Know Your Neighborhood: Franklin Bridge North (& Old City & Callowhill)

Know your Neighborhood: What became of Callowhill

Callowhill St. today is a no mans land with the Vine St Expressway to the south and an uninteresting assortment of buildings and businesses on the north side. It seems nothing of interest could have ever happened in the area.

The present day, however, can be deceiving, as we'll see by looking at just one spot. The north side of Callowhill Street on the west end of the block between Fourth and Fifth Streets. once contained a church, a museum, German language theater (one of the last of its kind in the nation), and one of the largest and most popular breweries in the country.

Built in 1823, the Second Universal Church stood at 417 Callowhill Street. A sugar refinery operated on the rear of the property, facing Willow Street. (drawing #1)

In 1853, the church moved to a new location on (8th St.) and the building was converted into the City Museum (#2 & 3). The City Museum combined art, natural history, and education.
It also had a theater on the 2nd floor; its goal was “to blend moral amusement with scientific instruction.” Even so, over time, the museum became a rowdy spot featuring dancers, jugglers, and magicians. A beer garden supplanted the City Museum in 1860 and its name changed to the Melodeon, which advertised itself as “The Cheapest Place of Entertainment in the World.” Later renamed the Atlantic Garden, the building was destroyed by fire on November 25, 1868.

A larger theater was built on the ruins, The Concordia. It offering serious drama and variety shows, sometimes in English but often in German, for the surrounding German community of Northern Liberties.

As the neighborhood became increasingly industrial, The Concordia declined and went through several name changes in the late 1880s. Finally, in 1890, the old theater was incorporated into the John F. Betz & Sons Brewery and was converted into a bottling plant.

German-born John Betz came to own the sugar refinery facing Willow Street between Fourth and Fifth. Betz transformed it by 1880 into one of the largest and best known breweries in the country. The six-story building was a block wide and had a four-sided clock tower. (#4)

The Betz Brewery remained in business until 1939 (#5), and was later demolished. The old Concordia theater escaped demolition to became a warehouse. (#6) The building survived until the late 1960s when the entire Callowhill neighborhood was leveled in the Callowhill East Redevelopment Project.

Some twenty city blocks (from 2nd to 9th, Callowhill to Spring Garden) were largely leveled (#7). Hundreds of eighteenth and nineteenth century dwellings, stores and workshops were torn down, and countless residents were displaced. Unfortunately, by this time, manufacturing in Philadelphia had declined & few businesses were interested in investing in new factories in the area.

The district is now largely an urban wasteland cutting off Old City from Northern Liberties, separating what had been, since the 17th century, a natural link between two vital areas of the city. The Vine Street Expressway did not help matters, as it removed six city blocks from Second to Eighth between Vine and Callowhill Streets.

Future posts will look at more of Callowhill and the neighborhood lost to the Vine St. Expressway.

(Thanks to Hidden City Philadelphia for background info.)