Categories
Historic Sites

As Long as the Creeks and Rivers Run: Traces of the Lenni Lenape – Part II: Along the Schuylkill

By Shawn Evans, Atkin Olshin Schade Architects

Part I of this tour traced Lenni Lenape places along the Delaware River. The tour continues up the Schuylkill River.

One of the largest Lenape settlements was located on the eastern shore of the Schuylkill, just north of the Delaware. Numerous spellings of this area have been recorded, among them Pachsegink and Pachsegonk, meaning “in the valley.” i Now an industrial area along the riverbanks, Passyunk survives in name as one of the diagonal roads that cut through the city grid. Frequently referred to an “Indian trail,” a portion of the street east of Broad (seen here in 1946) has recently been rebranded with large cast Indian head medallions set into the sidewalk. Historical photographs of the League Island Park (now FDR Park) prior to its re-grading by the Olmsted Brothers in 1914 provide views of how this part of town may have appeared during Lenape inhabitation.

Across the river from Passyunk was Kingsessing, the Lenape name for the land between the Schuylkill River and Cobbs Creek. Kingessing is derived from Chingsessing, meaning “a place where there is a meadow.” ii A Lenape village known as Arronemink, alternatively spelled “Aroenameck,” “Arronemink,” and “Arromink,” was located at the mouth of Mill Creek, which flowed into the Schuylkill just south of the Woodlands Cemetery. A post on the Woodland Indians Forum identified a possible meaning of Arronemink as “place where the fish cease,” a possible reference to natural falls in this area.iii Coaquannock, “grove of tall pines” was a Lenape settlement north of Center City on the east bank of the Schuylkill.iv


The next village up the Schuylkill was Nittabakonk, “place of the warrior.” v Located on the east bank of the river, just south of the Wissahickon Creek, this area is now known as East Falls. There are no falls in the river in the vicinity any longer, as the 1822 construction of the Fairmount Dam substantially raised the water level in this area. This part of the river was known to the Lenape as Ganshewahanna, meaning “noisy water.” vi This 1910 photo of the City Line Bridge shows the water after they were quieted.

The Wissahickon creek retains its Lenape name. The Anglicized spelling is believed to be derived from Wisameckhan, meaning “catfish stream.” vii The Wissahickon Valley Park is among the best places in Philadelphia to see a largely unaltered natural landscape. A variety of bridges span the creek, including smaller bridges for pedestrians accessible within the park, as well as large engineering marvels like the Henry Avenue Bridge that connects opposite hillsides and communities not visible within the park. A statue of a Lenape warrior, carved in 1902 by John Massey Rhind, kneels on a cliff overlooking the Creek near Rex Avenue.viii

Perhaps the place name most associated today with the Lenape is Manayunk. This Lenape word simply means river, literally “place where we go to drink,” and does not specifically refer to the Schuylkill River or any particular place on its banks.ix As with most Lenape place names, several spellings have been utilized including Mëneyung, Meneiunk, and Manaiung. The last of these spellings is used in the correspondence between William Penn and the Lenape. Manayunk was selected as the name for this growing neighborhood in 1824.x Manayunk remains a place to drink, although no longer from the river itself.

The 1682 Treaty of Friendship was forged in Shackamaxon (see Part I) with the assumption that the rivers and creeks of Philadelphia would always run – this would of course not be the case.xi In 1737, the Lenape were tricked by William Penn’s sons into relocating to nearby river valleys and were eventually forced by the federal government to relocate to Oklahoma.xii Two federally recognized tribes of Lenape remain in Oklahoma today, the Delaware Nation (aka Western Delaware) and the Delaware Tribe of Indians (aka Eastern Delaware) with populations of 1,422 and 10,529 respectively. The Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania, a community of Native Americans in the Lehigh Valley is not federally recognized but is actively reviving their language and culture.xiii The exhibit, “Fulfilling the Prophecy: the Past and Present of the Lenape in Pennsylvania,” on display through 2011 at the Penn Museum presents the story of the Lenape who managed to stay behind during the forced migrations.xiv The Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania is currently seeking state recognition and a new Treaty of Friendship is collecting signatures.



References:

[i] Cotter, John L., Daniel G. Roberts, and Michael Parrington. The Buried Past: An Archaeological History of Philadelphia. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992, p.28.

[ii] Mary Maples Dunn and Richard S. Dunn. “The Founding, 1681-1701.” In Philadelphia: A 300-Year History. ed. Russell F. Weigley. New York: W.W. Norton Co., 1982, p.4.

[iii] “Arronimink.” Woodland Indians Forum. http://woodlandindians.org/forums/viewtopic.php?pid=18959, accessed 6/23/2010.

[iv] Cotter, p.27.

[v] Cotter, p.27.

[vi] “A History of East Falls.” Preserve Philadelphia Website. http://www.preservephiladelphia.org/neighborhood/detail.php?nh=68, accessed 6/23/2010.

[vii] Cotter, p.29.

[viii] Friends of Wissahickon website, http://www.fow.org/sstatue.php, accessed 6/23/2010.

[ix] Cotter, p.29.

[x] “Plan Philly: Main Street Manyunk,” http://planphilly.com/main-street-manayunk, accessed 6/23/2010.

[xi] See Philly H2O: The History of Philadelphia’s Watersheds. http://www.phillyh2o.org/, accessed 6/23/2010.

[xii] Delaware Tribe website, http://www.delawaretribeofindians.nsn.us/walking_purchase.html, accessed 6/23/2010.

[xiii] Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania website, http://www.lenapenation.org/main.html, accessed 6/23/2010.

[xiv] Penn Museum website, http://www.penn.museum/current-changing-exhibits/158-fulfilling-a-prophecy-the-past-and-present-of-the-lenape-in-pennsylvania.html, accessed 6/23/2010.

Categories
Historic Sites

As Long as the Creeks and Rivers Run: Traces of the Lenni Lenape – Part I: Along the Delaware

By Shawn Evans, Atkin Olshin Schade Architects

Philadelphia’s history stretches long before the advent of photography. Our city had already passed its sesquicentennial when it was first captured in film in 1839.i The historic photos of the City Archives provide a window into the evolution of the city: here we can find beloved buildings lost to changing tastes and to the perceived needs of the automobile, as well as traces of the landscape that existed here for thousands of years prior to William Penn. Among these landscapes are remnants of the natural environment named by the Lenni Lenape who lived here before us. In many cases only the place names survive.

At 37 feet tall, William Penn, is Philadelphia’s largest citizen and visible to all. Standing at the center of an ever-changing city since 1894, he carries on a quiet conversation with the Lenni Lenape Indians, who once occupied many hamlets and campsites within the current city boundaries. Billy Penn gestures northeast towards the place now known as Penn Treaty Park, where in 1682, he met with Chief Tamanend and other indigenous leaders under a great elm tree and made the Treaty of Amity and Friendship. Famously depicted in dozens of paintings and lithographs, Penn wholeheartedly promises equal treatment, to which Chief Tamanend reportedly replied, “We will live in love with William Penn and his children as long as the creeks and rivers run, and while the sun, moon, and stars endure.” ii

The Treaty Elm was situated in an area then known as Shackamaxon. The original Swedish settlers and the English who followed adopted the Lenape name for this place, which is assumed to be derived from Schachamesink – “Place of Eels” or Sakimaucheen “Place where the Chiefs are Made.” iii Shackamaxon was one of the largest Lenape settlements, encompassing the current neighborhoods of Kensington, Fishtown, and Port Richmond. While Penn’s descendants neglected to honor the treaty, this place remains special to both Philadelphians and the Lenape. The Treaty Elm stood until 1810 when it was uprooted in a violent storm.iv As early as 1825, plans were made to memorialize the site. A monument was erected, but Penn Treaty Park did not open until 1893. Numerous descendants of the Treaty Elm have been planted at the site, most recently in May 2010, and a number of recent Lenape ceremonies have been held here.v

One mile up the Delaware River, known to the Lenni Lenape as Makerisk-kitton, meaning “the great tide-water river,” another Lenape place exists today only on street signs.vi Aramingo Avenue takes its name from the creek that emptied into the river where Aramingo meets I-95 in Kensington. In 1850 this area was incorporated as Aramingo Borough, but its self-governance was short-lived. Aramingo and all other municipalities within Philadelphia County were consolidated into the City of Philadelphia in 1854. Aramingo Creek, also known as Gunner’s Run, was converted into a canal and eventually transformed into a covered sewer.vii Aramingo is believed to be a derivation of the Lenape word, Tumanaraming, which means “wolf walk.” viii The Aramingo Canal is seen here in 1900 shortly before it was covered.

Frankford Creek, which empties into the Delaware at the foot of the Betsy Ross Bridge, was known to the Lenape as Quessinawomink. Just south of the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge was the Wissinoming Creek, another missing waterway, whose name is derived from the Lenape word, Wischanemunk meaning “Where We Are Frightened.” Although the creek is gone, the neighborhood preserves the place name.ix

North of these creeks was a Lenape settlement named Pemapaki, meaning “Lake Land.” x This settlement was likely in at the mouth of the Pennypack Creek, an Anglicized spelling of the Lenape place name. Pennypack Park was established in 1905 and retains sizable natural areas, such as depicted in this 1900 photograph of a wooden bridge at Rhawn Street. At Frankford Avenue, an historic masonry bridge crosses Pennypack Creek. Seen here during an 1893 widening, the bridge dates to 1697 and is the oldest roadway bridge in the country.xi A National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark, its original construction was directed by William Penn as a key component of the King’s Highway connecting Philadelphia to Boston. This structure was crossed by both the first generations of European settlers and last generations of Lenape prior to their relocation.

The Poquessing Creek forms the northeastern boundary of Philadelphia where it meets Bucks County. Along the mouth of this creek was a Lenape hamlet known as Poquesink, meaning “place of the mice.” xii The Glen Foerd Mansion has occupied this remarkable site since about 1850. This image shows several bridges spanning the Poquessing just west of Glen Foerd.

In South Philadelphia, one other Lenape village is known to have occupied the shores of the Delaware River within the current city limits. Now known as Queen Village, this neighborhood had previously been known as Southwark, the name given by William Penn to “New Sweden,” a small community of Swedish settlers who had arrived in 1642. The Swedes established their colony where Hollander Creek emptied into the Delaware, a place occupied by Lenape. Known to them as Wequiaquenske, a likely combination of Wiquek “head of Creek” and Kuwe “pine tree,” the name means “Place of Pine Trees at the Head of a Creek.” xiii The name has been Anglicized to Wicaco and Weccacoe. The Swedish settlers retained usage of the Lenape place name, referring to one of the first public structures erected as the Wicaco Blockhouse, seen here in its reconstructed form, adjacent to the American Historical Museum in FDR Park. This building was constructed in 1669 and demolished in 1698 to make room for Old Swede’s Church. Weccacoe carries forth as the name of a beloved neighborhood park, facing these typical Queen Village houses on the 400 block of Catherine Street.

See Part II for a tracing of Lenni Lenape places up the Schuylkill River.

References:

[i] Looney, Robert F. Old Philadelphia in Early Photographs, 1839-1914, 215 Prints from the Collection of the Free Library of Philadelphia. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1976.

[ii] Milano, Kenneth W. The History of Penn Treaty Park. Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2009, p.21.

[iii] Cotter, John L., Daniel G. Roberts, and Michael Parrington. The Buried Past: An Archaeological History of Philadelphia. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992, p.28.

[iv] Penn Treaty Museum website, www.penntreatymuseum.org, accessed 6/23/2010.

[v] Elissa Lala, “Penn Treaty Elm replanted from original’s descendant.” Philadelphia Inquirer, 8 May 2010, accessed 6/23/2010.

[vi] Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, held at Philadelphia, for Promoting Useful Knowledge. Vol. V. Philadelphia: John C. Clark, 1854, p.127.

[vii] Philly H2O: The History of Philadelphia’s Watersheds. http://www.phillyh2o.org/backpages/AraCan.htm, accessed 6/23/2010.

[viii] Cotter, p.28.

[ix] Cotter, p.29.

[x] Cotter, p.28.

[xi] Historic American Building Surveys: http://loc.gov/pictures/item/pa3584/, accessed 6/23/2010.

[xii] Cotter, p.28

[xiii] Cotter, p.28. Many sources identify the meaning of Weccacoe as “pleasant place.” See “From Weccacoe to South Philadelphia” http://www.hsp.org/default.aspx?id=1074, accessed 6/23/2010.

Categories
Neighborhoods

West Philadelphia: A Suburb in a City

When the University of Pennsylvania moved to its new campus in 1873, West Philadelphia was almost entirely rural. The University enrollment at the time was small and the student body almost entirely local. There would be no dormitories for another thirty years. Students either lived in rooming houses or commuted to campus from their parents’ homes. Each undergraduate class had fewer than 20 students. Law students spent most of their time learning on the job from partners at the prominent downtown firms, not in the classroom.

Penn’s relative calm ended in 1883, when the trustees appointed Dr. William Pepper Jr. as provost–the highest administrative position in the University. To fund professorial chairs and libraries, Pepper zealously went about asking Philadelphia’s most distinguished citizens for money. The University’s student body doubled from 1,043 to 2,680, and he also established the Wharton School of Business. So talented was Dr. Pepper at his job that the Philadelphia Times noted that “he could get donations from flinty hearted sources that were never known to give in their lives before.” i Sadly, Pepper worked himself into an early grave, retiring exhausted in 1894 and dying a few years later.ii

The physical expansion of the University from 1881 to 1900 fueled the desirability of West Philadelphia as a residential neighborhood. It was financier Clarence H. Clark who kicked up the development to the next level. Clark was one of several millionaires ensconced in family compounds just west of the new Penn campus; his block sized estate encompassed the entire 4200 block of Locust Street. His son lived down the street at 4200 Spruce. The Drexels owned several houses at the intersection of 39th and Locust, while the Potts family had a brick mansion at 3905 Spruce. Much the surrounding land remained undeveloped, described by one historian as a “crazy quilt of farms and estates, crisscrossed by free-running creeks.” iii

Seeing an opportunity to make profit from the expansion of the University, the Clarks and the Drexels commissioned prominent architects like the Hewitt brothers to design Second Empire and Queen Anne homes on lots adjacent to their estates.iv This neighborhood became known as Spruce Hill. Notable surviving examples of this housing stock are St. Mark’s Square (a small side street linking Walnut and Locust between 42nd and 43rd Streets) and an extravagant row of houses at 4206-4218 Spruce Street, complete with “fish scale” shingles and turrets. The three story rowhouses on St. Mark’s Square were popular with Penn professors.v In 1895, Clark donated a nine acre green space to the City of Philadelphia, a gesture that no doubt boosted nearby property values. Bounded by 43rd Street, 45th Street, Baltimore Avenue, and Woodland Avenue, Clark Park attracted strollers, picnickers and school children from all over the neighborhood. Its centerpiece was a life-sized bronze statue of author Charles Dickens, with a representation of Little Nell from The Old Curiosity Shop standing at the base.vi

By the 1890s, electric trolleys made the area even more attractive to commuting professionals who wanted out of congested Center City. By 1910, developers Charles Budd and George Henderson had erected a new crop of homes in a section called Cedar Park, located to the south and west of Spruce Hill.vii Cedar Park was built up more densely than comparable in-town bedroom communities like Mount Airy or Chestnut Hill. Houses on main thoroughfares were usually twins, while houses on the side streets tended to be attached. These squarish, somewhat bulky brick homes were built in a loose interpretation of the “Colonial Revival” style, although they included eclectic stylistic elements such as Spanish tiles and scalloped Flemish gables. All had front porches, as well as three-sided bay windows on the second floor. Servants’ quarters were located on the top floor, and the kitchens in the rear.

As the neighborhood expanded, large churches mushroomed at major intersections throughout Spruce Hill and Cedar Park. Most prominent was St. Francis de Sales Roman Catholic Church, designed in 1907 by Henry Dagit. Modeled on Istanbul’s Hagia Sofia, the church boasted two bell towers and a shimmering Guastavino dome that soared above the mansard roofs and chimney tops of the surrounding houses.

The MacMurtries, who lived in a colonial revival twin at 912 S.49th Street, were typical of the prosperous families that called West Philadelphia home. Dr. MacMurtrie, who purchased the house in 1921, was an obstetrician who kept an office at home. His wife reared their five children and managed the household. The MacMurtrie home was three stories high, with a finished basement that served as a playroom for the children. A maid came by every day at 7 am to prepare breakfast. During the day, she would do the family washing and cleaning and left after the evening meal. Homes were still heated by anthracite coal, and the boys of the family had to stoke the furnaces by hand.

Even during the 1920s, cars were not part of the daily lives of well-to-do West Philadelphians. The Number 70 trolley ran right in front of the MacMurtrie house, its bell clanging at each stop. “We didn’t have any garages attached to our houses,” Dr. MacMurtrie’s daughter Ann Hill remembered. “There were no cars parked on the street. Daddy left his car in a big garage on Warrington Avenue, and used it only when he made calls. Mother either took the trolley or called a taxi cab when she went into Center City.”

The MacMurtrie children did not attend the local public or parochial schools. Each morning, Ann took the trolley to Notre Dame Academy on Rittenhouse Square. Her brother Bill attended St. Joseph’s Preparatory in North Philadelphia, an even longer commute. On Sundays, the MacMurtries always attended the 8 am Mass at St. Francis de Sales. “We always walked with Mother and Daddy unless it was raining or there was a bad snowstorm,” she remembered. “There were a lot of priests there in those days. There were five curates, and the pastor was Bishop Crane.” Ann’s brother Bill MacMurtrie sang in the choir of men and boys, which was conducted by Albert Dooner, an eminent musician who counted Belgian composer César Franck among his friends.

When school was out of session, Ann, Bill and their siblings had plenty of things to do within walking distance of 912 South 49th Street. There were two movie theaters and rows of shops on 47th Street. During the hot summer months, residents pulled red-and-white striped awnings over windows and porches to keep their homes cool. Bill and his friends played touch football on tree-shaded Warrington Avenue. A police man who drove around in a little red car (their “natural enemy”) sometimes broke up these games. The boys also played basketball at the Kingsessing Recreation Center on 51st Street. In winter, Clark Park’s drained millpond (known as “The Bowl”) was popular with sledders.

In 1944, with the war raging and their children either out of school or serving in the military, Dr. and Mrs. MacMurtrie moved out of 912 S. 49th Street and purchased a more spacious home on the Main Line. Yet the long-time neighborhood obstetrician kept an office in the house for a few more years and rented out the upper floors to a young doctor and his family. His children Ann Hill and Bill MacMurtrie still have fond memories of growing up in West Philadelphia. “It was a very safe, secure environment,” Bill remembered. “It was a suburban existence even though we lived in an urban area.”

References:

[i] Clipping from unknown newspaper, Papers of Dr. William Pepper, Jr., Volume 7, p.1507. Collection of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library, University of Pennsylvania.

[ii] E. Digby Baltzell, Puritan Boston and Quaker Philadelphia (New York, New York: The Free Press, 1979), p.261.

[iii] Robert Morris Skaler, Images of America: West Philadelphia – University City to 52nd Street (Charleston, South Carolina: The Arcadia Press, 2002), p.50.

[iv] “West Philadelphia Streetcar Suburb Historic District,” Placed on the National Register of Historic Places, February 5, 1998. http://uchs.net/HistoricDistricts/wpsshd.html Accessed June 23, 2010.

[v] Robert Morris Skaler, Images of America: West Philadelphia – University City to 52nd Street (Charleston, South Carolina: The Arcadia Press, 2002), p.46.

[vi] “About Clark Park,” Friends of Clark Park http://www.clarkpark.info/AboutClarkPark.html Accessed June 22, 2010.

[vii] Robert Morris Skaler, Images of America: West Philadelphia – University City to 52nd Street (Charleston, South Carolina: The Arcadia Press, 2002), pp.59, 62.

Sources:

Interview of James Hill by Steven Ujifusa, June 23, 2010.

Interview of Bill MacMurtrie by Steven Ujifusa, June 23, 2010.

Interview of Ann Hill by Steven Ujifusa, June 22, 2010.

Categories
Neighborhoods

An Irish Village in Philadelphia: Grays Ferry

The area now known as Grays Ferry was named after George Gray, who maintained a floating bridge across the Schuylkill in the mid-18th century. He also operated a well-known pleasure garden popular with Philadelphians who, according to one guidebook, “sought a few hours’ relaxation from the cares of business; near enough to court the visits of the idler and pleasure-seeker, and abounding in facilities for rational enjoyment…”

But as the nineteenth century progressed, so did the march of industry. As the same publication lamented, “the age of utility has shorn Gray’s Gardens of its beauties, and the ‘classic stream,’ which once echoed with festivity and mirth, now re-echo to the hoarse trumpet of the locomotive.” i The once verdant banks of the Schuylkill sprouted wharfs, tanneries, and factories. Brick streets and rowhouses replaced forests and fields. By 1900, Grays Ferry was a sprawling, working class neighborhood, home to a tight-knit immigrant Irish-American community. Its unofficial boundaries were Grays Ferry Avenue and 32nd Street on the west, Moore Street on the south, and 25th Street on the east.

Nora McCarthy arrived from County Limerick, Ireland in 1909. Ten years later, she married Patrick Delargey, a wagon driver fresh from the trenches of World War I. The newly-weds purchased a rowhouse on Oakford Street and started a family. Patrick, like many men in Grays Ferry, took a job at the nearby DuPont plant. They had three daughters (Nora, Mary, Elizabeth) and one son (Jack). Tragically, Patrick Delargey died in 1932, at the nadir of the Great Depression. There was no welfare or child assistance, so Nora Delargey cleaned houses and cooked meals at a nearby convent to make ends meet. She also relied on the support of the community, which was full of friends and relations. Eventually, Nora’s family received a small stipend from the Mothers’ Assistance Program: $40 a month.

“It was a poor time but there was such a feeling of unity,” remembered her daughter Nora Schneider. “People make a big pot of soup and shared it with their neighbors. My mother got sick a few times and a neighbor would do her wash. This was a time when there were no dryers, and you had to use a wringer. Everyone knew each other’s needs.”

The Delargey house was a typical Grays Ferry rowhome–most of the neighborhood’s housing stock was constructed between 1880 and 1910. It was two bays wide, with steps leading up to the front door. The first floor consisted of a parlor, dining room, and a kitchen in the rear. A narrow staircase led to three bedrooms on the second floor. A coal-fired furnace in the kitchen heated the entire house, but not well. Boys were usually relegated to the back bedroom, which was icy in winter. Although the houses were modest in size, they were almost always well-kept. Sweeping the steps, washing the windows, and polishing the doorknobs were weekly family rituals in Grays Ferry.

Big Catholic families meant close quarters indoors, so young Nora and her friends made the streets their playground. Green spaces were few, and there were no trees shading the streets. Since money was tight, they made toys out of whatever they found. “We learned to use our minds and hands,” Schneider remembered. “We had to make our own entertainment. Kids made their own scooters and skateboards. We built snow forts in winter. We played jacks on the steps. We were proud of the things we built. It was a nice way to grow up.”

Yet dating someone from outside the neighborhood was not just taboo; it was dangerous. “If a boy wanted to take a girl out from Schuylkill,” Schneider remembered. “he’d come back from Schuylkill with a black eye and no girl.”

The years following World War II were an improvement from the bleakness of the Great Depression, but life for Grays Ferry residents was still basic. Most of the men still worked at the DuPont paint plant, which spewed waste into the river and fumes into the air. Others worked at Bond Bread, the Sun Oil storage facilities, or the slaughterhouses along the Schuylkill. After their shifts, men would gather for drinks at Tom’s Café, cheek-by-jowl with the Grays Ferry Avenue railroad tracks. Few families owned cars, relying instead on buses and trolleys to visit relatives in other parts of the city. House cleaning was still a weekly ritual. Step railings had holders where the milkman left a bottle each day. Some houses were still heated by coal and had cast-iron boot scrapers outside. A home telephone was still considered a luxury until the late 1940s. Because there were few public parks, kids still played on the streets, and fire hydrants gushed freely during the sweltering summer months. Toys were still mostly cobbled together from found objects. And although families looked out for each other, bullies and hooligans were constant menaces to Grays Ferry youth.

One place where the residents of Grays Ferry sought solace was St. Gabriel’s Roman Catholic Church at 29th and Dickinson. The massive Romanesque structure was constructed around 1900, its foundations dug and walls lofted by the young men of the community. Its polychrome nave, resplendent with marble and stained glass, was a beautiful oasis in the heart of the stark, tree-less neighborhood.

Nora Schneider’s nephews Kenneth J. Powell Jr. and Thomas Curley attended St. Gabriel’s both for church and parochial school. For young Ken Powell, church was where he picked up his lifelong love of singing. “I sang in the church choir which required about two hours of rehearsal a week and two hours on Sunday,” he remembered. Yet he was pressured by his mother and the St. Gabriel’s nuns to be an altar boy, which meant dropping choir. “I resisted because I loved to sing. I finally succumbed and became an altar boy when a nun convinced me that smart boys should serve God at the altar.”

As in Ireland, church festivals overflowed into the streets. “We went to church every day in October –the month of the Holy Rosary—and every day in May –the month dedicated to the Virgin Mary,” Powell continued. The climax of the May festivities was a neighborhood procession, “reigned over by the May Queen, usually one of the most pious eighth grade girls.” Church was a strictly formal affair, and social life in Grays Ferry revolved around the Roman Catholic liturgical calendar. Even for families on a tight budget, white gloves and polished shoes were de rigeur at Mass.

“Any holiday was a big deal,” remembered Tom Curley, whose mother Elizabeth had been May Queen in her home parish of St. Anthony’s. “You bought new clothes and planned big family celebrations and meals. You didn’t eat meat on Friday and every Saturday you had to go to Confession.”

Churches in Grays Ferry were also rigidly segregated by ethnicity. St. Gabriel’s was strictly Irish. St. Aloysius was German. King of Peace was Italian. Few Irish boys dared go to Confession at King of Peace. Powell and his brother once did, and the parish priest told them to leave and never come back. Interactions between boys and girls were strictly controlled. Teen pregnancies were unthinkable. If they did occur, the girls were packed off to a convent for the duration of their “shameful pregnancies.”

By the early 1970s, racial unrest and a heroin scourge shook Grays Ferry to its foundations. As a result, many third and fourth generation residents who could afford to move out did so. “I had a great time growing up there,” recalled Tom Curley, now an artist and gallery director residing in Upper Darby. “The kind of upbringing I received sustains me now.” Ken Powell, now a municipal court judge living in Chestnut Hill, agreed with his cousin. “It was a neighborhood of great joy, but also of great anxiety,” he said. “I have a quick wit, necessary to survive cut-up fights…You always knew where you were and constantly looked over your shoulder…I have achieved a lot but am still unabashedly a Grays Ferry boy.”

Their 87 year old aunt Nora Schneider now lives in the Northeast. She still fondly remembers her immigrant mother’s reaction when she heard people singing nostalgically about Ireland: “I never want to go back!”

For a musical portrait of Gray’s Ferry, listen to “Tom’s Café” by neighborhood native James Curley (Tom Curley’s brother):

http://www.reverbnation.com/artist/song_details/1030839?play_now=true

Reference:

[i] Charles P. Dare, Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore railroad guide (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Fitzgibbon and Van Ness, c.1856), p.118-119.

Primary Sources:

Interview with Thomas Curley, June 8, 2010.

Interview with Kenneth Powell Jr., June 10, 2010.

Kenneth Powell Jr. to Steven Ujifusa, November 13, 2008.

Interview with Nora Schneider, June 9, 2010.

Categories
Historic Sites

“One price and goods returnable”: Center City’s Department Stores

During the first half of the nineteenth century, Market Street (formerly High Street) was a mix of residential and commercial, as Philadelphians clung to the Delaware waterfront for sustenance. Successful businessmen such as printer Benjamin Franklin and china maker Benjamin Tucker lived “above the store” or in houses adjacent to their businesses.i With the coming of the horse-drawn and electric streetcar, however, Market Street became almost exclusively commercial, as many business owners moved to fashionable residential districts to the south and the west.

Following the Civil War, there was an explosion in manufactured consumer goods, especially clothing and household wares. By 1900, fine furniture, crockery, carpets, tailored suits, and dresses were now available to an expanding (and increasingly discerning) middle class, not just the rich. For residents of neighborhoods like Germantown and West Philadelphia, shopping was no longer just a chore: it was entertainment.

A number of Philadelphia entrepreneurs capitalized on this embarrassment of riches by consolidating consumer offerings under one roof. The most famous merchandiser of them all was John Wanamaker, who came up with a simple slogan: “One price and goods returnable.” Like his contemporary John D. Rockefeller, Wanamaker was a proponent of the “Social Gospel,” a philosophy that maintained wealth was a tool to further “the exhibition of the Kingdom of Heaven to the world.” ii A devout Presbyterian, Wanamaker believed he could uplift his patrons through art, culture, and Christian morality.

After successfully operating two smaller stores in Center City, in 1875 he purchased the Pennsylvania Railroad’s freight depot at 13th and Market Streets, on the east side of Penn Square. He then refurbished it into a sprawling store with 129 counters. He also made sure his store was on the cutting edge of technology, equipping it with telephones, elevators, electric lights, and pneumatic tubes.iii Wanamaker bet that the unfinished City Hall –being built on what once had been quiet residential square—would transform the area into a booming commercial hub.

Wanamaker’s gamble paid off. Not only did the new City Hall shift the commercial heart of the city from Old City to Penn Square, but the new Broad Street Station funneled prosperous suburbanites right onto his store’s front doorsteps. His “Grand Depot” was so lucrative that Wanamaker built an even bigger store on the same site. Designed by Daniel Burnham and unveiled in 1911, the new store was 12 stories high and resembled an Italian Renaissance palazzo on the exterior.iv The interior was a glittering jewel box, encrusted with crystal, marble, and European paintings.v A gigantic pipe organ, originally built for the St. Louis World’s Fair, entertained shoppers as they strolled through the displays.vi The 9th floor Crystal Tea Room, able to seat 1,400 guests, was one of the most beautiful dining establishments in the city. At Christmastime, a sparkling curtain of light cascaded down the walls of the main atrium, eliciting the “oohs” and “ahs” from generations of Philadelphia children.

“Pious John” Wanamaker was not modest about his own success. Read a plaque in the lobby: “Let those who follow me continue to build with the plumb of honor, the level of truth and the square of integrity, education, courtesy, and mutuality.” vii He was also sometimes credited with one of the most famous quips in advertising history: “Retailers Rule…The customer is always right.” viii

While Wanamaker’s was the store of choice for Main Line matrons, other department stores catered to Philadelphia’s middle and working class shoppers. Quaker partners Justus Strawbridge and Isaac Clothier founded their less flashy establishment in 1858. In 1930, Strawbridge and Clothier completed their big, but appropriately subdued, neo-classical store at 8th and Market Streets. Pipe organs, catchy slogans, and French salon paintings were not in the “Quaker plain” vein of Strawbridge and Clothier. Rather, the store’s trademark was the “Seal of Confidence” depicting William Penn shaking hands with a Native American. The “Corinthian Room” food court served hot dogs rather than high tea. This thrifty philosophy was appreciated by the store’s clientele. As one long-time Strawbridge patron said, “I’ve been coming here for many years. As long as the merchandise is good quality and it’s decently priced, I plan to keep on coming.” ix At Christmas, the fourth floor boasted a life-sized walk through set of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, complete with actors and Victorian sets.x

A stone’s throw away from Strawbridge and Clothier stood Gimbel Brothers, which took up the entire 800 block between Market and Chestnut Streets. Like John Wanamaker, founder Jacob Gimbel distinguished himself as a philanthropist as well as a businessman. In 1901, he was appointed president of the new Federation of Jewish Charities, which was charged to assist the thousands of Jewish immigrants fleeing czarist pogroms in Russia and Poland.xi Known to Philadelphians simply as “Gimbels,” this store brought the holidays to the streets by sponsoring the city’s annual Christmas Parade. The climax of this popular pageant was Santa climbing a fire truck ladder to the ninth floor of the Gimbel’s store.xii

Lit Brothers, like Gimbels, was also founded by German Jewish immigrants. Cheaper than most of its competitors, Lit’s slogan was “A Great Store in A Great City.” Lit Brothers flagship at 7th and Market store was created in 1907 by the consolidation of an entire block of cast iron commercial structures.xiii Unlike masonry construction, cast iron allowed designers to create open floor plans, ornate facades, and large windows.  Lit Brothers’ main holiday attraction was a complete “Colonial Christmas Village,” part of which survives at the Please Touch Museum.xiv

Sadly, due to buy-outs and the rise of suburban malls, none of these stores are in business today. Lit Brothers has been converted into a commercial building and Strawbridge’s sits vacant. The original Gimbels was demolished in the 1970s and has been replaced by a parking lot, although its warehouse at 833 Chestnut Street survives as an office building. Macy’s now occupies the original Wanamaker’s building, and happily its new owners have taken excellent care of the historic structure, restoring its 7,000 pipe organ and exquisite interior detailing to their original glory.

References:

[i] “Philadelphia (Tucker) China – 1825-1838” http://www.oldandsold.com/articles/article313.shtml Accessed June 5, 2010.

[ii] Jack B. Rogers, and Robert E. Blade, “The Great Ends of the Church: Two Perspectives,” Journal of Presbyterian History (1998) 76:181-186.

[iii] “Wanamaker’s Department Store,” World Architecture Images, Essential Architecture – the North East. http://www.american-architecture.info/USA/USA-Northeast/NT-003.htm Accessed June 8, 2010.

[iv] Robert Morris Skaler, Images of America: Philadelphia’s Broad Street, South and North (Charleston, South Carolina: The Arcadia Press, 2003, p.52.

[v] “Wanamaker’s Department Store,” World Architecture Images, Essential Architecture – the North East. http://www.american-architecture.info/USA/USA-Northeast/NT-003.htm Accessed June 8, 2010.

[vi] Friends of the Wanamaker Organ at Macy’s, Philadelphia: Celebrating the Heritage of a National Historic Landmark, Facts and Figures about the Wanamaker Organ. http://www.wanamakerorgan.com/about.php Accessed June 8, 2010.

[vii] Nathaniel Burt, The Perennial Philadelphian: The Anatomy of an American Aristocracy (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press), 1963, p.173.

[viii] “Wanamaker’s Department Store,” World Architecture Images, Essential Architecture – the North East. http://www.american-architecture.info/USA/USA-Northeast/NT-003.htm Accessed June 8, 2010.

[ix] Associated Press, “At Strawbridge’s, customers seeking value, not nostalgia,” Reading Eagle/Reading Times, July 26, 1996, B7. http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1955&dat=19960726&id=9FQlAAAAIBAJ&sjid=56UFAAAAIBAJ&pg=4169,5034439 Accessed June 8, 2010.

[x] Ryan Caviglia, “Christmas in Philly,” The New Colonist, Calendar of Antiques: Your Guide to Antique and Art Events, undated. http://www.newcolonist.com/phil_xmas.html Accessed June 8, 2010.

[xi] Nathaniel Burt and Wallace E. Davies, “The Iron Age, 1876-1905,” from Philadelphia: A 300-Year History (New York, New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1982), p.489.

[xii] Ryan Caviglia, “Christmas in Philly,” The New Colonist, Calendar of Antiques: Your Guide to Antique and Art Events, undated. http://www.newcolonist.com/phil_xmas.html Accessed June 8, 2010.

[xiii] Lit Brothers Store, 701-739 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA, HABS No. PA-1438. Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record. http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=pphhdatapage&fileName=pa/pa0900/pa0971/data/hhdatapage.db&recNum=2

[xiv] Ryan Caviglia, “Christmas in Philly,” The New Colonist, Calendar of Antiques: Your Guide to Antique and Art Events, undated. http://www.newcolonist.com/phil_xmas.html Accessed June 8, 2010.

Categories
Neighborhoods

The Lost World of North Broad Street

Mention North Broad Street today, and the image that comes to mind is one of desolation and decay. But in the late nineteenth century, this thoroughfare was a boulevard for the Gilded Age industrial rich. Rittenhouse Square might have been Philadelphia’s most prestigious residential address, but North Broad Street was arguably the most colorful and fanciful. There was a Frank Furness-designed temple for Congregation Rodeph Shalom, a Willis Hale-designed baroque castle for Peter Widener, and the world’s largest opera house designed by William H. McElfatrick. These large structures, to borrow a phrase from architectural historian Robert Morris Skaler, were “great exclamation points” on the brownstone and brick streetscape.i Most of these structures proved to be as ephemeral as they were exuberant.

Because this new neighborhood was north of the Market Street railroad viaduct, the city’s old elite, who clustered around Rittenhouse Square, deemed it declassé. Yet North Broad Street was convenient for rich industrialists for two reasons. First, many of their factories and mills were located in adjacent industrial areas; a North Broad Street residence gave its entrepreneurial owner easy access to his thriving enterprises. Second, the area’s main developer was streetcar magnate Peter Arrell Brown Widener, a brilliant, self-made former butcher who was the kingpin of Philadelphia’s nineteenth century industrial and real estate boom. Widener’s massive Germanic mansion at 1200 North Broad—at the center of his city land holdings–was as much a real estate advertisement as a monument to his own taste.

For aggressive, driven men like Widener, the “Workshop of the World” offered endless ways to make a fortune. The city was a Victorian Silicon Valley, a laboratory for entrepreneurship and technology. Widener himself diversified his holdings into shipping, manufacturing, gas lines, and real estate. By 1900, he was the richest man in Philadelphia, worth over $100 million. Many of those who bought homes near the Widener mansion were also poor boys who had struck it rich—such as the swashbuckling promoter William Warren Gibbs, a one-time business partner of Widener’s who lived at 1216 North Broad. Gibbs was said to sit on more boards of directors than any other man in America. The area was also popular with German Jews who, despite their wealth and culture, were shunned by the Philadelphia establishment. The social discrimination against Jew and gentile denizens of North Broad Street ran deep and lasted long after their descendants had decamped to the suburbs. As one social chronicler observed, it took “families such as the Wideners several generations and removals to live down the fact that they had not merely had a house but a mansion on North Broad Street. The bigger the house, the more flagrant the offense.” ii

As a response to these snubs, one-time farm boys from New Jersey and Jewish immigrants from Frankfurt formed their own clubs and institutions. North Broad Street was analogous to Manhattan’s Upper West Side, which was developed at exactly the same time. For Philadelphia’s nouveaux riches, a brick Rittenhouse Square rowhouse might have been the more “proper” and “traditional” option, but a freestanding, ornate mansion on North Broad was the more “fun” and “modern” one.

One modern residential concept pioneered on Manhattan’s Upper West Side was the so-called apartment hotel. One of the first of its kind was the Dakota Apartments on New York’s Central Park West, completed in 1885 and a huge financial success. These buildings were luxury apartment buildings with the amenities and service of a grand hotel. Suites of rooms often came fully furnished and usually included servants quarters. Well-to-do families or unmarried people who did not want the burden of a townhouse found this to be a convenient arrangement. In addition, the hotel’s ample ballrooms could accommodate bigger parties than most private city homes.

Inspired by the success of the Dakota, Philadelphia developers built apartment hotels of their own. The Lorraine (at Fairmount Avenue) and the Majestic (at Girard Avenue) were two such structures that graced North Broad Street. The Lorraine, designed by Willis Hale and finished in 1894, was the more architecturally cohesive of the two. Built of yellow Pompeian brick, the Lorraine soared ten stories above the neighborhood — the first high-rise residential structure in Philadelphia. Many of the suites boasted fireplaces. The ground floor contained a columned lobby and twin lounges. Perched on the tenth floor were two barrel vaulted ballrooms, whose high arched windows provided spectacular views of the city.

Further up North Broad Street, the architects of the Majestic cleverly incorporated the old William Lukens Elkins mansion into their establishment. The original brownstone house—which boasted a pillared facade similar to the Union League’s–contained the main public rooms, while high rise towers on the south and east sides of the lot housed the guest rooms.iii

Sadly, the Majestic was pulled down (old Elkins mansion and all) in 1971, but not before its façade had been mutilated by storefronts. In 1948, Father Divine, spiritual leader of the Peace Mission, purchased the Lorraine for the bargain basement price of $485,000. After adding his name and a red neon sign to the building, he transformed it into the first racially-integrated hotel in the United States. iv Abandoned since 2003, it survives, but the Divine Lorraine is a soot-smeared, gutted ghost of its former self.

Along with hotels, private clubs were key fixtures of North Broad Street social life. Since many North Broad Street residents were excluded from older establishments, they set up their own clubs that were just as grand as their Center City counterparts. v One such establishment was the Columbia Club, a turreted Queen Anne structure built in 1889 at 1600 North Broad Street. A massive flying eagle crowned its balconied façade. The most imposing of the North Broad Street clubs was the Mercantile Club, once located at the intersection of North Broad and Jefferson Streets. The membership consisted primarily of German Jewish families such as the Gimbels and the Snellenburgs (owners of big Center City department stores), as well as prominent attorneys and professionals. The luxurious facility boasted public spaces such as a Turkish smoking room. vi Oddly enough, the Mercantile Club was reluctant to admit Jews of non-German ancestry until the 1920s. Albert Greenfield, an immigrant from the Ukraine and the largest real estate operator in the city, was nearly blackballed. vii

The exuberant Gilded Age grandeur (or swagger) of North Broad Street proved all too fleeting. Today, almost all of North Broad Street’s social and residential gems have fallen to the wrecker’s ball. A few remnants of past glory – a score of crumbling rowhouses, a rotting old hotel, and a few heavily altered mansions – remind passersby of a time when North Broad Street was the street of dreams of Philadelphia’s Gilded Age.

References:

[i] Robert Morris Skaler, Images of America: West Philadelphia – University City to 52nd Street (Charleston, South Carolina: The Arcadia Press, 2002), p.53.

[ii] Nathaniel Burt, The Perennial Philadelphian: The Anatomy of an American Aristocracy (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press), 1963, p.529

[iii] Robert Morris Skaler, Images of America: West Philadelphia – University City to 52nd Street (Charleston, South Carolina: The Arcadia Press, 2002), p.90-91.

[iv] Mike Newall, “Left Behind: A Rare Look inside North Broad’s Divine Lorraine, a hotel with a heavenly past on the cusp of a (commercial) resurrection,” The Philadelphia City Paper, January 13-19, 2005. http://citypaper.net/articles/2005-01-13/cover.shtml Accessed June 1, 2010.

[v] Robert Morris Skaler, Images of America: Philadelphia’s Broad Street, South and North (Charleston, South Carolina: The Arcadia Press, 2003, p.104.

[vi] Robert Morris Skaler, Images of America: Philadelphia’s Broad Street, South and North (Charleston, South Carolina: The Arcadia Press, 2003, p.98.

[vii] Nathaniel Burt, The Perennial Philadelphian: The Anatomy of an American Aristocracy (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press), 1963, p.571.

Categories
Historic Sites

The Philadelphia Aquarium at the Fairmount Water Works

While many know Philadelphia as the site of the first zoo in the United States, the story of the Philadelphia Aquarium, once among the largest in the world, is a less well-known part of the city’s history. Following the closure of the Fairmount Water Works plant in 1909, the site took on new life as home to an aquarium from 1911 to 1962. At the time, aquariums were a novel concept largely inspired by fishery exhibitions at the Chicago and St. Louis World’s Fairs in 1893 and 1904 respectively. After fifteen years of debate over the issue, the Philadelphia Aquarium was established by city ordinance and signed by Mayor John E. Reyburn on May 16, 1911. Following the ordinance, an initial sum of $1,500 was appropriated for the aquarium, which was designed to acquaint visitors with the habitats and activities of freshwater and saltwater fish, especially those native to Pennsylvania.
Under the leadership of William E. Meehan, the Philadelphia Aquarium opened its doors on Thanksgiving Day 1911 and initially featured nineteen small tanks set up in the old engine house of the Water Works. Over time, several of the site’s buildings were refitted to serve the aquarium’s purposes, including the mill houses and administrative offices, and consequently allowed the Philadelphia Aquarium to become one of the four largest aquariums in the world by 1929. In its first year of operation, the aquarium played host to over 260,000 visitors and also held a series of public lectures on marine life. Initially, much to the delight of visitors, the Water Works’ forebay housed seals and sea lions, though the practice was later discontinued when the animals became ill and the forebay was subsequently filled in to become Aquarium Drive. Additionally, the plant’s turbine and pump only supplied the aquarium’s water for a short time before city water was found to be purer and more beneficial for the fish than the water of the polluted Schuykill River.

In its early years, some of the aquarium’s creatures were also preserved for posterity and displayed at the Academy of Natural Sciences. According to the 1913 Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences, additions to the museum’s collection included a harbor seal, loggerhead turtle, and calico bass from the aquarium.

A few months after the aquarium opened, it officially became part of Fairmount Park, the municipal park system that oversees Philadelphia’s sixty-three neighborhood and regional parks. Unfortunately, under Fairmount Park, the aquarium struggled to maintain adequate funding over the course of its existence and, despite the efforts of dedicated advocates, closed in December 1962. Following the closure of the aquarium, the Fairmount Water Works briefly housed an indoor swimming pool, which also closed in 1973, and more recently has been used for banquets and public tours. In 1977, the Water Works was designated an ASME Historical Mechanical Engineering Landmark and, after years of fundraising and repairs to the site, opened a new educational interpretative center in 2004. Through the interpretative center and these historic photographs on PhillyHistory.org, the Philadelphia Aquarium has regained its place as part of the storied history of the Fairmount Water Works and the city of Philadelphia.

 

References:

 

W.E. Meehan, “Building an Aquarium for Philadelphia,” Transactions of American Fisheries Society 43 (1914): 179-181.

Jane Mork Gibson, “The Fairmount Water Works,” Bulletin, The Philadelphia Museum of Art 84 (Summer 1988): 40.

Charles Beardsley, “Input Output: Philadelphia Lights a Landmark,” Mechanical Engineering (March 2004): 68.