CENTER CITY
© Helene Schenck & Michael
Parrington, Workshop of the World (Oliver Evans Press,
1990).
Until 1854, the City of
Philadelphia encompassed an area of 2,277 square miles
bounded by the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers to the east
and west, and by Vine and South Streets to the north and
south. This area, laid out by Penn's surveyor Thomas
Holme in the 1680s, forms the focus of this section of
the guidebook.
The city first developed along the Delaware riverfront,
although Penn envisaged a city stretching from the
Delaware River to the Schuylkill River. Throughout most
of the eighteenth century, the city clustered east of 6th
Street and stretched north and south in a linear fashion
into the Northern Liberties and Southwark. This area saw
the majority of the eighteenth century industrial
development of the city.
By the early nineteenth century, development had reached
Center Square and continued westward to the Schuylkill
and into West Philadelphia. By the middle of the
nineteenth century, Philadelphia had spread far beyond
the confines demarcated by Penn, and the Consolidation of
1854 recognized this fact by enlarging the city
boundaries to match those of Philadelphia County.
Early houses in the seventeenth century city were of log
construction, but by 1683, a brickworks was in operation
north of the city. One of the earliest brick houses was
constructed at the south corner of Front and Mulberry
(now Arch) Streets in 1684. By the end of the seventeenth
century, there were three brewhouses in the town, a
ropewalk, four shipyards, and numerous wharves and
warehouses. Businesses and industries utilized the
services of sawyers, brickmakers, dyers, shoemakers,
brewers, maltsters, coopers, and potters, to name but a
few of the 35 trades documented in the seventeenth
century city in research conducted by Hannah Benner
Roach. 1
Dock Creek was the site of much of the early industry
which required a water source. Numerous tanners set up on
the banks, and by the mid-eighteenth century, many
complaints were voiced about the noisome conditions of
the water course. As the city developed during the
eighteenth century, polluting activities like tanning,
potting, and brickmaking moved out to the outskirts of
the residential area. Potters like Antony Duche, who
operated a kiln on Chestnut Street not far from the State
House in the 1760s, found themselves persona non grata.
Increasingly, the less socially acceptable
industries were pushed out to the Northern Liberties, and
west to the Schuylkill River.
Many industries continued to operate in Old City but they
tended to be relatively small scale in comparison to
entities like the Baldwin Locomotive Works and the
Disston Saw Works. Larger industries did congregate along
the Schuylkill riverfront, and by the nineteenth century
there were many wharves and landings in use by these
concerns. Many of these industries had started
their existence in Old City and as land prices increased,
they gradually moved westward. Typical of these was the
Wetherill Paint and Chemical Company, which commenced as
a textile concern in Old City in 1775. The company
branched out into hardware and paints and dyes, and by
1809, appears to have been manufacturing white lead at 19
S. Seventh Street. Shortly after this, a new factory was
erected at Twelfth and Cherry Streets. The company
operated at this location successfully until 1848 when a
new facility was opened on the west bank of the
Schuylkill between Chestnut and Walnut Streets.
2
By the mid-nineteenth century, a pattern had emerged of
smaller industries interspersed with domestic housing
throughout much of Old City and Center City. Along the
Delaware riverfront south of Market Street, there were
numerous piers and warehouses where products were stored
prior to shipment or after importation. On the Schuylkill
riverfront, wharves and storage facilities served the
internal commerce of Pennsylvania via the Schuylkill,
Delaware, Lehigh, and Main-Line Canals.
3
The demise of the canal system and the rise of the
railroads transformed the built environment of
Philadelphia as the lines of the Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia & Reading, and Baltimore & Ohio
Railroads edged into the city on soaring viaducts and at
grade level.
Toward the end of the nineteenth century, a survey
conducted by the city 4
provided a
revealing picture of industry in Philadelphia. In 1882,
there was a total of 4,062 manufacturing establishments
in the area defined by South and Vine Streets, and the
Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers, employing 91,728 people,
with a product valued at over 236 million dollars.
Industries employing more than 1,000 people
included bookbinding, boot and shoe manufacturing,
clothing, confectionery, furniture, gas works, hosiery,
iron working, paper boxes, printing, silk manufacturers,
and umbrella making. Clothing was by far the most
important industry, with finished goods valued at over 36
million dollars. This was followed by boot and shoe
manufacturing at over 9 million, and sugar refining at a
little under 6 million. Although sugar refining ranked
third in terms of product value, it employed
comparatively few people—315 in two establishments.
Clothing employed 25,671, and boot and shoe manufacturing
7,567: accounting together for over 36% of the total
working population of the area.
In the twentieth century, clothing continued to be an
important industry and many of the loft buildings still
to be seen in Old City and Center City at the present
time originated as sweat shops producing clothing. Much
of the industry along the Delaware waterfront, including
the two sugar refineries, was removed when the Delaware
Expressway was constructed in the 1970s. Many of the
nineteenth century industrial buildings of Philadelphia,
however, still exist in the area bounded by the two
rivers and Vine and South Streets. These structures
largely have survived by being adapted and reused as
offices and apartment buildings, serving the needs of
Philadelphia's service-oriented population of the 1980s.
For the most part, the interiors of these buildings have
been gutted and only the facades survive to remind the
visitor of Philadelphia's industrial
past.
1 Russell F. Weigley,
editor, Philadelphia:
A 300-Year History, p. 20.
2 Miriam Hussey,
From
Merchants to "Colour Men": Five Generations of Samuel
Wetherill's White Lead Business (1956).
3 Baist, 1895.
4 Lorin Blodget,
Census
of Manufactures of Philadelphia, (Philadelphia, 1883), pp.
8-44
Resources:
Center City
bibliography