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PHILAPHILIA Dead-Ass Proposal of the Week: Powelton Avenue Bridge
This bridge proposal was attempted numerous times in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and failed every last time.
PHILAPHILIA Dead-Ass Proposal of the Week: Powelton Avenue Bridge
A weekly series of foul-mouthed investigations into empty lots, dead-ass proposals and other design phenomena in Philadelphia. Find more stories like this at Philaphilia.blogspot.com.
Spanning the Powelton Yards and Schuylkill River at Powelton Avenue -- Where it would be if it was ever built? Original aerial from Google.
Ya know, it's one thing to have a Dead-Ass Proposal that was active for five, 10 or even 20 years. That's shitty in itself. But a Dead-Ass Proposal brought up again and again and AGAIN over the course of nearly 90 years? That's rigoddamndiculous!!!! Well, that's this one. This bridge proposal was attempted numerous times in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and failed every last time. This is the Powelton Avenue Bridge.
Brainchild of a Badass
The first time a Powelton Avenue Bridge was suggested was in 1869. The Common Council of the City of Philadelphia passed a resolution on April 17th of that year, asking for plans regarding several bridge-related projects, including a bridge spanning the Schuylkill at Powelton Avenue. They got a response by the great city engineer/surveyor Stickland Kneass, who had just spent five years completing his masterpiece, the great cast-iron Chestnut Street Bridge. This Kneass guy was a badass who must have been able to see the future. He was the son of an engraver for the U.S. Mint and was personally educated by one of the world's top scientists. He knew that the existing Schuylkill crossings of his time would never be enough to serve all the traffic of the distant decades to come.
He proposed a Schuylkill crossing that would act as an alternative to the already crowded Wire Bridge at Fairmount. It would extend from the corner of 23rd and Callowhill on the east side of the river to the corner of Powelton Avenue and Mansion (31st) Street on the west side, 2,250 feet apart. In those days, it might as well have been a bridge to Paris. Kneass drew up a plan for a suspension bridge with four-and-a-half 500-foot sections with a roadway 34 feet wide. Again, in that time period, the idea of building a four-towered suspension bridge would be the equivalent of building an elevator to the International Space Station.
Kneass was convinced that this new bridge wouldn't just improve transportation, but real estate. Included in the plan was a widening of Powelton Avenue aimed at increasing property values along that stretch. Kneass reasoned that the property taxes collected on the newly valuable property would make up for the Powelton Avenue Bridge's 1.1 million dollar price tag ($2 billion today!). As we still do today, Kneass made sure to mention that Schuylkill crossings would become essential to connecting West Philly with the rest of the city. Smart fucking guy.
By the end of 1869, Kneass changed his mind. Since the Wire Bridge at Fairmount was already approved for replacement, he suggested a redesign of the new bridge into a double-decker that would be able to handle twice the traffic. This became the Callowhill Street Bridge, which stood for 89 years. Kneass later became second-in-command of the Pennsylvania Railroad and president of the Seventh Presbyterian Church (in the same year, no less) and stayed in those position until he was attacked on the street one day in January 1884, causing his slow and painful death.
Cret Comes to Kick Ass
At the start of the 20th Century, the idea of a Powelton Avenue Bridge was reborn. The great Paul Phillippe Cret, the French-born megatect who inspired everyone from Texans to Nazis (that's not a joke), was the one who wanted to make it happen. In the 1910s and 1920s, almost every new city project was either Cret-designed or Cret-conceived.
In 1905, the Fairmount Park Art Association commissioned Cret for a planning study for improvement of the Schuylkill Banks. Included in the miles-long design was a bridge linking Powelton Avenue to Race Street. This visionary proposal was just a random thought, so it never got considered beyond this drawing:
That's one hell of a plan. Image from the Athenaeum of Philadelphia.
Though it never happened, Cret didn't forget. While the Fairmount Parkway aka Ben Franklin Parkway was just starting to be built, it was assumed that the new development would also be host to a World's Fair in 1926, a sequel to the world-famous one in 1876. In 1920, Cret came up with a plan that would not only create a fairground, but become a permanent improvement for the city. He wanted the Sesquicentennial Exposition to center around the Schuylkill River. Since both sides were covered in dirty, smelly, industrial crap, the embankments would have to be re-organized and re-purposed.
Included in this proposal to re-do the Schuylkill Banks was an extension of Powelton Avenue over the train tracks and industrial area into a massive plaza that would cross the Schuylkill into the Parkway's Fairmount Circle (later re-plotted into Eakins Oval). Though he called it the Plaza Bridge, Cret's idea was effectively a new Powelton Avenue Bridge. An Arch Street Bridge was part of this plan as well.
Image from Architecture, Volume 43.
Once the corrupt Mayor W. Freeland Kendrick came along in 1924, the fair got moved over to swamplands controlled by his buddies. They used dirt excavated from the construction of the Broad Street Line to fill in the swamps and bogs of Greenwich and League Islands, creating a new piece of Philadelphia that got used for what ended up being a disappointingly unsuccessful Sesquicentennial Exposition. Today, this piece of land lives on as FDR Park and the infamous sea of asphalt known as the Philadelphia Sports Complex.
Cret didn't let his dream of restructuring the west side of the river die. Under direction from the Pennsylvania Railroad, he drew up plans for an extension of Powelton that would reach that plaza, but not cross the Schuylkill. Technically, it was still a bridge, but it was just a causeway that went over the train tracks. This new idea included a Race Street Bridge that would extend from the plaza. Nonetheless, it never happened.
The plaza on the river at Powelton Avenue. You can't go wrong with an obelisk! Image from the Athenaeum of Philadelphia.
Its Not Over Yet
Not four years after the Sesquicentennial, another plan came along that included a Powelton Avenue Bridge. This time, it went beyond a bunch of drawings. Impressed by Robert Moses' highways around NYC, the Regional Planning Federation came up with the idea for the Central City Belt Line, a highway that would line the Schuylkill River, providing easy access to and from the city. Sound familiar? This was a primordial version of I-76.
Later called the Valley Forge Expressway (because it went between Philly and Valley Forge), this plan included several new Schuylkill crossings and replacements for some old ones that would connect to Center City from that highway. Plans were put in place and in 1942, 13 years after the original plan, some land was cleared in the train yards to make way for an extension of Powelton Avenue from West Philly to lead to the new bridge. A 2300 block of Powelton Avenue on the east side of the river was planned and included in maps from the era.
Then World War II came along and fucked it all up. By the time the highway was re-planned as the Schuylkill Expressway in 1947, the Powelton Avenue Bridge part was nixed. A proposed Race Street Bridge was also part of the plan and was eliminated in favor of a controlled-access crossing/exit ramp at Vine Street that decades later became the connector to I-676.
The only visual record of this incarnation of a Powelton Avenue Bridge was its inclusion in a 1932 aerial photo that exhibits the "Future Philadelphia." Check it out to see other Dead-Ass Proposals from that era.
So, there you have it. So many Powelton Avenue Bridges, so little time. Today, building a bridge at Powelton Avenue would be pretty worthless, since the other side of the Schuylkill has Park Towne Place in the way. Too bad. I could always use another bridge.
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