December 2008 – PhillyHistory Blog

While intercity travel today primarily involves the automobile or airplane, a century ago the passenger train represented the principal mode of long distance travel. The increasing volume of rail passengers in the late 1800’s required railroads to find efficient ways of delivering passengers to their destinations. In Philadelphia, the problem for the Pennsylvania Railroad was the lack of a station that would deliver passengers directly into Center City Philadelphia. In 1879, the railroad devised a plan to construct a large passenger station at Broad and Market Streets, directly opposite City Hall. The station would be connected by multiple tracks to the Pennsylvania Railroad station located in West Philadelphia, across the Schuylkill River¹. The extension would have required numerous street crossings, starting at 23^rd St. and going eastward towards Broad Street. To avoid both the safety hazard of street crossings and the potential bottleneck they would create for the numerous passenger trains, it was decided to construct the tracks on an elevated embankment. Large granite blocks were used to enclose the embankment and over time the structure was often referred to as the “Chinese Wall” because of its resemblance to the Great Wall of China². In later years this structure would become the bane of city planners because it was viewed as an impediment to development of the area north of Market Street³.

Broad Street Station was officially opened on December 5, 1881⁴. The brick station was of Gothic design with a rather ornate Victorian appearance. Behind the station were four train sheds to protect passengers from the elements. The station was an immediate success, boasting 160 daily trains⁵. The volume of passenger traffic steadily increased, so that by 1886, the number of passengers using the station averaged a million per month⁶. As a consequence, in 1892, a mere eleven years after its opening, plans were submitted for the enlargement of the station. An office building that would serve as the Pennsylvania Railroad’s headquarters was designed by noted architect Frank Furness and added to the existing station⁷. The smaller train sheds were replaced by one massive train shed 306 feet wide and 591 feet long. The roof, made of wood and glass, was at its highest point 100 feet above the tracks⁸.

Already by 1910, the 16 tracks of the station saw 578 arrivals and departures daily⁹. At the same time, the success of Broad Street Station brought with it a number of problems. While it served well as a final stop for commuter traffic into Center City, it was inconvenient and time consuming for through trains because they were required to retrace their steps to West Philadelphia Station before continuing on their journey. The stub-ended design of Broad Street required arriving locomotives to back up and be turned on a turntable before they could depart, creating additional congestion. A partial solution was provided by the railroad’s electrification, allowing the use of multiple-unit commuter trains which could operate in either direction.

On June 11, 1923, a fire broke out below the station platforms and quickly spread to the train shed, engulfing the entire structure in flames. Within hours of the fire, the Pennsylvania Railroad marshaled a work force of some 3500 men to begin repairing the station. Within five days, all tracks and platforms were restored. The weakened train shed was dismantled and replaced with umbrella shelters¹⁰. However, the handwriting was on the wall for Broad Street Station.

Within two years, the Pennsylvania Railroad started drawing up an ambitious plan, referred to as the “Philadelphia Improvements,” that called for the construction of 30^th Street Station as the railroad’s main passenger station in Philadelphia, replacing the West Philadelphia station¹¹. The plan also called for the elimination of Broad Street Station, replacing it with an underground station for commuter trains, known as Broad Street Suburban Station (but usually referred to simply as Suburban Station). By 1929, the excavation for the trackwork leading to Suburban Station had begun, parallel to the north side of the Chinese Wall. A year later, the construction of 30^th Street Station across the Schuylkill River began, and Broad Street Station’s days were numbered. Surprisingly, the station was used for two more decades before finally closing on April 27, 1952. Aboard the last train from the station rode the Philadelphia Orchestra, led by Eugene Ormandy conducting a rendition of “Auld Lange Syne”¹². Within a year, the station was demolished, making way for Penn Plaza and a series of high rise office buildings.

[1] Pennypacker, Bert (December 1983). “The Grandest Railway Terminal in America”. Trains (Kalmbach Publishing Co.): 40-57. ISSN 0041-0934.

[2] Albrecht, Harry P. [1972] (1976). Broad Street Station. Clifton Heights, Pennsylvania: Harry P. Albrecht. p. 3.

[3] Underkofler, Allen P (1987). “The Philadelphia Improvements, Part I”. The High Line (Philadelphia Chapter, Pennsylvania Railroad Technical and Historical Society) 2 (2 & 3). p. 5.

[4] Albrecht, p. 3.

[5] Pennypacker, p. 44.

[6] Ibid., p. 45.

[7] Messer, David W. (2000). Triumph III: Philadelphia Terminal 1838-2000. Baltimore, Maryland: Barnard, Roberts & Co. ISBN 0-934118-25-6

[8] Pennypacker, pp. 46-47.

[9] Ibid., p. 49.

[10] Ibid., pp. 51-52.

[11] Underkofler, pp. 6-15.

[12] Pennypacker, p. 57.

Many of the photographs in the Philadelphia Department of Records City Archives’ collection are associated with a particular location. As photographers from the City’s Photography Unit traveled around Philadelphia capturing images of construction projects, school yards, busy commercial districts, and residential areas, they often noted the address or intersection where the photograph was taken. The other collections available on PhillyHistory.org- the photographs from the Philadelphia Water Department, the property maps from the Department of Records, and the historic maps from the Free Library- are also very geographic in nature and usually connected to a specific place in the city. Using the address or intersection associated with an image, a photo can be geocoded (mapped) to that location. Once a photograph has been geocoded in PhillyHistory.org, it can be found using the address or neighborhood search, making it convenient to view photos or maps based on the location where they were taken.Like the other photographs and maps on PhillyHistory.org, the collection of photographs from the Sesquicentennial International Exposition has a geographic element. The majority of the photographs were taken on the Sesquicentennial grounds in the area around the intersection of Broad Street and Pattison Avenue by present-day FDR Park and the stadiums. Many of the photographs depict buildings, attractions, or exhibits at the Sesquicentennial but do not give specific addresses or intersections where these places were located. Thanks to the staff at the City Archives, a copy of the Sesqui-Centennial International Exposition General Plan was located (also available in the “Sesquicentennial Exposition” article on Wikipedia). This plan, published in the Sesquicentennial Promotional Booklet 1926, provided a map of many of the buildings on the Sesquicentennial grounds and showed the main roads that ran through the area- Broad Street, Pattison Avenue, Packer Avenue, and Moyamensing Avenue.While those four streets have remained the same, the rest of the area had changed considerably from the time of the Sesquicentennial in 1926 to the present. Streets that were created for the Sesquicentennial no longer exist, and areas that were open land in 1926 are now filled with roads and buildings. Using the Sesquicentennial General Plan, it was easy to see where the buildings existed in 1926, but the changing landscape made it much trickier to match those 84 year old locations with a Philadelphia street map from 2008. Since the geocoding system uses current street maps, it was necessary to find some way to sync the older map with the newer map in order to accurately geocode the photographs.

The solution to the problem came in the form of a piece of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) mapping software. One of the PhillyHistory.org software developers used the software to overlay the historic Sesquicentennial map with a current Philadelphia street map. To ensure that the maps had the same orientation, he found several points that were in the same location on both maps- the intersections of Oregon Avenue and Moyamensing Avenue, Broad Street and Packer Avenue, and Broad Street and Pattison Avenue. By lining up the two maps using these three intersections, a reliable composite map of the two images was made. To download a copy of the map, visit Azavea Commons. Azavea is the software company who created PhillyHistory.org for the Philadelphia Department of Records.

This two-layer map proved to be a valuable tool for geocoding the Sesquicentennial photographs. Using the historic map, PhillyHistory.org staff could see that the Nuremberg section of the Exposition was located south of Packer Avenue and several blocks west of Broad Street but could not determine a more accurate location. With the two-layer map, however, it was easy to see that the Nuremberg area was located precisely at what is now the intersection of 18^th Street and Schley Street. Thanks to the assistance of the software developers and Archives staff, the PhillyHistory.org team was able to geocode a large number of Sesquicentennial photos, making them easy to locate on PhillyHistory.org and providing an illustration of how technology can help us relate the past to the present.