Splendid Isolation

It seems that the Philadelphia waterfront along the Delaware River has become a fashionable stop for real estate developers. These two condominium towers, located near the Fishtown section of Philadelphia, are proof positive of the old saying: 'when all you have is a hammer, then everything begins to look like a nail.'



This project offers the purchaser, a high end one for sure, a commanding view of the river, some cargo container unloading cranes and a sunrise over the chemical factories across the Delaware on the the Jersey side. What? A few million for a view like this?

Developers in this city can think only of three types of land use projects: high rise condos, a factory building turned into high end loft units and a casino, a built on cheap land.

With the exception of the casino project, neither of the other two project types give any support to the citizens here in Philly who are mostly hard working, blue collar job folks.

Step away from those three constructs and developer's eyes tend to glaze over.

Closing off the waterfront from it's historically important supporting neighborhoods offers little to the present or future citizens of the city and we offer no support to those who promote further development of the riverfront in this manner.

Splendid Isolation.

(Ribbon,1) Port Richmond, PA

I am traveling to the Port Richmond section of Philadelphia today to observe the movement of people in, and around, the now defunct Reading Railroad coal wharves which provide the terminus of Lehigh Avenue at the Delaware River.

The importance of these coal docks to the industrial revolution is difficult to grasp in this age when important things are mostly invisible or not well understood- the computer/internet/web, for example. Once upon a time things of value and products of the industry of one's hands were available for all to see and admire. In 1843, the Reading Railroad created an immense structure to receive coal from it's Schuylkill county, PA mines and transload the cargoes onto sailing ships headed for the four corners of the globe.

Early every morning workers arose from their beds, ate breakfast with their wives, grabbed their dinner buckets then collected themselves into a workforce as they made their way through the narrow, cobbled streets bordered by row houses which was Port Richmond. As the sun circumnavigated the workday sky, many hands humped, spragged, chocked, dumped and rode coal cars layed fat with twinkling carbon in places like Port Carbon, Kaska, Goodspring, Tamaqua. The Reading, as they called it, was important to the world and those who worked for Reading were important, too.

Today, Port Richmond is quiet. Aside from the once admired McMyler steel coal car unloader standing guard at the end of Pier 36, the coal wharves are gone. The railroad tracks which, like a the deltas of the Nile or the Mississippi rivers, fanned out to spread the richness of it's flow to the waiting ships, are barely visible now through weeds and grasses.

But, the people are not gone. They still populate the row houses on streets with names like Belgrade, Boston, Aramingo and they still arise each morning, grab coffee and cigarettes at the corner A+ Market and make their way through those streets to jobs at factories or shopping centers across Philly and into New Jersey. I wonder how many of those workers look down from the Betsy Ross bridge and wish they were working on the water?

The railroad rights of way which brought the coal from the mountains to the sea still exists along Lehigh Avenue and is a strong candidate for becoming one of the first Industrial Ribbons in the United States.

(Pattern, 42), after Alexander.
(Ribbon, 1) Port Richmond, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

Well, let's go and see Port Richmond.

Welcome to Industrial Ribbon

Bhuddist Economics. Industrial Ribbons. Settled Work. Chris Alexander. Doug Carmichael. E. F. Schumacher.

A place to think about an economic future revitalized by industrial plants.