Southeast corner Tulip & Memphis Streets (2007).
A.J. Reach & Co., c.1907-1922
1701-1707 Tulip Street, 1721-1731 Tulip Street, 1714-1718 Memphis Street, Philadelphia PA 19125
© Stuart Paul Dixon,
Workshop of the
World (Oliver Evans Press, 1990).
A.J. Reach & Co. was one
of the largest producers of sporting goods in the United
States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries. Its complex covered most of the block bounded
by Tulip, Eyre, Memphis, and Palmer Streets in northern
Fishtown. Although the original mill building dating from
the late nineteenth century was demolished about 1980,
the remaining three buildings of the complex still
document the growth of Reach as a leader in the sporting
goods field.
The four-story factory at 1721-1731 Tulip Street dates
from about 1907. It has a shallowly-sloped gable roof and
a corbeled cornice, with the roof ridge parallel to Tulip
Street. The Tulip Street elevation has twelve bays; the
northeast elevation facing Eyre Street has ten bays. The
northeast elevation has been extensively altered and
displays at least two periods of construction; a seam
running from the elevator tower on the roof down between
the fourth and fifth bays probably denotes the extent of
the earliest, unaltered portion of the building to the
west.
The four-story brick and concrete building at 1701-1707
Tulip Street, erected about 1910, has eight bays along
its southwest elevation facing Palmer Street and three
bays along its northwest elevation facing Tulip Street. A
fourth bay on Tulip Street is defined by concrete piers;
it contains an elevator shaft and is topped by an
elevator tower.
The only building for which a definite date of
construction has been uncovered stands at 1714-1718
Memphis Street. Sanborn Insurance Surveys state that this
building was erected in 1922. The four-story concrete and
brick factory building contains five bays along Memphis
and seven bays along Eyre Street where there is a center
stair tower. Three loading docks with canopies are
located on the Eyre Street elevation.
"A.J. Reach Company, Base Balls &
Sporting Goods Factory" (1893), Hexamer
#2627.
Reach began making baseballs, footballs, and boxing
gloves at this site in 1892 in a former silk hosiery and
knit goods mill, constructed about 1883.
1
The company
employed 250 people and manufactured twenty types of
baseballs and twenty one models of baseball gloves.
Catalogs of Reach's products advertised Reach's
"official" American League baseball as endorsed by the
Philadelphia Athletics' manager, Connie
Mack.
In 1886, Reach was making baseballs as a tenant at two
other Fishtown factories, one at 1101-1103 Frankford
Avenue and the other on Beach Street along Fishtown's
riverfront. In 1934, Reach sold all its properties in the
block currently bounded by Palmer Street, Tulip Street,
Eyre Street, and Memphis Street to another sporting goods
manufacturer, A. G. Spaulding Bros. Spaulding divested
itself of the complex shortly thereafter. Subsequent
owners have included Pepsi-Cola Bottling Company of
Philadelphia and Nabisco. The Memphis Street building is
now used as an automobile tire warehouse, while the
building at 1701-1707 Tulip Street houses a machinery and
parts manufacturer.
Although the mill building at 1709-1719 Tulip Street that
housed Reach's original baseball factory does not
survive, the present buildings at 1701-1707 Tulip,
1721-1731 Tulip, and 1714-1718 Memphis are related to
Reach's most intense and successful era. The company had
an important impact on the Fishtown community. A 1916
industrial census indicates that over 1,000 people were
then employed at Reach; this figure may not include
Fishtowners who sewed covers on baseballs in their homes.
1 This mill was originally
operated by Samuel Vickers and Julius Weston and was
situated at 1709-1719 Tulip Street.
Update May
2007 (by
Torben Jenk):
A Zoning Notice posted in
April 2007 requests permission to "demolish an existing
four story structure" and create seventy-six family
dwellings "as part of an existing four story structure"
and provide seventy seven parking spaces. It is not clear
which of the four-story buildings they wish to demolish.
Four-story buildings line the entire south side of
Memphis Street, the oldest being at the the corner of
Tulip Street and made of brick. The cast concrete
building at the other end of the block looks over Memphis
Street to Palmer Burial Ground, established in the 18th
century by the founder of "Kensington," Anthony Palmer.
Another four-story cast concrete building is at the
northeast corner of Tulip and Palmer.
A similar conversion from industrial use to sixty
residential dwellings is planned at 2424 East York Street
(northwest corner of Gaul Street) which sold in March
2007 for $2,250,000. Jacob Holtz Co. occupied this space
for sixty years but is now moving to a building on the
Boeing site below the airport. Jacob Holtz Co.
manufactures "rug runners" [used on bed frames] in
Philadelphia and imports casters, stampings, and
furniture hardware. About forty people are currently
employed, some of whom have been there for over thirty
years.
See
also:
Hexamer General Survey #2627 (1893), "A.J.
Reach Company, Base Balls & Sporting Goods
Factory."