On the Banks of Sandy Creek
in CONTEMPORARY RUIN future visions
an exhibition by Nancy Agati
at the Pearlstein Gallery, Drexel University
April 15 - May 22, 2025, opening April 25, 5-7
Four 3D maps from 1725, 1925, 1975 and 2025 of this wedge of blocks bounded by 34th Street, Lancaster and Powelton Avenues, 38th and Market Streets. The title was taken from the following passage:
No creek in West Philadelphia was better known years ago than old Sandy Creek, now extinct. It was once quite a stream of water, but its former course is now unknown except to a few of the older inhabitants. This stream had its rise at Fortieth street and Lancaster avenue and pursuing a southeasterly and very circuitous course, emptied itself into the Schuylkill just above South Street Bridge, about opposite Locust street. It varied in width, but never wider than eight or ten feet, except in a few places, where it widened into the size of a respectable pool. Its source at Fortieth street and Lancaster was a spring. From here the stream ran a little to the south and then turned to the southeast and ran parallel to and just south of what is now Warren street for a considerable distance.
At Filbert and Thirty-sixth street, Sandy Creek grew to be quite a pond in size. The stream crossed Thirty-sixth street just above Market, ran a few hundred yards to the east and crossed Market street below Thirty-sixth street…..
In its course where it intersected roads and lanes, “Sandy Creek” was spanned by rickety wooden bridges and very often by only two or three planks, or a few big stones placed in its bed. Not infrequently, as is told, the clumsy Conestoga wagons got stuck fast in the quicksand which abounded on Market street below Thirty-sixth and elsewhere.
West Philadelphia Illustrated: Early History of West Philadelphia, its Environs, Its People and Its Historical Points. Written and compiled by M. Laffitte Vieira. Philadelphia: Avil, 1903, p. 107.
Porcelain and standard 266, cone 6
Directly adjacent to the Powelton neighborhood, the blocks surrounding the Pearlstein Gallery had once been a thriving residential community, the eastern portion of the Black Bottom. The community was dislocated in the 1960s, replaced by several large schools, which were subsequently cleared to make way for a denser complex of educational, research, and residential towers. Watching the transformation was shocking and the invisibility of its past is unsettling. I often think about the people and buildings that are now missing. A fourth model from about 300 years ago frames the 1925-2025 pieces, and complicates what it means “to ruin” or to be a “ruin”.
The piece is owes its existence to and is very grateful for several web resources:
Geohistory.org Layered Map Viewer developed by the Athenaeum of Philadelphia. and the Free Library of Philadelphia.
West Philadelphia Collaborative History from the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania with special thanks to John L. Puckett's generous research
West Philadelphia History Archive from the University of Pennsylvania Library
Philadelphia Historical Photographs from the City of Philadelphia
Images used to create the four maps:
1725: Early maps from 1750 (Scull and Heap) and 1808 (John Hill) show both major roads. For the other contours I used the written description from West Philadelphia Illustrated, and my experience walking along creeks and rivers near by. I also made the assumption that there wasn't a nice high point above the boggy creeks and quicksand because no one built a house like Powel, Bartram or Hamilton.
1925: Especially useful was the 1937 G. W. Bromley insurance map of West Philadelphia which includes excellent details about each house including the width, depth and number of stories. The pink is for masonry and yellow is wood. I also included a few historical photos which really bring these tiny rectangles to life.
1975: The recent past was a little more difficult to source. I've included a variety of plans and maps for the high school site, as well as photos I took in the fall of 2014. I remember wondering why I was taking photos of the Walnut Center, but was glad to have them since I could find very little information about that building.