Know Your Neighborhood: The Wood Street Steps  

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 stairwell is a passageway to the lower street on the line where Wood Street used to be an alley in this riverfront neighborhood.

The Wood Street Steps are the last remnant of a series of at least 10 public staircases mandated by William Penn to ensure public access to the waterfront through a compromise with landowners in 1694. The steps are a symbol of the tremendous city planning history in Philadelphia, as well as a reminder that the Delaware River's bank once reached Water St. at this location. 

Penn directed these stairs be installed on the Delaware River’s western embankment to ensure public access to Philadelphia’s waterfront.  Penn knew the Delaware River was vital for the commercial health of the City and decreed that a set of steps be built on every east-west street fronting the wharfs on the Delaware.

The stairway was once an extension of a slender alley between Vine and Callowhill called Wood Street. The steps were built in the early 1700's, though the treads originally were probably wooden. The stone treads were there for sure in 1737, when Wood Street was first registered as a public street.

The Cherry St Steps, 1918. Area was torn down for I-95.

Church St steps 1900

1960's