Ruins of Industry (North Delaware River, Philadelphia)
Posted on September 17th, 2006 in musings, project news and
I’ve written previously here and there (and somewhat circuitously) about the post-industrial sites along the Delaware River in the northeast section Philadelphia. The sites now serve as an index to understanding (or at least observing) the decline of American cities like Philadelphia that relied heavily on industry and manufacturing as its source of employment and economic stability. For centuries, Philadelphia’s greatest resource has been the Delaware River and its suitability as a port for the transport and exchange of large volumes of manufactured goods, foodstuffs, and natural resources to and from the world over. One such exchange network was the distribution of coal, specifically the anthracite variety mined in the northeastern Pennsylvania coal region. Coal was transported by rail into Philadelphia and then transferred to coastal colliers and ocean-going ships at piers on the Delaware River.
What remains of this network is the monumental ruined infrastructure which once supported it: the railroad track, the bridges, the iron and steel, the reinforced concrete, the ships rigging, the piers: the ruins of industry. Despite the lands toxicity, vegetation seems to thrive, reclaiming the river’s edge amid the ever-widening gaps and cracks in the built environment. And the originally programmed uses for this industrial infrastructure have been replaced by those never intended for it: a place to fish for chad, or concrete canvasses for graffiti artists, or a shelter for a midnight bonfire, or a remote refuge for any number of nefarious acts. (We thought it would never end, the prosperity, the growth, the domination, the economic might!) Now, as peripheral and forgotten spaces in the urban environment, what remains is the evidence of old orders ending and new ones beginning. Things fall apart, and there is meaning in that falling apart. These ruins are different from, say, those celebrated ruins of the Roman forum: the decay of place as romanticized destination. In Philadelphia, our industrial ruins are largely unacknowledged and certainly not framed as official “heritage.” For the small group of people who trespass these ruins and eke out a place for themselves there, the site retains an ulterior, unsanctioned usefulness that still holds relevance in the life of the city.
