How mortified and vexed must Penn have felt on his second arrival in 1699, to witness the growing deformity of his city, and to see how far individual interest had swerved his agents from the general good!
Watson points out that William Penn did later realize that things had gone amiss and that Carpenter and his fellow bankers had taken advantage of the situation. Penn sent new directives to his Philadelphia agents, including the following in 1703: “I will have no more bank lots disposed of, nor keys [docks] yet made into the river, without my special and fresh leave, for reasons justifiable.” But by then it was too late to correct the problems that had ensued since 1690.
Nevertheless, William Penn’s initial attempt (in 1684) to resolve the Delaware riverbank dilemma was moderately successful, since it ensured that commerce and maritime activity would expand in Philadelphia by allowing goods to be easily moved to and from visiting ships. And it helped secure a connection—however slight—to the Delaware River for all Philadelphians.
THE “STREET UNDER THE BANK”
The 1690 “Regulation of the Bank” instrument formally authorized and established what eventually became Water Street. Bank lot owners were instructed to “regularly leave thirty feet of ground in the clear, for a cartway under and along the said whole Bank,” which was to become “a common and public cartway for all persons by day and by night, forever hereafter.” It was up to the individual landowners to clear the ground, install a hard surface and provide drainage.
And what a busy street the street under the bank was in the 1700s!
Watson wrote: “An aged lady, S.N., told me, that in her youth the ladies attended balls held in Water street, now deemed so unfit a place!” It seems that a dancehall was inaugurated in 1748 at a wharf on Water Street between Walnut and Dock. This was the initiation of Philadelphia’s famed Dancing Assembly.
In 1754, Lewis Hallam (the “Father of the American Theater”) and a troupe of London actors performed for two months on Water Street, just north of Lombard. This may have been the first legitimate theater in Philadelphia. The venue was a brick storehouse owned by William Plumsted, mayor of the city from 1750 to 1755. Hallam remodeled the place and called it the New Theater. Resistance by neighboring Quakers shut it down.
The first theatrical company to appear in Philadelphia probably used this Water Street warehouse years earlier, in 1749. The troupe—by the name of Murray & Kean—reportedly staged Joseph Addison’s Cato, although Richard III may also have been performed, maybe for the first time in the New World. Quaker authorities promptly ran this traveling group out of town.
An actual lion was exhibited for a couple weeks at “Abraham Bickly’s new store in Water Street.” This was in September 1727; admission was one shilling. The lion—the first in North America—was exhibited in several cities throughout the 1720s. Bickly (or Bickley) was a member of the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania who lived within walking distance of his storehouse and wharf on Water Street.
CONTAGION BY THE DELAWARE (II OF II): THE YELLOW FEVER EPIDEMIC OF 1793
Notwithstanding its cultural and entertainment aspirations, Water Street was the prime breeding ground for disease in Philadelphia. Scourges (e.g., malaria and typhus) had always made their initial appearance along Water Street from the city’s founding until the early 1900s.
The most infamous outbreak in the city’s history was the horrendous yellow fever epidemic of 1793. Sweeping outward from the congested neighborhood around Water and Arch Streets, this plague claimed the lives of some four thousand people, about 10 percent of the city’s population at the time. Philadelphia’s yellow fever epidemic of 1793 is still regarded as the worst urban disaster in United States history.
In late summer, as the number of deaths began to climb, twenty thousand citizens fled to the countryside, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and other members of the federal government, then based in Philadelphia.
Stephen Girard chose to stay. He contributed money to help victims of the epidemic and performed the duties of a nurse when the plague was at its worst. He volunteered to manage the temporary municipal hospital at Bush Hill, changing it from a dirty hellhole into a clean and efficient infirmary. Girard even used his own carriage to transport stricken people to Bush Hill, which was at about Eighteenth and Spring Garden Streets. In doing these things, he risked his life for no perceptible personal gain.
Early on, Mayor Matthew Clarkson asked the College of Physicians of Philadelphia to call a meeting of local doctors to determine what to do. This was the first time in American history that a government entity asked a medical organization to investigate a healthcare matter. Sixteen college fellows convened but could offer no solution for the contagion. These great scientists and doctors—who had made Philadelphia the medical capital of America—simply did not realize that the mosquitoes swarming around the city were transmitting the disease from person to person. These mosquitoes happened to be most plentiful along the Delaware waterfront.
Recall Dr. Benjamin Rush’s hypothesis, which he proclaimed widely, that rotting coffee at the Arch Street Wharf was the epidemic’s source. The doctor’s supposition was wrong, but it may have prompted Mayor Clarkson to order city scavengers to clear out the streets and gutters, starting with Water Street. This did not help.
After three months of misery in Philadelphia, the plague subsided when the weather cooled in the fall and the mosquitoes died. Yellow fever reappeared in subsequent years, however.
Not much changed in those subsequent years in terms of the state of Water Street. The following is an account—from Isaac Weld, Travels Through the States of North America (1799)—of the cartway’s still-dismal condition at the turn of the nineteenth century:
[Water Street] is the first street which you usually enter after landing, and it does not serve to give a stranger a very favourable opinion either of the neatness or commodiousness of the public ways of Philadelphia. It is no more than thirty feet wide, and immediately behind the houses, which stand on the side farthest from the water, a high bank, supposed to be the old bank of the river, rises, which renders the air very confined. Added to this, such stenches at times prevail in it, owing in part to the quantity of filth and dirt that is suffered to remain on the pavement, and in part to what is deposited in waste houses, of which there are several in the street, that it is really dreadful to pass through it.
Water Street had not improved in fifty years, as the following from Yellow Fever, Considered in Its Historical, Pathological, Etiological, and Therapeutical Relations (1855) attests:
For many years after the settlement of the city, this street, on both sides, was thickly inhabited by the better classes of people; but for some time past, the houses have been in a great measure converted into stores or shops, while the balance are tenanted by the poorer and lower orders—sailors, emigrants, &c. As may be presumed, from its situation under a high bank, its mode of construction, the use to which it is appropriated, its proximity to the river, the character and number of its occupants, this street is far from being kept in that state of cleanliness so necessary to the preservation of public health; and is withal imperfectly ventilated.
STEPHEN GIRARD’S WILL (II OF III)
Water Street’s filthiness must have bothered Stephen Girard a great deal. After all, he lived and worked along the lane for much of his life.
As noted before, Girard left the City of Philadelphia half a million dollars for enhancing the Delaware’s western edge. His will directed that water pipes, pumps and fire hydrants should be installed along Water Street from Vine to South Streets “to conduct the water through the main streets and the centre alleys to the river Delaware” for the purpose of cleaning the streets and the bank step alleyways. These improvements were most certainly carried out, but it’s unknown if Water Street was ever regularly flushed as Girard had desired.
Almost all of this storied street in Philadelphia’s central waterfront was obliterated in the late 1960s/early ’70s for Highway
95’s construction. A few blocks of Water Street survive between Summer and Callowhill Streets. Another segment remains behind Gloria Dei Church, although this was formerly Ostego Street. And a fragment of Water Street exists at the rear of the High Pressure Fire Service building at Race Street.
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DELAWARE AVENUE (COLUMBUS BOULEVARD)
LOST RESORT ISLANDS AND GIRARD’S RIVERSIDE LEGACY
Delaware Avenue was first an irregular footpath next to the river, built atop covered-over and filled-up docks and piers that had outlived their usefulness. Over time, though, it became a more formal thoroughfare, thanks to Stephen Girard.
STEPHEN GIRARD’S WILL (III OF III)
Girard specified in his will that a wide boulevard should be constructed along the Delaware:
XXII. *** 1. To lay out, regulate, curb, light and pave a passage or street, on the east part of the city of Philadelphia, fronting the river Delaware, not less than twenty-one feet wide, and to be called Delaware Avenue, extending from Vine to Cedar [South] street, all along the east part of Water street squares, and the west side of the logs, which form the heads of the docks, or thereabouts;…to compel the owners of wharves to keep them clean, and covered completely with gravel or other hard materials, and to be so levelled that water will not remain thereon after a shower of rain; to completely clean and keep clean all the docks within the limits of the city, fronting on the Delaware.
Delaware Avenue in 1898, before its last widening, looking south at Walnut Street. The Pennsylvania Railroad’s freight depot is on the right; its wharves are on the left. Philadelphia City Archives.
Note that Girard explicitly labeled this boulevard “Delaware Avenue.” His requirement that the roadway be “levelled [so] that water will not remain thereon after a shower” must have been followed to the letter, as Delaware Avenue is one of the most level streets in the city.
The Pennsylvania General Assembly passed an act on March 24, 1832, authorizing the city of Philadelphia to carry out Girard’s wishes. The funds he left the city first allowed for extending the primitive pathway beside the Delaware eastward into the river, incorporating existing docks and using landfill (made-earth) to make the roadbed. The project took place between 1834 and 1845.
The work produced Delaware Avenue, a proper street twenty-five feet wide and paved with Belgian blocks between Vine and South Streets. Girard’s money also led to the construction of bulkheads and the first lighting along the river (first with gas lamps, later with arc lamps). The City of Philadelphia expended $249,696.81 of Girard’s legacy.
With Delaware Avenue so close to the water, the bowsprits and booms of ships sometimes extended over to storehouses on the avenue’s west side. This is much like how parts of the front of vessels at James West’s shipyard would reach over Water Street one hundred years earlier.
Commerce increased rapidly, and the city had to undertake the second widening of Delaware Avenue from 1857 to 1867, this time to fifty feet. The work expended $313,726.30 from Girard’s Delaware Avenue Fund. The avenue was also extended north of Vine and south of South Street in the 1870s and successively afterward.
Traffic tie-ups continued to increase, a state of affairs that often delayed shippers who hauled perishable goods. So additional widening occurred from 1897 to 1900, when Delaware Avenue was broadened to 150 feet. This street became the widest and longest riverside avenue in the world.
The 1890s work was the most expensive civic improvement project in Philadelphia up to that time. Wharf owners were, of course, compensated for their property and buildings, as they had been during earlier widenings of Delaware Avenue.
A new concrete bulkhead line was also constructed for a mile alongside the river to allow for larger and more up-to-date shipping terminals. Today’s bulkhead line basically follows the one that the U.S. secretary of war established on the east side of Delaware Avenue at that time. The line was last modified on September 10, 1940 (33 U.S.C. § 59j).
Work is underway in 1899 to widen Delaware Avenue. This view is looking north from Chestnut Street. Notice the Philadelphia Cold Storage Warehouse in the distance—the only building in this image still around. Philadelphia City Archives.
PAUL BECK’S PLANS FOR THE CENTRAL WATERFRONT
Stephen Girard was not the first to propose bettering Philadelphia’s riverfront. In 1820, Paul Beck Jr. (1757–1844) prepared a plan for improving the river’s edge between Vine and Spruce Streets. This was the first urban planning exercise in Philadelphia after the laying out of the city itself.
Beck’s scheme was for the municipal government to acquire all property from Vine to Spruce Street east of Front Street and then clear away all extant buildings, wharves, streets, steps and so forth. A series of uniform warehouses would be built between Front Street and a wide new avenue by the Delaware. Each warehouse would stand on its own forty- by one-hundred-foot block, separated by alleys. These improvements were estimated to cost $3,651,000—an astronomical sum back then.
The Beck-Care Warehouse at 18–20 South Delaware Avenue, erected in the late eighteenth century by Paul Beck. From 1860 to 1954, the building was the headquarters of a fertilizer maker. When it was demolished for I-95 in 1967, this was the last surviving eighteenth-century warehouse on the Philadelphia waterfront. Library of Congress (HABS).
Paul Beck submitted his plan to Stephen Girard for his opinion, but Girard curiously opposed it. Yet it surely must have suggested to Girard that giving Philadelphia money to develop the central Delaware frontage would help the city immensely.
Remarkably similar, Girard and Beck were virtual waterfront successors to Benjamin Franklin and Philip Syng. Like Girard, Paul Beck was an importer/exporter, having acquired a fortune in the wine trade (yet another millionaire by the water). Beck, like Girard, was a port warden of Philadelphia who was intimately familiar with the city waterfront. Beck’s “counting house” was at Front and Market, and he owned storehouses along the Delaware. (One located between Market and Chestnut Streets stood until the 1960s.) And like Girard, Beck chose to live and work on Philadelphia’s riverfront despite its history of dirtiness and disease, and despite being wealthy enough to live elsewhere.
SMITH’S AND WINDMILL ISLANDS
To accommodate the last round of Delaware Avenue widening, a set of narrow islands in the middle of the Delaware River had to be removed. These isles were opposite Philadelphia’s wharves, more or less between Market and South Streets.
The two islands had previously been one long isle called Windmill Island, roughly twenty-five acres in size. This land mass was a type of made-earth—the result of accumulated sand and silt carried downriver by ice and spring floods on the Delaware. Windmill Island was not a fixed place, as it washed away at one end as fast as it grew at another. Its name arose from an octagonal windmill at its northern end, assembled in 1746 by one John Harding.
At various times, it was proposed to bridge the channel and to use Windmill Island as a midway point. These plans were opposed by those who foresaw that the island would have to be dredged away someday.
In 1782, a man named Thomas Wilkinson was hanged for piracy on Windmill Island, leading to fanciful stories that the place was a haven for pirates. Other confirmed pirates were hanged there, so the stories may be true. Early murderers of Philadelphia were also taken to Windmill Island for execution.
The Camden and Philadelphia Ferry had its route between Philadelphia’s Walnut Street and Camden’s Federal Street. The firm was tired of steaming its ferryboats around the isle since the persistent detour added cost to each ferry trip in terms of time and fuel. So it cut a canal across Windmill Island about 1838. (The DRWC’s RiverLink Ferry crosses the channel nowadays exactly where this cut used to be.) The canal in effect created two islands: Windmill Island on the south and Smith’s Island, somewhat smaller, on the north.
Smith’s Island was named after a John Smith who had owned the northern half of Windmill Island and lived there with his family. Willow trees were planted a
nd flourished on Smith’s Island. Then, parks, restaurants, lodges and bathing resorts were constructed on it. Floating baths within the Delaware River had operated there as early as 1826.
In the 1880s, Jacob Ridgway built an amusement park on Smith’s Island. (This was likely the same man who owned the Ridgway House Hotel.) Ridgway Park became a popular place for Philadelphians to spend a day of frolicking—“mostly for the lower classes” who lived near the docks, as one author wrote. Hot-air balloon ascensions or tightrope walkers would sometimes entertain visitors. The beer garden at Ridgway Park was especially well patronized. Steam ferries crammed with day-trippers left the Walnut Street Wharf every ten minutes.
Windmill Island, meanwhile, supported a lead works, a dye works and coal boat wharves. A charitable resort for sick and underprivileged children was also there starting in 1877. Chartered boats would pick up kids and their parents from congested Philadelphia neighborhoods all along the Delaware frontage. They were taken to Windmill Island to enjoy a day of recreation, fresh air and free bowls of hot soup with crackers.
Smith’s and Windmill Islands on the Delaware, prior to 1894 and their subsequent removal. Adam Levine Collection.
The resort, which became nicknamed “Soupy Island,” moved to Red Bank, New Jersey, in 1886. The Sanitarium Playground of New Jersey is there to this day, still offering summertime fun—and hot soup—to hundreds of inner-city children of eastern Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey.
The federal government cleared away both Windmill and Smith’s Islands in the 1890s. Shipping interests had campaigned to eliminate the landmasses beginning in 1874, calling them impediments to cargo-laden vessels on the river. Plus, the U.S. government wanted a six-hundred-foot-wide shipping channel in the Delaware by then.
Philadelphia's Lost Waterfront Page 13
