Yesterday I joined a tour of the Schuylkill Navigation towpath and railroad bridges in the vicinity of Philadelphia’s Manayunk neighborhood. The tour was led by Sandy Sorlien, a historian and photographer who works for the Philadelphia Water Department and is the author of Inland, which features her beautiful photographs of remnants of the navigation system. We met at the parking lot of the movie theater on Main Street in Manayunk, and from there we crossed the river on the pedestrian path of the hundred-year-old iron truss Pencoyd Bridge.
After examining the few extant remnants of the old Pencoyd Iron Works property (which once stretched for about a mile along the river in Lower Merion Township, and has now been redeveloped as a hotel and residences) we followed the troute of the old canal towpath, which is now paved and part of the Cynwyd Heritage Trail system. We then cut off the main trail, went under the Schuylkill Expressway and railroad tracks, and climbed an old road through a steep valley to another part of the Heritage Trail which curves between Westminster and West Laurel Hill cemeteries. The trail crosses the curving concrete Manayunk Bridge, which once carried a branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad from Lower Merion to Manayunk and now carries pedestrians and people on a variety of human-powered locomotion–including, if one believes one of the signs on the trail, pogo sticks. . At the Philadelphia end of the bridge we met Tom Watson, a Manayunk neighbor who helps maintain a garden, informal music venue, and a kids’ play station where the PRR’s Manayunk Railroad Station once stood. We then made our way back to our cars along Main Street and the Manayunk Canal towpath.
It was a beautiful day, and the views up and down the river from the high bridge were spectacular. The Lower Merion Township Planning Department deserves kudos for spearheading this project, which turned a railroad right of way abandoned by SEPTA into a much-beloved public space.
This morning, while going through my files looking for illustrations for this post, I came across a panoramic view of Manayunk:
I also found these, in a collection that the late PWD historian Jane Mork Gibson had obtained from John Kiker. Several of the Kiker photos were matched pairs which did not quite overlap but were clearly meant to create panoramic views.
Finally, I found a few other photographs that are part of the Walter Pertuch Collection of glass plates and lantern slides, used by permission of the Fairmount Park Historic Resource Archives, Philadelphia Parks and Recreation. Again, the best of these was a panorama made by joining two images. It can be seen at the top of this post, and I’ve included the two separate images below.
In most of these old photographs, the industries shown were in their heyday. Now little manufacturing remains in Manayunk, and those factory buildings that have not been demolished have been transformed into residential or office space. But when viewed from the height of the Manayunk Bridge, it is easier to imagine that Manayunk’s past is still present. All that I need to add to my mind’s eye is the coal smoke billowing from the factories, as shown in this 1907 view from the Library of Congress.
