Subjects People

Play Ball! Meet the 1960 PWD Softball Team

PWD Celebrates Black History Month

Birch’s Views of Philadelphia, 1800

Cobbs Creek: A Brief Historical Overview by Adam Levine

Beauty from Utility: The Architect of the Southwest Sewage Pumping Station

Colored print showin all the booths, restaurants and other amenities of the fair

Ground Plan, Great Central Sanitary Fair, Philadelphia

men standing around a trench with pipes seen crossing through it. there is a steam engine on wheels behind them to the left, and a building in the background on the right with a sign they says Hotel Abbey, T G Schmidt & Sons, Pilsner & Puritan Beer.

Pipeline being laid in Wissahickon Avenue

Northeast Philadelphia history, one page at a time: The Holmesburg Library Scrapbook Collection

Old Swedes Church and Burial Ground, from an engraving in the 1888 Philadelphia Record Almanac (Adam Levine Collection)

The Water and Drainage History of Philadelphia, Part 1

Down Under!

Mill Creek Sewer under construction. Several men standing beside a giant partially constructed sewer pipe.

Mill Creek Sewer under construction, 1883

Fairmount Gardens, with the Schuylkill Bridge. This 1839 engraving, published in London, shows a view of the South Garden from the walkways that brought visitors up the cliffside to the overlooks at the height of the reservoirs. The fountain used the pressure of the reservoirs and was a a delightful refreshment in hot weather, and a wonder at all times. One anachronistic element of this engraving is the Upper Ferry Bridge, which burned the year before the print was published. Harding’s Hotel, a popular resort, is at the western end of the bridge.

Fairmount Gardens with the Schuylkill Bridge, 1839