Center City Philadelphia Post-Industrial Tour: The West Callowhill District

Researched and led by Harry Kyriakodis, Esq.

Sunday, October 18, 2009
beginning at 2 pm
Meet at Starbucks at 20th & Callowhill Streets

Take a guided walking tour through the fascinating post-industrial landscape of downtown Philadelphia. This 90-minute tour focuses on a four-block-wide swath of the city between Vine and Spring Garden Streets from 20th to Broad Streets. The considerable history of this part of the city going back to the early 1700s will be discussed. Learn how this neighborhood-once a country estate-played an important part in the Yellow Fever epidemic of 1793 and how it became the center of American locomotive production, as well as home of the third Philadelphia Mint, The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Community College of Philadelphia. This tour also discusses the major national figures who lived and worked in this storied area: PA/Philly founder William Penn, Andrew Hamilton (the original "Philadelphia Lawyer"), President John Adams, mariner/merchant/millionaire Stephen Girard, plus industrialists Matthias Baldwin, William Sellers & Asa Whitney. And learn how and why the following former and contemporary names became associated with this neighborhood: "Springettsbury Manor," "Bush Hill," "Penn Township" "Spring Garden District" and "Franklintown." Numerous interesting old building, bridges and abandoned railroad infrastructure will be seen along the way. Handouts included.

The tour is sponsored by the Preservation Alliance and has a small fee that goes to the Alliance, collected at the start of the tour:

$10 adults
$8 students
$5 Preservation Alliance members; please show your member card
free for children 10 and under accompanied by adult

Entailing a lot of walking, it's based on a longer tour that I gave for the Society for Industrial Archeology on June 7, 2007, during that group's annual meeting. It's also the same tour that I gave on my own on July 29, 2008. For details, call me at (215) 260-5448 (cell).