Subjects Urban Development

Mount Moriah Historic Cemetery and Arboretum

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

Requiem for a stream: Adams Run in Oak Lane

Smith’s and Windmill Islands

Cobbs Creek: A Brief Historical Overview by Adam Levine

High Water: Flooding in Philadelphia

Visionary planning report for Philadelphia region, 1928

Oak Lane Reservoir pipeline, 1904

The Water and Drainage History of Philadelphia: A seven-part course

Black-and-white photograph depicts a large brick sewer tube lying on a barren landscape

Streams, islands, and ferries of early Philadelphia

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

This Philadelphia street scene, with dogs facing off with pigs for a pile of tasty garbage, was captured by artist Augustus Kollner in 1844, but would have been very familiar to 18th-century Philadelphians.

“Town street scavengers from life,” Kollner, 1844

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