This bottled water advertisement was printed in the 1906 edition of Boyd’s Co-Partnership and Residence Business Directory of Philadelphia City, a predecessor of the modern phone book.
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This is a remarkable photograph for the wealth of information it depicts, of the work scene and the surrounding area, and of the manner of dress of the workmen.
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This has become an iconic photograph, used in books, articles and other publications to illustrate both 19th-century sewer building and, more specifically, the process of building a combined sewer in a stream bed.
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This group of workmen filling a crack in the Torresdale Conduit. They are using slurry of concrete, sometimes called grout, which is being pumped into a crack from the metal basin in the foreground through the nozzle held by the man in the background.
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An article earlier this month by NewsWorks’ Nicole Juday examines the historical reasons for the flash flooding responsible for the drowning death of a young woman in East Germantown on September 8.
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In case you missed last week’s presentation at the Fairmount Water Works Interpretive Center (From Turbines To Tanks, a history of the Fairmount Aquarium by guest speaker Samantha Muka), here’s hard evidence that seals were once among the residents of the Water Works.
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Most people don’t realize that much of the lower part of South Philadelphia was once covered by tidal marshes.
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As of July 7, the old Roxborough Pumping Station was in the process of being demolished.
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This year marks the 100th anniversary of Philadelphia’s water filtration system, completed with the construction of the Queen Lane Filters in 1911.
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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.
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