Philadelphia's Lost Waterfront

by Harry Kyriakodis

  The following quote from Philadelphia and Its Environs: A Guide to the City and Surroundings (1893) suggests how poorly regarded these parts were by the 1890s and how many people lived and worked in the vicinity:

  The river-front, northward from the Willow Street freight-yards, is a scene of almost perpetual business movement upon a large scale. Commercial and manufacturing enterprise has here one of its busiest seats. It is not an attractive quarter of the city in its aspect to the stranger, but thousands of wage-earners here obtain subsistence for their families. Great factories seem to be elbowed by lofty warehouses; extensive lumber-yards are flanked by rolling-mills and foundries; and in many of the poorer streets, too often ill-kept and mean, there are battered and weather-worn, old frame houses, and dingy rows of old-fashioned, low, brick dwellings.

  THE WILLOW AND NOBLE STREETS GROUP AND YARDS

  The Reading Railroad owned Piers 24, 25 and 27 North, a group of covered finger piers at the bottom of Noble and Willow Streets. The Willow and Noble Streets Group, as it was called, was the second busiest general freight-handling station on the Reading system. These were strictly import piers; the Reading’s local export piers were at Port Richmond, a few miles north. Piers 24, 25 and 27 could process sixty-five rail cars of cargo a day, and about five hundred men worked on them in the early 1900s.

  The Reading also leased these piers: Pier 24 to the Allan Steamship Company, which operated steamers for freight and passenger traffic between Philadelphia and St. Johns, Halifax, Glasgow and Liverpool; Pier 25 to the Philadelphia Transatlantic Line and the Bull Line, both of which ran steamers for freight to London and Scotland; and Pier 27 to the Holland America and the Scandinavian lines for shipping freight to Rotterdam and Copenhagen.

  The Willow and Noble Streets Group worked in conjunction with the Willow and Noble Streets Station on the west side of Delaware Avenue. This was a major railroad freight yard in its day, and a great deal of freight traffic between Philadelphia and New York was exchanged at this point. It’s almost certain that the Baldwin Locomotive Works of Philadelphia exported hundreds of steam engines to countries on all continents from this terminal. This harkens back to when Philadelphia was the “Workshop of the World.”

  Freight movement diminished in the 1950s and ended by the 1970s. A fire destroyed Pier 27 in the morning of August 31, 1972. Firefighters, some on fireboats, worked hard to prevent the blaze from spreading to Piers 25 and 24. They succeeded, but Pier 24 itself burned less than a year later. A dazzling inferno ripped though it on July 7, 1973, leaving the place fully leveled. Arson was suspected in both cases.

  Reading Railroad’s Willow and Noble Streets Freight Yard in 1914. Piers 24, 25 and 27 North are on the right. Willow Street is out of the picture on the left. The Philadelphia Cold Storage buildings are in the background. Philadelphia City Archives.

  Today, Piers 24 and 27 are parking lots, while Cavanaugh’s River Deck is on Pier 25. The Reading Railroad’s one-time rail yard is now a land bank currently hosting a self-storage firm. This property has long been touted as the future location of the World Trade Center of Greater Philadelphia. Plans include three office buildings devoted to maritime trade and a residential tower. The goal of this fanciful project is to make Philadelphia one of the one hundred cities in the World Trade Centers Association with a major World Trade Center.

  THE TOWN OF CALLOWHILL

  Callowhill Street is unusually wide as it approaches the Delaware River because several market sheds were located in the middle of and alongside the avenue in the mid-1700s. A town called Callowhill grew up around this shopping district, having been platted by Thomas Penn, one of William Penn’s sons.

  Penn’s descendants owned much of the land in the Northern Liberties District north of Vine Street, and they routinely sold off lots to generate income. So, about 1768–70, Thomas Penn laid out a north–south lane, New Market Street, between Front and Second and then dedicated four pieces of ground for a public market at each corner of the intersection with Callowhill Street. This became the center of the new town of Callowhill.

  Quakers who wanted to get away from the swarming town of Philadelphia moved to Callowhill. It accordingly prospered as the city’s most immediate northern suburb. The community remained a food distribution hub and a residential area well after being subsumed into the city of Philadelphia.

  Even in the 1950s, when the neighborhood was shabby, Callowhill was still an active meat and produce center. But it was, by then, part of Philadelphia’s Skid Row district, a place replete with cheap flophouses, grubby bars, dilapidated warehouses and so on.

  When Interstate 95 plowed through this quarter, it completely obliterated what had once been Callowhill. The bustling town, centered at the intersection that William Penn’s son established, was located exactly where Callowhill Street dips under the multilane freeway. Today, not even the shadow of a trace of the town of Callowhill exists.

  4

  CALLOWHILL TO VINE

  PENN’S SURVIVING STEPS AND SHIPS AND FERRIES ON THE FROZEN DELAWARE

  Callowhill Street was first called “the new street” since it was the first road opened in Northern Liberties, north of Philadelphia’s original northern limit. This was in 1690. William Penn later renamed the street after his second wife, Hannah Callowhill (1671–1726), apparently during his second stay in America (1701–02).

  THE WOOD STREET STEPS

  The steps at 323 North Front Street are usually referred to as the Wood Street Steps. This staircase consists of fourteen granite blocks, including twelve treads and two landing areas. They are the last set of William Penn’s public stairs along the Philadelphia bank of the Delaware River to survive.

  That they do survive is a miracle of sorts. As late as the 1980s, the Wood Street Steps were in jeopardy. An adjoining owner wanted the city to strike the passageway from the street plan so that he could acquire the ground to enlarge his property. The River’s Edge Civic Association, a local civic group, put a stop to that plan.

  The stairway was once an extension of a slender alley between Vine and Callowhill called Wood Street. The steps were built between 1702 and 1737, but while the treads originally could have been wooden, there’s some evidence that the granite steps there today may date from the late seventeenth century. The stone treads were there for sure in 1737, when Wood Street was first registered as a public street.

  The Wood Street Steps today. Photo by the author.

  The ten-foot-wide passageway between 321 and 325 North Front—and between 322 and 324 North Water—is still labeled as Wood in city records and is administered by the Philadelphia Department of Streets. The Wood Street Steps were certified by the city’s Historical Commission in 1986 and are listed on the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places.

  A land warrant (patent) by William Penn to one Henry Johnson in March 1689 actually established the Wood Street Steps. Johnson was the buyer of forty feet of ground on the east side of Front Street north of Vine. A provision reads:

  [T]he said Henry Johnson his Heirs and Assigns shall further leave a Proportionable Part of the said Lot for Building one publick Pair of Stone Stairs of ten Foot in Bredth leading from the said Front Street down to the said Lower Street or Cartway and so forward to the Wharfs And one Pair of Stone Stairs from off the Wharfs down to Low Water Mark of the said River in the Middle or most convenient place between Vine Street and the North Bridge.

  This passage substantiates the authorization of stone steps back to William Penn himself, although it doesn’t prove if and when any steps were built. It also indicates that the Wood Street Steps were initially meant to be made of stone. Local historians have generally thought that this and other bank stairs were made of wood until the 1720s or 1730s, at which time granite steps were installed. The warrant shows that Penn wanted stone rather than wooden steps and makes it more likely that the existing Wood Street Steps were built prior to earlier estimated dates, though this cannot be proven.

  The warrant also direc
ts that the riverbank stairs between Vine and Callowhill were to extend down into the Delaware River at low tide on the east side of Water Street (the “Lower Street” or “Cartway”). It’s unclear if these particular steps ever reached into the Delaware, but other bank stairways did continue on the east side of Water Street as walkways with additional stairs that descended straight into the river for use at low tide. (Yes, the Delaware is a tidal waterway, rising and falling about six feet twice a day.)

  Four treads of the Wood Street Steps have cracked in half and are sagging as a result of subsidence. River’s Edge Civic Association is planning to repair the steps and conduct an archaeological investigation beneath them. The group also wants to draw attention to this and all the Penn stairwells via the installation of a Pennsylvania State Historical Marker.

  SHIPBUILDING (I OF III): THE WEST SHIPYARD/HERTZ LOT

  Wood Street got its name from timber being carted along it to a handful of eighteenth-century shipyards fronting the Delaware River in the vicinity of Vine Street. Indeed, under the parking lots approximately in front of the Wood Street Steps are the remains of the West Shipyard, one of four local yards fabricating fishing craft, riverboats and oceangoing vessels.

  James West (?–1701) set up his yard on the west bank of the river as early as 1676, years before the arrival of William Penn in America. In the days before dry docks, sailing ships needing repair would be dragged up slipways (launching ramps) to enable repairs to be made. New vessels, needless to say, were also built on such ramps. A ropeyard was immediately north of the West Shipyard.

  After West’s death in 1701, his son took over and developed the shipyard into a miniature “company town,” complete with shops and inns to support its workers. But the yard became less useful as ships became both larger and equipped with steam engines driving propellers and paddle wheels—hauling ships ashore was no longer practical. The West Shipyard had faded from the scene by the early 1800s, and the old slipways and quays were filled in (again, made-earth) as Philadelphia’s waterfront was pressed farther east into the Delaware.

  Disturbances at this site were relatively minor because the structures built there—a coal yard, a fruit warehouse, the Vine Street Market, etc.—did not have deep foundations. By the early 1900s, a rail yard of the Reading Railroad covered the block. Now topped by a parking lot across from Pier 19, the West Shipyard may be the last intact vestige of Philadelphia’s colonial port heritage.

  A small archaeological dig was carried out in 1987 at part of the plot encompassing the West site. (The ground is identified as the Hertz Lot from the car rental firm previously in business there.) Among the findings were the remnants of eighteenth-century wharves and a slipway, all in good condition. The dig was filled and paved over afterward to keep it preserved. This was the first archaeological site on the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places.

  The Hertz Lot slipway is the only feature of its kind unearthed in excavations on the East Coast. Since the West Shipyard escaped the havoc wrought by Interstate 95, there is undoubtedly much valuable material buried not far underground. A dig here may yield a fine record of the parcel’s uses from 1676 until recent times. Plans for such an excavation are in the works.

  PENNY POT TAVERN AND LANDING

  The bowsprits of ships at West’s yard almost reached the eaves of buildings on Water Street. One of these was the Penny Pot Tavern. West bought this well-known landmark from a widow in 1689 or 1690. As specified by Watson, it was situated three houses north of the northwest corner of Vine and Water. The tavern was a two-story brick structure with its front facing south.

  The renowned Penny Pot Tavern was allowed to sell beer for “a penny a pot” (or quart), as per the Duke of York’s decree in 1682. It was therefore a place where beer could be bought for about half the price of most other brew houses.

  The Penny Pot Tavern and its adjacent landing at Vine Street. Library of Congress.

  The saloon became the Jolly Tar Inn after 1800 and was later incorporated into the Rising Sun Hotel next door. The Penny Pot building burned in a fire that destroyed the entire block in 1850 (discussed later). The edifice currently on the site contains a quarter-sized facsimile of the tavern on the roof. Best seen from Front Street, it was erected by the architect who moved there in the 1970s.

  The Penny Pot Landing, built by James West, was basically in front of the inn, between his shipyard and the Vine Street Landing. The two ultimately became one and the same.

  VINE STREET LANDING AND FERRY

  Vine Street was originally called Valley Street since a ravine or vale led to the Delaware River there. This is why a boat landing was to be found at this point even before William Penn’s era; the valley offered easy access into the region’s interior. Hunters and traders from settled territories in New Jersey had crossed the channel there throughout the 1600s to get to the bountiful lands of what became Pennsylvania.

  Penn had first dedicated the Vine Street Landing for public use in 1683. He further proclaimed in his “Charter of Privileges” for inhabitants of Pennsylvania (1701) that “the Landing-places now and heretofore used at the Penny-pot-house and Blue-anchor…shall be left open and common for the Use and Service of the said City and all others.” Penn wanted to prevent some enterprising Philadelphian from buying the rights to these boat landings, which he intended for public use indefinitely.

  The Vine Street Landing was one of the busiest ferry landings on the Delaware. In the early 1700s, it primarily serviced the Upper Ferry (otherwise known as “Uncle Billy’s Ferry”) operated by William Cooper. The Cooper’s Point Ferry, a more formal venture, took over this route and later became associated with the Camden and Atlantic Railroad. Eventually taken over by the Pennsylvania Railroad, that rail line ran trains to Atlantic City and other shore resorts.

  Cooper’s Point Ferry billed itself as “Philadelphia’s Front Door to Atlantic City.” Countless Philadelphians boarded ferryboats at Pier 16 North to get to the line’s Camden (New Jersey) terminal, where they would board trains that would take them to the seaside for a few days of relaxation.

  An 1875 view of the Vine Street Landing and Ferry. Adam Levine Collection.

  When it went out of business in 1926 or so, the Vine Street Ferry was reputed to be the oldest ferry service in America, operating continuously for more than two hundred years.

  FERRIES CROSSING THE DELAWARE (I OF II)

  The Vine Street Landing was not unique. A public boat/ferry landing was at the base of every east–west street in Philadelphia’s younger years. The ferries allowed people to cross the Delaware in the days before the Benjamin Franklin Bridge provided the first Philadelphia crossing. They transported travelers, shoppers and day-trippers from Philadelphia and Camden and from points all over. Some boats were powered by horses driving a paddle wheel—horse-boats. Oarsmen propelled others.

  Then came the Industrial Revolution. The factories, shops, stores and offices of both Philadelphia and Camden employed hundreds of thousands of workers, and some of them lived or worked on the opposite side of the river. So they had to take a ferry trip twice daily. To meet the demand, steam-powered ferries plied the Delaware by the middle of the 1800s.

  SHIPBUILDING (II OF III): OVERSEAS TRADE AND THE AMERICAN CLYDE

  Other boats—first sailing ships and then steamships—would take people to Bristol, Burlington, Trenton, Chester, Wilmington, Baltimore and so forth. Ships sailing to England, the West Indies, China, India and other remote destinations routinely left from the city’s Delaware waterfront in the 1700s and 1800s. Philadelphia merchants were known in the “counting houses” of the far corners of the world from the 1790s to the 1850s.

  A group of Philadelphia and New York merchants had equipped the first American ship to sail to China. The Empress of China left New York City on February 22, 1784, and landed in Canton that August 28. The ship returned in 1785 with a full load of silks, porcelain, spices and tea, thus starting the American-China trade.

  Also in 1784, t
he first American ship to visit India departed Philadelphia on March 24. The United States was outfitted by a group of Philadelphian merchants and reached the city of Pondicherry later in 1784. Eight years later, the brigantine Philadelphia was the first American ship to visit Australia—as well as perhaps the first foreign trade vessel ever to visit Australia. Plus, the frigate John left Philadelphia to become the first American ship to visit South America, arriving at the present capital of Uruguay in 1798.

  Many of these vessels were made in shipyards up and down the Delaware River. The Delaware was even nicknamed the “American Clyde” because it rivaled Europe’s great shipbuilding region on Scotland’s Clyde River. Ship fabrication firms included Neafie & Levy, John Roach & Sons, Simpson & Neill, Bireley, Hillman & Co. and William Cramp & Sons. James West’s yard was part of the progression of this industry, as was that of Joshua Humphreys, discussed in chapter sixteen.

  Philadelphia’s shipyards became vast operations as ships transitioned from sail to steam power and from wooden to iron hulls. Local shipyards set records for physical plant and production during the heyday of American shipbuilding around World War I. Hundreds of thousands of workers were employed in building ships and in related maritime industries on both banks of the Delaware. This concentration of shipyards was the largest shipbuilding industry in the world.

  Alas, the building and repairing of ships is no longer a major industry in Philadelphia. The last machine shop of Cramp Shipyard—one of several structures of a thirty-acre compound in the city’s Kensington district—was demolished in early 2011. Why? To build a new I-95 interchange, but of course.

  THE FROZEN DELAWARE

  From the Vine Street Landing and other places that offered easy access to the Delaware, people would skate on the iced-over river during the many times it froze in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Skating early on became a sport in which Philadelphians were noted, possibly because Quaker leaders approved of this ostensibly frivolous pursuit.