This movement away from the commercial core at mid century had a significant effect on railroad passengers: it shifted the risk of delay on the busy streets of the city from the railroad companies to the travelers. In the 1840s, once an outbound passenger boarded a horse-drawn car in or near Center City, he or she was on their railway journey. By 1876, passengers had to carefully calculate their travel times to the outlying passenger facilities or risk missing their train. Some passengers—John L. Smith was one example—consistently had trouble getting their timing right and often missed their trains.6
The travel time between these mid-century railroad passenger facilities and the central business district varied greatly, from under ten minutes for some of the ferry terminals to nearly an hour for the stations located in Northeast Philadelphia. For most passengers bound to or from the old State House (Independence Hall to non-Philadelphians), a ride or walk of twenty to thirty minutes was typical. The old State House, located at Fifth and Chestnut Streets, was in the center of the commercial district and serves as a good surrogate for typical middle-class business and shopping destinations of the period.7
The location of these passenger facilities influenced the development of middle-class housing in the region. Although the majority of commuters continued to live within the city limits throughout the nineteenth century, suburbanization began on a small scale for the elite and upper-middle class a little after mid century. Haddonfield, in Camden County, New Jersey, developed as an early bedroom community in part because of the quickness of the commute to Center City via train and ferry. One reason that the progress of Philadelphia’s famous “Main Line” suburbs lagged a few decades behind that of Haddonfield was the relative inconvenience to downtown of the Pennsylvania’s West Philadelphia station compared to the ferry terminals.8
Of the ten railroad passenger facilities in use in the mid-1870s, the busiest by far were these four: Prime Street, West Philadelphia, and Ninth and Green rail terminals, and the Market Street ferry. Prime Street was the northern terminus of the Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore Railroad, an independent line that served the cities in its name and formed part of the jointly operated route between New York and Washington. The Pennsylvania Railroad’s West Philadelphia station had trains for New York, Pittsburgh, and Washington (the through trains from New York). The Ninth and Green depot, operated by the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, was the city’s busiest commuter terminal, with trains to Germantown, Chestnut Hill, and Norristown. Ferries from Market Street connected with trains in Camden for many points in southern New Jersey, including the rapidly growing resort of Atlantic City and the elite suburb of Haddonfield. The remaining facilities were not as busy. They either served less important lines (like the small West Chester & Philadelphia) or were the downgraded remnants of once major stations, as the Kensington depot had become following the takeover of the Philadelphia & Trenton by the Pennsylvania Railroad and the subsequent transfer of most of its train service to the West Philadelphia station.9
Through the 1870s, the Philadelphia railroads remained committed to their outlying locations. But on December 5, 1881, the Pennsylvania Railroad made travel more convenient for many middle-class Philadelphians and contributed to the radical alteration of the fabric of the city when it opened its Broad Street Station at Centre Square. The new structure replaced not only the railroad’s West Philadelphia depot but, because of corporate consolidations, the West Chester & Philadelphia and Prime Street terminals as well. When it opened, the new station was just west of the central business district, about a ten-minute car ride from the old State House.10
By the turn of the century, as illustrated in the map in figure 10, the station stood within the expanded downtown. Four separate but related decisions dramatically shifted the focus of the city core to Centre Square from the old State House in the late nineteenth century: the municipality’s construction of a new City Hall in the square, John Wanamaker’s 1876 conversion of an abandoned railroad freight station into a large retail establishment one block to the east, the opening of Broad Street Station one block to the west, and the establishment of a new Philadelphia & Reading passenger terminal three blocks to the east in 1893.
The complement of modern train stations in Philadelphia was completed by the Baltimore & Ohio’s Twenty-fourth and Chestnut Streets depot in 1887 and the Philadelphia & Reading’s 1893 Reading Terminal. The B&O facility befitted the railroad’s late arrival and minor role in the city: it was smaller and was the only late nineteenth century station not built within or near the central business district. Reading Terminal at Twelfth and Market Streets in Center City, however, was an appropriate competitor for Broad Street Station. When it opened, the Reading closed both the Ninth and Green and Broad and Callowhill depots and significantly downgraded the Berks Street station.
Figure 10. Philadelphia’s central railroad passenger terminals in 1901. Based on an 1876 John L. Smith map of Center City in collection of author.
| Key: | ||
| 1 | Twenty-fourth and Chestnut Streets station | Baltimore & Ohio |
| 2 | Broad Street Station | Pennsylvania |
| 3 | Reading Terminal | Philadelphia & Reading |
| 4 | Berks Street depot | Philadelphia & Reading |
| 5 | Kensington depot | Pennsylvania |
| A | Old State House | |
| B | Centre Square | |
| C | Market Street ferry | |
| D | Chestnut Street ferry | |
