Philadelphia Broad Street Station

Broad Street Station at Broad & Market streets was the primary passenger terminal for the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) in Philadelphia from early December 1881 to the 1950s. Located directly west of Philadelphia City Hall—15th Street went underneath the station—the site is now occupied by the northwest section of Dilworth Park and the office towers of Penn Center.

History

The original station was designed by Wilson Brothers & Company under authority of the old Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad (established 1836 from merger of four smaller segment lines dating to 1831, running southwest to Baltimore and its President Street Station which had just been purchased by the Pennsylvania Railroad assuming control) in the same year of completion in 1881. It was one of the first steel-framed buildings in the United States to use masonry not as structure, but as a curtain wall (as modern-designed skyscrapers do). Initially, trains arrived via elevated tracks built above Filbert Street. By 1885 the land between the station and the Schuylkill River had been purchased and cleared, and a nine-block viaduct constructed.

Broad Street Station was dramatically expanded by renowned Philadelphia architect Frank Furness, 1892-93. Wilson Brothers designed a new train shed (1892), that was constructed high over the existing sheds, which were subsequently demolished. The new shed had the largest single span of any station roof in the world - 306 ft (91 m). In 1894 the PRR moved its headquarters from Fourth Street to the office building above the station. In the 1930s PRR headquarters moved to the newly built Suburban Station Building at 1600 Filbert Street (now John F. Kennedy Boulevard). The train shed suffered a massive 1923 fire, and was demolished. The station itself was demolished in 1953, a year after train service to it had ceased.

Location and services

Broad Street Station dominated the center of the city. Trains would leave the station two stories above street level on a viaduct known as the "Chinese Wall" and run west to cross the Schuylkill River on tracks that bisected the western half of Center City Philadelphia. Fifteenth Street ran beneath the station's lobby, and the numbered streets up to 24th ran beneath the viaduct. John F. Kennedy Boulevard traces a similar path today.

The station was renowned for its architecture but cursed for inundating the heart of the city with the smoke and noise of the day's steam locomotives. The Chinese Wall also made Center City north of the station unfashionable, as the area was cut off from the rest of downtown. Passengers arriving at Broad Street Station could make connections to the rest of the city on the numerous trolley lines on Market Street and 15th Street, or on Philadelphia's east-west Market-Frankford Subway-Elevated Line (beginning in 1907) or the north-south Broad Street Subway starting in 1928. The latter two were heavy rail lines that crossed under City Hall.

Leaving Broad Street Station, passengers would first arrive at West Philadelphia Station at 32nd and Market Streets on the west side of the Schuylkill, which in 1933 was replaced by 30th Street Station. The lines then split in three directions:

*Trains heading west toward Harrisburg would take the PRR line to 40th Street Station, 52nd Street Station, and Overbrook Station. Trains heading northwest along the Schuylkill would split from this line after 52nd Street toward the stations at Wynnefield Avenue and Cynwyd.
*Trains heading north toward New York City or east across the Delaware River to New Jersey would run through North Philadelphia, North Penn Junction, and Frankford Junction stations, before splitting off.
*Trains heading south would take the Baltimore and Washington Railroad Central Division line through Angora.

Today all these railroad lines, except for the one between 30th Street Station and Broad Street stations, remain intact, run by SEPTA or NJ Transit.

Architecture

The architecture of Broad Street Station was typical of Furness's buildings in central Philadelphia in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Furness's structure looked much like a web of Gothic spires and arched windows, with considerable modification from their medieval sources. His work expanded on a similar structure originally constructed by the Wilson Brothers & Company a mere decade before. Furness's windows were often rounded and did not use pointed chancels.

The lower levels of the structure were heavy and rusticated, recalling the work of H. H. Richardson from the previous decade, while the spandrels of the upper stories emphasized the building's verticality. The frame for the stone structure was largely made of iron and steel, and on the interior the structural techniques were often displayed by balustrades and columns that in places revealed the rivets that held them together. The formal style of the building was altogether not unlike that of Furness's building for the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases