2011-2041 Ranstead Street, Philadelphia PA 19102
(also 2030 Ludlow Street)
© Helene Schenck & Michael
Parrington, Workshop of the World (Oliver Evans Press,
1990).
The Brush arc lamp was
selected in 1878 by the Franklin Institute as superior to
all others tested in that year. It was the first
really efficient and complete arc lighting system. In
1881, the Brush Electric Light Co. of Philadelphia was
formed under the de facto leadership of Thomas Dolan.
Dolan had proposed to Philadelphia's City Select and
Common Councils to light Chestnut Street from river to
river with "lamps so strong that newspapers could be read
on the street at night". 1
The price tag of
$5,000 was rejected as too expensive; accordingly, Dolan
offered to light the street at the company's expense for
one year on a trial basis. Property was purchased on
Johnson (later Ranstead) Street, just north of Chestnut
Street, between 20th and 21st Streets.
There
a brick station was erected and equipped with four
Babcock and Wilcox boilers from New York, eight
Porter-Allen steam engines of 45 horsepower each from the
Southwark Foundry and Machine Company, and eight dynamos,
lamps of various sizes, 11,000 carbons, and other
necessities from The Brush Electric Co. of
Cleveland. 2
On December 3, 1881, the 49 new arc lights, high on
40-foot tall iron poles painted red, were turned on,
making the gas lamps burning beside them on Chestnut
Street look "yellow, dim, and sickly".
3
This street
lighting was Philadelphia's first electric utility
service.
The success of the company and the demand for lights
necessitated an increase to the station's capacity; a new
boiler house was built in 1884 and an additional story
added to the generating station.
Between 1881 and 1895, more than 20 small local electric
companies sprang up in Philadelphia alone, operating at a
number of different frequencies and voltages. This period
of struggling for political, legal, and financial
supremacy was brought to an end in 1902 by the
consolidation of all the small companies into the
Philadelphia Electric Company with the right to operate
in the whole city of Philadelphia.
The plant presently functions as the Ludlow Substation
for the Philadelphia Electric Company; it is also used by
SEPTA as a converter facility.
1 Nicholas
Wainwright, History
of the Philadelphia Electric Company,
1881-1961 (Philadelphia, 1961), p. 16.
2 Wainwright, p. 18.
3 Wainwright, p.
19-21. The writer quoted went on to report that
"...while the authorities appeared enthusiastic about the
arc lights, they did not turn off the Chestnut Street gas
lights, which continued to burn along with the electric
ones. This dual lighting may have stemmed from
caution, but was, more probably, sheer absent-mindedness
on the part of someone who failed to cancel the gas
contract."
Update May
2007 (by
Harry Kyriakodis):
On page 102 of History of the Philadelphia Electric
Company, Wainwright writes that Mayor Reyburn threw a
switch to light up Market Street east of City Hall on New
Year's Eve for 1909. Citizens liked this new lighting so
much that the Philadelphia City Select and Common
Councils passed an ordinance calling for nearly a
thousand additional arc lights. Then comes this: "The
size of the contract necessitated a rearrangement within
Philadelphia Electric's system. The old Brush station was
demolished and in its place was erected a one-story
building which housed forty 125-arc light machines
supplied with current from Christian Street... These
lamps were turned on by Mayor Reyburn at a ceremony on
September 15..." Furthermore, the 1895 Bromley atlas
shows that the original 1881 structure was much smaller
than the replacement one still standing on the site. And
it certainly looks like the 1909 plant always had "The
Philadelphia Electric Company" along its cornice; the
company, later known as PECO, was incorporated in 1902.
PECO Energy Company and Unicom Corporation merged in 2000
to form Exelon Corporation.