Dennis Clark’s research into the districts once known as Ramcat and Schuylkill piqued my interest in trying to reconstruct the environment of mid-19th c. Philly.  In attempting to figure out if the areas on the east bank of the Schuylkill River between Vine and South were populated by wharfs and coalyards — as he described – I tried to plot all the “coal dealers” I could that were listed in the business section of McElroy’s Philadelphia City Directory of 1861.  At first I equated “coal dealer” with “yard” but I don’t know enough about this industry to suggest that every “dealer” kept a stockpile of coal on his property.  If anyone knows I’d appreciate confirmation.  Here’s a link from www.philageohistory.org to the page of McElroy’s I used. 

Here is the plotting of the coal dealers using Windows Local Live. 

In plotting 70 coal dealers (just through H) several interesting features of this industry and an industrializing Philadelphia emerge.  I anticipated that dealers would be located on the eastern bank of the Schuylkill River, and along the Delaware.  I also figured that as a major commercial thoroughfare, Broad Street between Vine and South would have its share of coal dealers.  I did not expect such a high concentration along Walnut St. between 4th and Front Sts.  As the below may shows, one of the city’s major ”public landings”, (which probably looked like the Race St. wharf), was located there.  These coal dealers probably profited from being in close proximity to other dealers for information-sharing purposes.  News about shipments, new markets, and fluctuating prices would easily pass through these coal dealer communities. 

The distribution of these dealers also shows the limits of 1861 Philadelphia.  As this 1840 map shows, mid-century Philadelphia was organized in a crescent around the Delaware, with development extending north into Northern Liberties and south into Southwark and Moyamensing districts.  Roughly this crescent is replicated on my coal dealer map.  Washington Ave., with its proximity to the Southwark RR, is fast becoming an industrial corridor.      

When SEPTA’s chairman William McConnon assumed control of the patchwork system in 1972, he announced an ambitious plan to knit the system together and adapt the spoke-and-hub arrangement of the commuter, subway, and el lines into what he termed “a total transit complex.”  He tried to fashion a system that would allow greater cross city movement and at “transit nodes” to provide a variety of movement options for users.  He looked to the well-developed systems of London and Paris for guidance.  In Philadelphia, McConnon’s plan called for the activation of previously unused rights-of-way, like this Reading Railroad cut just north of Callowhill St.  I’ve never fully understood why this plan was never fully implemented, and I’m not sure if many Philadelphians are aware of what SEPTA could have become.  My thought is that labor disputes and the additional stresses of assuming more and more operating responsibilities caused SEPTA to table McConnon’s “total transit complex” plan.  Click here for a larger version of the above map and some other documents. 

Click here for a Polaroid tour of the Wissahickon Valley and Forbidden Dr.

Though I have always been a fan of both Google Maps and Earth, Windows Local Live offers a comparable product with quality “bird’s eye views” a la Google Earth without the cumbersome download. Much like Google Earth, Windows Local Live allows the placement of pushpins but its scratchpad feature enables hotlinks to photo urls or informational sites.

Having just read Dennis Clark’s essay ‘”Ramcat” and Rittenhouse Square: Related Communities,” in The Divided Metropolis: Social and Spatial Dimensions of Philadelphia, 1800-1975, I figured that Windows Local would serve as an excellent vehicle to map the relationships of some Irish Catholics to a Protestant outreach mission known as the Western Soup Society.

I’ve inserted some of the material borrowed from Clark’s essay regarding the tenant’s name, family size, and soup quantity requested during the winter of 1878-79 into Windows Local. Just click on the pushpin to get additional information. I’m going to attempt to photograph the extant homes and the Western Soup Society and link these photos also.

Just click here for the link.

This is just a basic demonstration using a couple Western patrons based on Clark’s primary research (although the register of the Western Soup Society does exist at Temple). His article, and this map present a picture of a markedly more hardscrabble neighborhood than what currently exists. We can imagine for a moment that for these three Irish soup patrons, the choice to accept basic sustenance from a Protestant organization involved great trepidation. As Clark writes: “To be a ’souper’ was to risk the contempt of the rest of the Irish community…. To be forced to take Protestant soup after having resisted all manner of anti-Catholic intimidation in both Ireland and the United States was to accept a potion laced with gall (131).”

While New York has broken ground on its High Line park, Philadelphia’s efforts to redevelop the Reading Viaduct have suffered a general loss of momentum.  Just two years ago, at charettes of “incredible intensity”, Penn and Drexel design students, landscape architects, and community groups thought big about the prospect of a center city promenade plantee: a community park for Chinatown and Callowhill.  Now, the lofty talk has ebbed and major organizations like ReadingViaduct.org are as silent and abandoned as the structure itself.  Though the winning student design from the charette was praised for its “creativity and low cost”; it was not sufficiently simple to be implemented.

Though I pause before uttering such a typically Jadedelphian sentiment: it’s becoming more and more probable that I won’t see the Viaduct restored within my lifetime. 

In truth, it is no wonder that the Reading Viaduct project has devolved into memories of furious charettes and defunct websites.  It is increasingly evident that no grassroots support for a landscaped esplanade truly exists in either the Callowhill loft district or Chinatown sections.  It is unclear whether the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation has altered its position, first articulated in July of 2004, that the structure should be demolished to allow the construction of market-rate housing.  It is unclear, really, where any of the original proponents for a recreational/residential Viaduct now stand.  Although young planners touted the structure’s ability to unify several neighborhoods, no voices calling for a restored Viaduct have emerged from Northern Liberties, Spring Garden, West Poplar, or Brandywine East sections.  In the past two years: silence above and silence below for the Reading Viaduct.

Even if strong community support existed to induce city involvement, the estimated cost for landscaping the Viaduct (a scant $5.1 million) may not include the substantial costs to remove ballast, ties, and other appurtenances contaminated with PCBs.  According to a Reading Company legal opinion this cost will bef oisted onto either the city or SEPTA, neither of which are inclined to support a superfund-type cleanup:

“The Company believes that the Viaduct may be contaminated by PCBs resulting from former railroad operations on that property conducted by or on behalf of the Reading Railroad, Conrail, the City of Philadelphia or SEPTA. The Company has advised the EPA of the potential contamination. The Company has not determined the scope or extent of any such PCB contamination. However, the Company has been advised by counsel that, given the lack of regulatory attention to the Viaduct in the eleven years which have elapsed since EPA was notified of the likelihood of contamination, it is unlikely that the Company will be required to decontaminate the Viaduct or incur costs related thereto. In the event that the Company was required to incur expenditures to remove PCB contamination on the Viaduct, under terms of the settlement described above, Conrail, the City of Philadelphia and SEPTA would be required to fund 52% to 55% of such costs.”

The prospect of high human use of the formerly-contaminated right-of-way introduces legal peril into the reconstruction process — a fact which has received little attention in notices of design charettes.   The fallout that would ensue if a Viaduct user were to show signs of PCB exposure means that dominant political players will judiciously weigh the litigation risks against the the potential political gains.  In Philadelphia, this process of discernment usually amounts to an elaborate game of hot potato or buck passing at a glacial speed.

It may be that I will never walk a Philadelphia promenade plantee.  While I pine, I’d like to see a coordinting organization emerge with a little more permanence and hear a few more voices from the neighborhoods below the Viaduct.