A PECULIAR ENCLAVE

By the mid-19th century, many families of industrial and mercantile wealth began to move west, across Broad Street, to the next purely residential elite neighborhood. Their new townhouses rose in distinctively modern Victorian styles, often with stone fronts that were implicitly something of a rebuke to the older streetscapes of uniform rows with brick, white marble trim, and dark green shutters. If our area became something of a social backwater relative to the Rittenhouse Square area rising to preeminence in the 1870s, it began to take on a new character as the home of worthy old families less caught up in modern ostentation. The areas around Walnut, Locust, Spruce, and Pine became the haunt of these " Old Philadelphians," and of libraries, private schools, clubs, artistic "Bohemia," antiquarian interests, and antique shops.

Aging, a bit worn at the edges, in the 1890s this enclave accommodated new townhouses by the city's best young architects -- Wilson Eyre, Frank Miles Day, Brown & Day -- in styles that indulged in affectionate anachronisms and often kept to the scale of the in-town pied-a-terre rather than the exhibitionism of the large new mansion. Alongside were the holdouts, the families that retained their now venerable antebellum mansions. And just beginning to rise were the new tall apartment buildings that were soon preferred to the townhouse by the old elite families, starting with the Gladstone at 11th and Pine Street in 1890. These would multiply, increase in height, and broaden their clientele through the 1920s.

 

Instructions: Click on the small image to bring up a full-screen view. This will appear in a second window.

  • D1. The Philadelphia Club, 1301 Walnut Street (built 1837-38 as the Thomas Butler residence).
    Gelatin silver print by John R. Wells, ca. 1952.
    Library Company of Philadelphia.
The Philadelphia Club
  • D2. Episcopal Academy, 1324 Locust Street (built 1849-50, John Notman, architect).
    Photograph, 10 January 1917.
    Philadelphia City Archives (904/ #3798-T).

    Shortly later the site of the Hotel Sylvania; see item D22.
Episcopal Academy
  • D3. The College of Physicians, northeast corner 13th and Locust Streets (built 1862-63, James H. Windrim, architect; altered mid-1880s by T. P Chandler, architect).
    Albumen print, ca. 1885.
    Library Company of Philadelphia.

    The site is now a surface parking lot.
The College of Physicians
  • D4. Library Company of Philadelphia, northwest corner Juniper and Locust streets (built 1879-80, Frank Furness, architect).
    Perspective, ink and watercolor on paper, ca. 1879.
    Library Company of Philadelphia.

    For a later view of the site, see item E17.
Library Company of Philadelphia
  • D5. Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1300 Locust Street (built 1832-36 as Powel mansion, added to and adapted, 1883, Addison Hutton, architect).
    Photograph, ca. 1885.
    Philadelphia City Archives (903/ #11512).

    For an earlier view of the site, see item A8.
Historical Society of Pennsylvania
  • D6. Elizabeth Robins Pennell, Our Philadelphia (Philadelphia: J.P. Lippincott Company, 1914), with lithographed view of Edward Robins house, 1110 Spruce Street, by Joseph Pennell.
    Library Company of Philadelphia.

    See also items A18a and A18b.
Elizabeth Robins Pennell, Our Philadelphia
  • D7. Philadelphia Red Book: A Directory for 1878 (Philadelphia: Mason & Co., 1878).
Philadelphia Red Book: A Directory for 1878
  • D8. Philadelphia West End Visiting Directory (Philadelphia: Collins, printer, 1878).
    Library Company of Philadelphia.

    The pages displayed show addresses on Spruce Street.
Philadelphia West End Visiting Directory
  • D9a. Fire insurance survey of Faires Classical Institute, 238-40 South Camac Street, for John W. Faires, 23 August 1854.
    Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Franklin Fire Insurance Co. Records (policy 0: 24347).
Fire insurance survey of Faires Classical Institute
  • D9b. 238-40 South Camac Street
    Photograph, January 2000.
    Library Company of Philadelphia.
238-40 South Camac Street
  • D10. "The New Century Club," 124 South 12th Street (built 1891, Minerva Parker Nichols, architect), in Frank H. Taylor, ed., The City of Philadelphia . . . prepared under the Auspices of the Trades Leagues (Philadelphia, 1900).
    Library Company of Philadelphia.
"The New Century Club" in The City of Philadelphia "The New Century Club" in The City of Philadelphia "The New Century Club" in The City of Philadelphia "The New Century Club" in The City of Philadelphia
  • D11. Mask & Wig Club, 310 South Quince Street (built 1834 as St. Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church, adapted by Wilson Eyre, architect, for club, 1894-1901), interior.
    Gelatin silver print by Photo-Illustrators, ca. 1934.
    Library Company of Philadelphia.
Mask & Wig Club, 310 S. Quince Street
  • D12. Frank H. Taylor, Poor Richard’s Dictionary of Philadelphia (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1916), with view of club, 239-41 South Camac Street.
    Library Company of Philadelphia.
Poor Richard's Dictionary of Philadelphia
  • D13. Victorian townhouses, 1314-22 Locust, Street.
    Photograph, 10 January 1917.
    Philadelphia City Archives (904/ #3797-T).

    For a later view of this site, see item F1.
Victorian townhouses, 1314-22 Locust, Street
  • D14. Boyd’s Blue Book: the Fashionable Private Address Directory…. (Philadelphia: C.E. Howe Co., 1885).
    Library Company of Philadelphia.
Boyd's Blue Book: the Fashionable Private Address Directory….
  • D15. Clarence B. Moore house, 1321 Locust Street (built 1890, Wilson Eyre, architect) and Dr. Joseph Leidy house, 1319 Locust Street (built 1893-94, Wilson Eyre, architect).
    Perspective and plans by Eyre reproduced in American Architect and Building News 32 (2 June 1894).
    Bryn Mawr College, William A. Keely Collection, gift of John W. Freas, 1993.

    For an earlier view with the church on this site, see item B5a.
Clarence B. Moore house, 1321 Locust Street
  • D16. Houses on Spruce St., Philadelphia, Brown & Day, archts., 1101-15 Spruce Street (built 1889 for Alan H. Reed).
    Perspective after photograph from American Architect and Building News 31 (7 February 1891).
    Bryn Mawr College, William A. Keely Collection, gift of John W. Freas, 1993.
Houses on Spruce St., Philadelphia, Brown & Day, archts
  • D17. 1309-15 Locust Street (including 1313 Locust Street, built 1897 as the C. B. Newbold house, Frank Miles Day & Bro., architects).
    Photograph, 14 December 1916.
    Philadelphia City Archives (903/ #3554-T).
1309-15 Locust Street
  • D18. House for Mr. C. B. Moore, W. Eyre Jr Architect, House for Dr Jos. Leidy. W Eyre Jr Arch., House for Mr. C B. Newbold, F. M. Day + Bro Arch, northeast corner Juniper and Locust streets.
    Aerial perspective by Wilson Eyre, 1898.
    Pencil and watercolor on gray paper.
    Art Department, Free Library of Philadelphia.
House for Mr. C. B. Moore, House for Mr. C B. Newbold
  • D19. Apartment House, 11th & Pine Sts., Gladstone Apartments, 1101 Pine Street (built 1889-90, Theophilus P. Chandler, architect).
    Perspective from Builder, Decorator, and Woodworker (January 1890).
    Bryn Mawr College, William A. Keely Collection, gift of John W. Freas, 1993.

    Upon completion, this building was amply represented in Philadelphia's social directories as an elite address. For the site's earlier use, see item C8. It is now the site of Louis Kahn Park.
Gladstone Apartments, 1101 Pine Street
  • D20. Map of area, 1908.
    Photocomposite from George W. and Walter S. Bromley, Atlas of the City of Philadelphia: Central Business Property 5th…6th…7th…8th...9th…10th…& 15th… Wards (Philadelphia: G.W. Bromley & Co., 1908), plates 9, 10, and 11.
    Library Company of Philadelphia.
Map of area, 1908
  • D21. Lincoln Apartments, 1222 Locust Street (built ca. 1892-93, George H. Fettus, architect).
    Photograph, 10 January 1917.
    Philadelphia City Archives (902/ #3794-T).
Lincoln Apartments, 1222 Locust Street
  • D22. Hotel Sylvania, 1324 Locust Street (built 1922, Leroy B. Rothschild, architect).
    Photograph, ca. 1948.
    Athenaeum of Philadelphia, Dillon Collection (photo #223).

    For an earlier view of the site, showing Episcopal Academy, see item D2.
Hotel Sylvania, 1324 Locust Street
Introduction | From Edge to Center: Movin' West | Communities | Commerce |Enclave
Persistence and Ambition in the Twentieth Century | The Cassatt House | Prospects

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