Subjects Landscape Changes

Filling valleys and other lowlands, cutting down high ground, piping streams into sewers, filling marshland, dredging and damming streams and rivers, and any other activities or infrastructure designed to alter the original topography of the city to more readily accommodate real estate development.

Colored ink drawing showing drainage areas and sewer inlets in Philaelphia in the early 19th century

Drainage area plan, early 19th century

The ecology of Center City, Philadelphia (in case you didn’t know there was any)

Color image of a grassy field with trees and buildings surrounding it and white lines drawn on the grass mimicking the path of a creek.

Drawing Dock Creek

Black-and-white image of a creek with people around it and a large building behind it

Dock Creek Sewer in 1849: A report on its condition made to City Councils

The Worry of the Wires

Black-and-white image of a body of water with trees and shoreline in the far distance

Delaware River at Arch Street from the New Jersey side, 1914

Color image showing lines drawn on grass, a road, a small underpass, trees and some caption text

Drawing Dock Creek (2008)

State House Garden, Philadelphia, 1800

Bird's eye view of Delaware River

Bird’s eye view of Delaware River and Philadelphia, about 1840

Dock Creek Watson's Annals

Drawbridge and Dock Creek, Watson’s Annals