Willow St winds it's way just north of Callowhill St from 9th to 2nd St., where it ends, having been cut off from Delaware Avenue by I-95. While Willow Street parallels Callowhill St, it doesn’t fit neatly into Philadelphia’s regular street grid. It’s a wavy street in a city known for not having wavy streets. The reason for this is that Willow Street follows the course of Cohoquinoque Creek, a once-prominent stream that emptied into the Delaware in earlier times.
The stream was later named Pegg’s Run after a Quaker brickmaker named Daniel Pegg. Pegg’s Run became tremendously polluted as early as the late 18th century, with numerous early Philadelphia industries located along its embankments. The stream was enclosed as part of a storm sewer system, though factories continued to discharge their wastes into the enclosed stream and out to the nearby Delaware River.
The full length of Willow Street was placed atop the culvert by 1829, following the course of the enclosed stream. The land on either side of the street became densely filled with residential and industrial buildings by the mid-19th century. By the mid - 20th century, the area around Willow St was blighted, with many abandoned houses and factories. And so, hundreds of 19th century dwellings and commercial buildings were condemned and demolished in the late 1960s as part of the Callowhill East Urban Renewal Area project.
Some twenty city blocks were included in this undertaking. Many streets were removed from the Philadelphia street grid in this vicinity. Yet Willow Street survived. This is because the sewer, out of necessity, had to stay in place. The sewer continues to flow into the Delaware River at what was once known as the Willow Street wharf.
1802 map, showing Pegg's Pier 25 at Willow St, 1899 Willow St today
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