Introduction

INTRODUCTION
This exhibition focuses on the buildings of a section of Center City Philadelphia west of Washington Square, running from 11th to Broad Street and from Market to South Street, a neighborhood remarkable for its scale, its diversity, and its surviving historic fabric.
At various times the area has accommodated, often simultaneously, major portions of the city's elite residential quarter, its African American population, its high-end retail corridor, its most visible centers of night life, high and low, bookish Philadelphia and clubbish Philadelphia, its gay and lesbian community, and a host of small households at the heart of the city. This diverse character has been shaped since the area's initial development in the 1820s and 30s by the carving of minor streets and alleys within William Penn's grid, which brought different classes and uses together within his overlarge blocks. The district still bears marks of the westward migrations of the fashionable elite and of high-end commerce along its northern half, and of the redefinition of its northern and western edges with tall office and commercial buildings whose deeper invasion was forestalled by the Depression. Its history has made the neighborhood a rich array of different moments and uses that can shift every dozen footsteps, a rare survival at the heart of a great city.
Recent and pending reinvestment in this western part of "Washington Square West" -- by the Library Company of Philadelphia and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, by residential and commercial development interests, and in civic and institutional initiatives on all four edges -- seem to signal a new, potentially transforming chapter in this neighborhood's history after decades of relative stasis. This moment seems an opportune one to explore this area's architectural past, the urban forces manifest in its present, and prospects for its future.

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

I1. Plan of the City of Philadelphia and its Environs,… Engraving after surveys by John Hills, 1796 (London: John & Josiah Boydell, 1798). Library Company of Philadelphia.
I2. Philadelphia. Axonometric view of Center City by David A. Fox (Philadelphia, 1984). Library Company of Philadelphia.
I3. Panorama of Philadelphia, From the State House Steeple, West. Lithograph by John C. Wild, from Wild, Views of Philadelphia, and its Vicinity (Philadelphia, 1838). Library Company of Philadelphia.
I4. Aerial view of Center City, Philadelphia, looking northwest from near Ninth and Pine streets. Modern print from glass plate negative by Aero Service Corporation, ca. 1935. Library Company of Philadelphia (8990.4390).
I5. Map of area, 1794. Detail from Plan of the City and Suburbs of Philadelphia…, engraving after surveys by A.P. Folie (Philadelphia, 1794). Library Company of Philadelphia.
I6. The House intended for the President of the United States, in Ninth Street Philadelphia, west side Ninth Street, above Chestnut (built 1792-97). Hand-colored engraving by W. Birch & Son, (Philadelphia: R. Campbell, 1799). Library Company of Philadelphia. Visible in the background is the Philadelphia almshouse, erected in the block between 10th and 11th, Spruce to Pine in the 1760s.
I7. The John Dunlap House, southeast corner 12th and Market streets (built 1789). Watercolor on canvas by John James Barralet, 1807. Stephen Girard Collection, Girard College. Poplars were planted along Market Street from Eighth past Twelfth in 1795, signaling a wished-for, tonier distinction in character from that further east with its mid-street market sheds. Dunlap would sell the entire block to Stephen Girard in 1807. For a later view of this site, see item C16.

[Home] [Virtual Tour of the Exhibit] [Access to Graphics through Interactive Map] [Map Viewer]

intro.html
Last revision 03/11/00. eb.