wrote in 1824, "The market house, which is nothing more than a roof supported by pillars and quite open to each side, begins on the banks of the Delaware, and runs more than one mile, that is eight squares in length!" (Alotta 150). This photograph, taken almost 90 years later, shows the inside of the market house at 2nd and Pine Streets.

At the City Archives, there are many photographs taken from the heights of City Hall. This spectacular shot demonstrates why, as it captures parts of Center City and Fairmount in gorgeous detail. Aside from its world-class collection, the Art Museum, of course, brings to mind Rocky, but this photo was taken many years before the first bad imitation of the fictional boxer's run up the museum steps.

Heat indexes of over 100 degrees may leave us begging for cold weather. This 1914 image, which looks north from Broad and Walnut Streets, offers a reminder that Philadelphia winters can be as equally punishing. The caption says it all: "Snowing Like Hell."

Here is a portrait of (controlled) chaos. The landscape around North Broad Street goes up in smoke in this 1913 photograph depicting a fire demonstration.

The Drake rises imposingly from its location on the 1500 block of Spruce. Built in 1929 as a luxury hotel, its 32-story structure is now restored to its former glory. It has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places and operates today as an apartment building--with a great view.

Reference:

Alotta, Robert I. Mermaids, Monasteries, Cherokees and Custer: The Stories behind Philadelphia Street Names. Chicago: Bonus Books, 1990.

The Hidden River, Part Two

PhillyHistoryTeam — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 12:00:00 GMT

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 part of Philadelphia's growth. Inland sections of the river brought coal and other goods into the city from Pennsylvania's interior. The open areas along the river's southern regions were also developed. Large oil refineries were built to service Philadelphia and beyond. Transport vessels became ubiquitous on the river. Workers filled tankers with oil along the river's banks while smoke billowed from tall smokestacks in the background. Many of the vessels crossed the Atlantic and helped supply the nations of Europe with the oil they needed to continue their own industrial growth. The Hidden River, it seemed, was not so hidden anymore.

The largest of the refineries constructed along the Schuylkill was that of the Atlantic Refining Company. Originally founded in 1866 as the Atlantic Petroleum Storage Company, the company did not come into its own until it was bought out by oil magnate John D. Rockefeller in 1874 and integrated into his Standard Oil Trust. The break-up of Standard Oil in 1911 left Atlantic on its own and in control of the oil supply for Pennsylvania and Delaware (Standard Oil of New Jersey had jurisdiction in that state). The large refinery located near the Point Breeze section of the Schuylkill became the hub of its operations.

By the time the Great Depression swept the nation in the 1930s, Atlantic had expanded west and into the field of oil production. Despite its broad corporate goals however, the company remained rooted in Philadelphia along the Schuylkill. In 1966, Atlantic merged with Richfield Oil, a California based company, to form ARCO, one of the nation's largest oil-companies. Later, after a series of mergers and spin-offs in the 1970s and 1980s, Atlantic was purchased by Sunoco, another Philadelphia-based oil company with a presence along the Schuylkill.

Today, Philadelphia is the largest oil-refining center on the eastern seaboard with seven oil refining plants producing over $100 million in petroleum and oil-based products. Yet, the legacy of industrialization, oil, and refining along the Schuylkill is mixed. Years of overuse and neglect along the river have led to dramatic environmental changes that continue to plague the river and those that inhabit the neighborhoods close to its shores. Decades of conservation efforts on the part of the city and community groups have helped restore some of the Schuylkill's lost beauty although this work is not complete. The increased presence of new, environmentally-friendly technologies within the oil industry offers hope that commerce and environment will find a way to amicably coexist along the shores of the Hidden River.

References:

Ron Chernow, Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.. New York: Vintage, 2004.

"Whatever Happened to Standard Oil?" http://www.us-highways.com/sohist.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Petroleum

http://www.oilheritage.com/history/history.htm

http://www.cbp.gov/xp/CustomsToday/2004/Dec/philadelphia.xml

The Hidden River, Part One

PhillyHistoryTeam — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 12:00:00 GMT

By Jay Wyatt

Dividing Center City and West Philadelphia, and stretching more than 100 miles into the interior of Pennsylvania, the Schuylkill River has long been an integral part of life in the Philadelphia region. Native Americans used the river as a food and water source and called it Ganshohawanee, meaning "rushing and roaring waters." Early European settlers later gave the river its current name, which means "Hidden River," because of its secluded entrance near its confluence with the Delaware River. Yet, despite its proximity to Philadelphia and the Atlantic Ocean, the Schuylkill River did not develop as a highly used port during the colonial era. The Delaware River dominated that aspect of economic life in early Philadelphia. Instead, during the nineteenth century, it was mainly used to feed the city's increasing water demands through the Fairmount Waterworks. However, as the industrial age descended upon Philadelphia, the Schuylkill emerged as a key component to the city's economy. Technological innovations in production and transportation allowed people and companies to expand into previously underutilized areas during the industrial period. As a result, Philadelphia underwent a rapid expansion westward and northward. Thus, the Schuylkill's location made it a highly attractive location for expanding businesses. In 1912, the Penn-Lippincott Publishing Company hired renowned local architect Mahlon Dickinson to design its new production facility (pictured above) along the Schuylkill at the corner of 25th Street and Locust Street. Locating the new plant along the river promised an ample supply of water for generating steam-based power and placed it within close proximity to Center City and the local rail yards. It should be no surprise that Penn-Lippincott was among the first wave of corporations to develop the Schuylkill River within Philadelphia's borders. The company was founded in 1792 when two local bookstall operators, Jacob Johnson and Benjamin Warner began publishing small texts. By the mid-nineteenth century, Penn-Lippincott had grown into one of largest publishers in the English-speaking world. Its presence, along with that of the Curtis Publishing Company, helped make Philadelphia the hub of the nation's publishing industry, a status the city held until well into the twentieth century.

The new factory (along with the monotype facility, pictured at left) drew workers to the edge of the Schuylkill. The numbers of families living in the Rittenhouse and Fitler Square neighborhoods rapidly increased. In these vibrant communities workers walked to work and, along with their families, often used the river and its banks as a source of recreation.

In keeping with the growth of the local community, the factory became both a neighborhood and city landmark. A renovation in the 1980s converted the factory into a loft-style apartment building. Now, the factory houses many students and young professionals, thereby continuing its legacy as a central part of life along the Hidden River.

References:

Remer, Rosalind. Printers and Men of Capital: Philadelphia Book Publishers in the New Republic. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000.

http://www.historiclandmarks.com

http://www.historiclandmarks.com/locustpoint/building.php

http://www.web-savvy.com/river/Schuylkill/schuylkill2.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schuylkill_River

Buying Happiness

PhillyHistoryTeam — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 12:00:00 GMT

By Heather Newlin

A pioneer in advertising, John Wanamaker opened his first store in Philadelphia in 1876. He later moved the store to the location in this photograph, the site of the old Pennsylvania Railroad Depot (seen on the right). This new store, the "Grand Depot," was the first department store in the city, and at one time also the city's largest store. It was billed as "the largest space in the world devoted to retail selling on a single floor."

Unlike the owners of other stores, Wanamaker used a great deal of advertising to gain customers. He ran ads and columns in newspapers, advertising not only the goods he had for sale, but what could be done with these goods and telling stories about where they came from.

Wanamaker's Department Store is also a famous example of the emergence of shopping as a form of entertainment. Not only could shoppers come to the store knowing exactly what they wanted, thanks to the advertisements they read, but they could also take in the shopping experience. Wanamaker's store was among the first stores to use electric lights to illuminate its interiors. Shoppers could also listen to music from the second largest organ in the world, installed during the store's 1911 expansion.

References:

"They Made America, Innovators: John Wanamaker." Public Broadcasting Service. 2004. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/theymadeamerica/whomade/wanamaker_hi.html (accessed 1 June 2006).

Schoenherr, Steven E. "Evolution of the Department Store." 11 February 2006. http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/soc/shoppingcenter4.html (accessed 1 June 2006).