During the 1820s, William Rush and Thomas Birch redesigned the park to depict nature by designing the park to be symmetrical to walkway and plant locations. In 1825 the name was changed to Franklin Square. The city government passed a resolution calling for a fountain of "grand dimensions" to be placed within it. The new park opened in 1837 and the fountain was installed the following year. It remains the centerpiece of Franklin Square and is one of the oldest surviving fountains in the country.
In the 19th century, Franklin Square became the center of a fashionable residential neighborhood. But in the early 20th century, Philadelphia's wealthy began moving westward, first toward Rittenhouse Square, and later to the Main Line.
As the upper class fled the neighborhood, they're place was taken by working class people, who took advantage of cheap rent, growing amusements and proximity to the city's factories and workshops.
Construction of the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, coupled with increased automobile traffic, left Franklin Square isolated. The neighborhood continued it's decline.
A working class neighborhood devolved into Skid Row, a series of dingy rooming houses, cheap restaurants, missions and businesses that catered to poor city residents and the homeless.
On any given day, hundreds of homeless people congregated in Franklin Square, passing the time by watching the cars traverse the Ben Franklin bridge.
However, homelessness was different 100 years ago. You couldn't sleep in the park; doing so would result in arrest on vagrancy charges. Most homeless took advantage of rooming houses, which offered residents a small, dirty space for the night. Others took shelter in seedy hotels, which offered nightly rooms for as low as 40 cents, or in Christian mission houses that lined Vine Street.
The Skid Row population soared in the 1930s, in part due to the Great Recession. Urban renewal projects that followed closed many of the businesses that catered to the people on Skid Row. The Skid Row population dropped to around 3000 in the early 1950s, and by 1975 it had dwindled to a mere 300 people.
By the millennium Franklin Square was a little-used, dangerous park isolated by heavy traffic, the Benjamin Franklin Bridge and the Vine Street Expressway.
However, starting in 2003, Historic Philadelphia, Inc.— a non-profit company responsible for the Betsy Ross House and several other historical sites — refurbished the long neglected park & fountain. It was reopened and rededicated on July 31, 2006, in Franklin's tercentenary year. Today Franklin Square is one of Philadelphia's most visited sites.
A bit of trivia: The first introductions of free-living squirrels to urban centers in the U.S. took place in Philadelphia at Franklin Square in 1847. Three squirrels were released and provided with food and nesting materials. Additional squirrels were released in other city parks in the years that followed.
1838 lithograph
1920's 1950 - bridge traffic going around Franklin Square, with Sunday Breakfast Rescue Mission at 6th & Vine (Left side of photo) which could house 800.
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