Callowhill St. today is a sort of no mans land with the Vine St Expressway to the south and an uninteresting assortment of buildings and...

Elfreth’s Alley maintains the claim of being the oldest residential street in the United States. It dates back to 1702 when two...

Shocking but true. From 1947 to 1959, that title was bestowed upon Philly by the National Clean Up and Paint Up Bureau. Philadelphia...

On September 21, 1727, the Rev. George Michael Weiss and 400 members of the German Reformed Church arrived in Philadelphia and organized...

The Merchants' Hotel, 40 - 50 N 4th St., was built in 1837 by Philadelphia architect William Strickland for a group of business men who...

The invent of the roll of perforated sheets of paper is usually credited to Seth Wheeler of Albany in 1871. However, it took a local...

The Philadelphia Police have resided at “The Roundhouse” on Race Street since 1963. Work is underway to relocate police headquarters to...

George D. Ellis & Sons Inc., founded in 1843 and incorporated in 1887 was initially located at 229 - 231 Vine St. The company...

Built c. 1925, this one story vernacular building was built for a blacksmith shop, Philadelphia Blacksmith Supply Co., which somehow...

Fireman's Hall Museum, formerly the headquarters of Engine Company #8, was built c. 1900 and was an active firehouse until 1952. Engine...

Jules Mastbaum was born in Philadelphia in 1872. He had a brother, Stanley, and two sisters, Minnie & Julia, who would each marry sons...

The First Bank of the U.S. was created by Congress in 1791 to control currency and credit. It was needed because the government had debt...

Regional leaders in the Delaware Valley began discussing the idea of connecting Philadelphia and Camden as far back as the early 1800s....

In 1921, an Act of the US Congress authorizing the bridge was passed with an estimate for the construction cost of $28,871,000. Work on...

As buildings were torn down in Old City, work was going on in the Delaware River. (1st - 4th photo) On land, Plazas and the bridge's...

226-28 Vine St are a pair of 3 1/2 story Georgian houses from c.1770, made with Flemish bond brick. In 1920, 228 Vine housed a baker,...

Known for his abolitionist views and philanthropy, Matthias W. Baldwin built from scratch one of Philadelphia's most successful...

Many streets in Old City (and throughout Philly) have had their names changed through the years, some more than once. Market Street was...

On the 300 block of North Front Street, a set of colonial era stone steps leads between houses down to Water Street. This ten-foot-wide...

Designed by Frank R. Watson (1859-1940), the 6-story building known as the White Palace at 30-34 S. 2nd Street (1888-1889) is a...