PWD historical consultant Adam Levine checks in as quizmaster. Answer the question below to win the Watersheds blog’s first-ever prize!
Most people want to flush their toilet and forget about it, but if you know anything about the historical research I do for PWD, you know that sewers are one of my obsessions. Few people would count their walks through city sewers as career highlights, but I do. Twice I’ve had the privilege of accompanying PWD sewer maintenance workers into the literal bowels of the city. Both times, the sewers we were walking in—along Tyson Street near Roosevelt Boulevard in Northeast Philadelphia, and along the north side of Franklin Field on the University of Pennsylvania campus in West Philadelphia—had been built to capture the flow of what had once been surface streams.
Quiz: The first person who emails phillywatershedsblog@gmail.com the names of the streams that once flowed at the abovementioned locations will win an autographed photo of me in my sewer waders (or another photo of your choice from the PWD Historical Collection). Using the maps and other information found at phillyh2o.org is not only not cheating, but recommended.