Peculiarities of American Cities

by Willard W. Glazier

The old city was laid out with great economy as to space, the streets being as narrow as though land were really scarce in the new country when it was planned. Market street extends from the Delaware westward—a broad, handsome avenue, occupied principally by wholesale stores. It is indebted, both for its name and width, to the market houses, which from an early date to as late as 1860, if not later, occupied the centre of the street; long, low, unsightly structures, thronged early in the morning, and especially on market days, with buyers and sellers, while market wagons lined the sides of the street. The same kind of structures still occupy certain localities of Second, Callowhill, Spring Garden and Bainbridge streets. But those in Market street have disappeared, and substantial and handsome market buildings have been erected on or near the street, instead of in its centre.

A century ago the business of Philadelphia was confined principally to Front street, from Walnut to Arch. Now Second street presents the most extended length of retail stores in the country, and business has spread both north and south almost indefinitely, and is fast creeping westward. Market street presents a double line of business houses, from river to river. Chestnut, the fashionable promenade and locality of the finest hotels and retail stores, is invaded by business beyond Broad, and Arch street beyond Tenth; while Eighth street, even more than Chestnut the resort of shoppers, is, for many squares, built up by large and handsome retail stores. Broad street, lying between Thirteenth and Fifteenth, is the handsomest avenue in Philadelphia. It is fifteen miles in length, and one hundred and thirteen feet in width, and contains many of the finest public buildings and private residences in the city. Ridgway Library, the Deaf and Dumb Asylum, Horticultural Hall, Academy of Music, Broad Street Theatre, Union League Club House, Masonic Temple, Academy of Fine Arts, besides some of the most elegant religious edifices, are located on this street.

At the intersection of Broad and Market, where were once four little squares left in the original plan of the city, and known as Penn Square, are being constructed the vast Public Buildings of the city. They are of white marble, four hundred and eighty-six and one-half feet long by four hundred and seventy feet wide, and four stories high, covering an area of four and one-half acres, not including a large court in the centre. The central tower will, when completed, be four hundred and fifty feet high, and the total cost of the buildings over ten millions of dollars. This building presents a most imposing appearance, whether viewed from Market or Broad streets. The Masonic Temple, just to the north, is one of the handsomest of its kind in America. It is a solid granite structure, in the Norman style, most elaborately ornamented, and with a tower two hundred and thirty feet high. Its interior is finished in a costly manner, and after the several styles of architecture. The Academy of Music is one of the largest opera houses in America, being capable of seating three thousand persons.

MASONIC TEMPLE, PHILADELPHIA.

Third street is the banking and financial centre of Philadelphia; on Walnut street are found the greatest proportion of insurance offices; South street is the cheap retail street, and is crowded with shoppers, especially on market days, and the Jews reign here supreme. Bainbridge street (once Shippen) east of Broad represents the squalor and crime of the city. "Old clo'" and second-hand stores of all descriptions alternate with low drinking places, and occupy forlorn and tumble-down tenements. All races and colors, and both sexes mingle here, and the man who sighs for missionary work need go no further than this quarter.

Chestnut street is, next to Broad, the handsomest in the city. The buildings are all of comparatively recent construction, and are many of them handsome and costly. On Market street the past century still manifests itself in quaint houses of two or three stories in height, sometimes built of alternate black and red bricks, and occasionally with queer dormer windows, wedged in between more stately and more modern neighbors. It will be some time before the street becomes thoroughly modernized, and we can scarcely wish that it may become so, for the city would thus lose much of its quaint interest.

One of the characteristics of Philadelphia which strikes the traveler is that it wears an old-time air, far more so than Boston or New York. Boston cannot straighten her originally crooked streets, but her thought and spirit are entirely of the nineteenth century. New York is intensely modern, the few relics of the past which still remain contrasting and emphasizing still more strongly the life and bustle and business of to-day. Philadelphia is a quiet city. Its people do not rush hither and thither, as though but one day remained in which to accomplish a life work. They take time to walk, to eat, to sleep, and to attend to their business. In brief, they take life far more easily and slowly than their metropolitan neighbors. They do not enter into wild speculative schemes; they have no such Stock Exchange, where bulls and bears roar and paw the ground, or where they may make or lose fortunes in less time than it takes to eat one's dinner. They are a steady, plodding people, accumulating handsome fortunes in solid, legitimate ways. There is little of the rustle and roar of the elder city; save for the continual ring and rattle of the street cars, which cross the city in every direction, many of its quarters are as quiet as a country village. Its early Quaker settlers have stamped it with the quiet and placidity which is the leading trait of their sect; and though the Quaker garb is seen less and less often upon the streets, the early stamp seems to have been indelible.

Philadelphia retains more of the old customs, old houses, and, perhaps, old laws, than any other city in the country. The Quaker City lawyer carries his brief in a green bag, as the benches of the Inner Temple used to do in Penn's time. The baker cuts a tally before the door each morning, just as the old English baker used to do three centuries ago. After a death has occurred in it, a house is put into mourning, having the shutters bowed and tied with black ribbon, not to be opened for at least a year. There are laws (seldom executed, it is true, but still upon the statute-books), against profanity and Sabbath-breaking, and even regulating the dress of women.

Some of the streets of Philadelphia bear strongly the marks of the past. Those, especially, near the river, which were built up in the early days, have not yet been entirely renovated; while some ancient buildings of historic interest have been preserved with jealous care. First and foremost among the latter is Independence Hall, occupying the square upon Chestnut street between Fifth and Sixth streets—no doubt, considered an imposing edifice at the time of its erection, but now overshadowed by the business palaces which surround it. It was here that the second Colonial Congress met; here that the Declaration of Independence was adopted; and here that the United States Congress assembled, until the seat of the General Government was removed to Washington, in 1800. In Congress Hall, in the second story of this building, Washington delivered his Farewell Address. The building is now preserved with great care. The hall where the Declaration of Independence was signed is decorated with portraits of the signers, and contains, among other objects of interest, as before stated, the bell which pealed out freedom to all.