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.

Map Lovers’ Monday: Topography of Philadelphia from 1863

Schuylkill River at Rockland Landing (Picturesque America)

Black-and-white diagram showing streets and the Little Tacony Creek

Frankford Creek Watershed: A historical overview of the Philadelphia section

Report on channelization of Frankford Creek for flood control (1947)

Frankford Creek Watershed Historical Timeline

Overbrook, as it was. A brief history of the Overbrook neighborhood of Philadelphia, focusing on changes in the natural landscape.

Cobbs Creek in the Days of the Old Powder Mill

Technical drawing showing streets and sewers

Leverington Avenue Stormwater Sewer

Black-and-white image shows a trolley car emerging from a building with men standing alongside

Filling Low Land: A Story of Ash-Dumping in the Wingohocking Creek Watershed

Smith’s and Windmill Islands

Aramingo Sewer, view near Hughes & Patterson and Beach Street Bridge, March 15, 1902

Aramingo Canal, Then and Now

Black-and-white aerial photo of a creek bend with industrial buildings surrounding it

The Sad History of Frankford Creek