Northern Liberties

Mar 26, 20212 min read

Northern Liberties is as old as Philadelphia itself, founded by William Penn in 1682. Northern Liberties was the land located north of Vine St, the original 1682 boundary of the city. In the 17th and 18th centuries many creeks flowed through Northern Liberties toward the Delaware River. These creeks and the river itself made Northern Liberties an attractive location for early American industries. The creeks would be used as power sources for a number of mills used for grain, corn and textile making. As Philadelphia grew into the largest city in America, NoLibs also grew and flourished.

In 1790, America took its first census and Northern Liberties was the 6th most populous city in the entire nation. In the 19th century, Philadelphia was known as the “workshop of the world” due to massive size of its industrial economy and many factories were located in Northern Liberties. A wide variety of products were produced in Northern Liberties including tools, furniture, locomotives, ships, toys, beer, leather, and textiles, among many others. In 1854 Northern Liberties officially became a part of Philadelphia with the passage of the Act of Consolidation that incorporated over 20 formerly independent cities into present day Philadelphia.

Like most neighborhoods, Northern Liberties had it's own street market that ran on N 2nd St from Fairmount to Poplar Sts. While there are no traces left of the market itself, that stretch of N 2nd St is wider because of the market that formerly ran down the middle of the street. (1st photo)

Over the course of the 20th century, many of these large industrial companies moved operations elsewhere or closed down. The large factories they once occupied fell into disrepair and blighted the neighborhood as many residents moved away. Due to the cheap price of real estate, Northern Liberties began to attract a community of artists in the late 1970s (moving from Old City as prices there rose) who began to revitalize the area and brought renewed interest to the neighborhood. The rest is history.

Many former factories were re-purposed or torn down. Liberty Lands Park on N 3rd St is on the former site of Burk Brothers & Co.(2nd & 3rd photos), which had been one of Philadelphia's largest and most successful leather firms. Both Schmidt's (4th & 5th photos) & Ortlieb's Breweries are gone, though Ortlieb's Bottling House (6th) has been revamped as offices of an architectural firm and the original brewhouse is a now a bar. Interspersed with all the new housing are many old factories, renovated into apartments and condos (7th & 8th photos are 2 examples).