Sanitarium Playground, better known in the hearts of thousands of Philadelphians and South Jerseyans as Soupy Island, appeared at the end of Red Bank Ave. with its mirth subdued by barbed wire. The compound’s shabbiness belied its significance to scores of young Philadelphians whose lives were spent in the stifling airlessness of Philadelphia’s red brick canyons. Founded in 1877 by an organization called the Sanitarium Association of Philadelphia, the compound is a specimen of the late nineteenth century social hygeine movement bound up in well-meaning upper/middle class paternalism. Though the social philosophy that gave rise to Soupy Island implied that poor immigrants were constitutionally unable to care for their own health, by all accounts Soupy Island was — and continues to be — a much needed outlet for the region’s kids.

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Although it is now touted as the “symbolic home” of Temple University, since the 1970s the Baptist Temple on the southwest corner of Berks and Broad had suffered from a quasi-official policy of salutary neglect. Some have gone so far as to sugest that it was the approach of former Temple University president Peter J. Liacouras (1981-2000) to look the other way as the historic cradle of the university mouldered into the ground. While this is unknown, Temple has come around to the idea of adapting (while not preserving) the internal space where charismatic Russell H. Conwell taught a handful of “night owls” seeking upward advancement.

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The following are photos of a model of Park Towne Place. Built in 1958, Park Towne Place was, like Penn Center which preceded it by a few years, an icon of an Edmund Bacon-inspired postwar city on the move. Along with the Youth Study Center and the Ben Franklin Motor Lodge, Park Towne Place stands as a high water mark of the modernist planning insurgence, its presence a sign that postwar planners did not hold sacrosanct the mature Beaux-Arts school’s reigning dominance on the Parkway. And yet unlike the YSC and the Ben Franklin Motor Lodge, the shift in planning paradigms has not rocked Park Towne Place to its core. The YSC stands as testament to modernism’s unshakable belief in the therapeutic potential of “good” design and the motor lodge a reminder of the postwar deference to the automobile–two concepts that have not weathered time, architectural preference, and the realities of urban life very well.

Perhaps because its function is simple: to offer residential amenities in a park-like setting has Park Towne evaded the scorn of modernism’s critics. I don’t know the occupancy of the 17 story units, but people seem to still enjoy living in Philip Johnsonian glass houses. [A new banner proclaims that some units are being rehabilitated--probably to compete with "fresher" condos which really aren't that much more engaging that PTP] Then again the complex’s marginality, its stark shunted-off irrelevance also may play a role in its dodging bullets. In some ways the real Park Towne Place still remains cocooned under a canopy of plexiglass: as a “model” of 1950s city living not really a part of the Parkway or city, but a part of some architectural museum’s storage basement.

Follow the jump for more PTP photos.

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Anyone hungry for some maritime ruins should head over to Phillyhistory.org where I’ve elaborated on an early post about the growth of the city’s docks, wharves, and ferries in the early 20th century. While you’re there buy a photo and help fix a pothole.

[KELLY DRIVE DRAINAGE IMPROVEMENTS]

Last week, when the Inquirer ran a story about a surprisingly massive ($38 million) drainage improvement project that will snarl traffic just below the East Falls bridges, the region let out a collective groan. For something like six months, Kelly Drive will be reduced to two lanes — severely crimping one of the city’s major arteries. What was lost in the hubbub over traffic was an explanation as to why the Scotts Lane/Allegheny Ave. basin needs better drainage and how new impervious surfaces, development, and insufficient stormwater systems built in the early 20th century make this need acute.

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Originally uploaded by theanthracite

This a terra cotta medallion from the original Wilson Brothers portion of Broad Street Station demolished in 1953.

This is an overlay of Paxton’s 1811 map of Philadelphia with a modern Google map showing a small community clustered around the Ridge Road/Ave. Running east to west roughly along the current track of Fairmount Ave. was a rutted farm road called Francis Lane. From the name of this road and Francis St. which still exists comes the name of the community wedged in in the V between Francis and the Ridge Road/Ave. The conventional name of this community is Francisville though an out-of-use handle gives some clues as to the reasons why one street’s named “Grape”. Just northwest of Wylie St. is Vineyard St., which you can faintly see in Paxton’s 1811 map.

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These are ruins of an industrial complex once owned by the Socony-Vacuum Oil Company south of Bartram’s Garden in the vicinity of 56th street. The area is described as Gibson’s Point on a 1923 nautical map in the NOAA archives. The facility was designed to supply tank trucks oil and gas for distribution around Philadelphia. It is unknown whether the fueling station was connected to the Atlantic Refining Company across the river but chances are good that the Socony-Vacuum facility made use of its location within the South Schuylkill refining district that developed in the early 20th century is still a presence today.

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Just north of the ex-Reading Railroad/SEPTA Spring Garden St. Station on the Reading Viaduct.