Philadelphia's Lost Waterfront Read Online Free Page B

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.
    T HE T OWN OF C ALLOWHILL
    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.

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    C ALLOWHILL TO V INE
    P ENN ’ S S URVIVING S TEPS AND S HIPS AND F ERRIES ON THE F ROZEN D ELAWARE
    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).
    T HE W OOD S TREET S TEPS
    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