{"id":11149,"date":"2017-02-13T16:44:58","date_gmt":"2017-02-13T21:44:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/phillyhistory.wpengine.com\/?p=11149"},"modified":"2017-02-13T16:44:58","modified_gmt":"2017-02-13T21:44:58","slug":"misty-eyed-for-market-shambles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/2017\/02\/misty-eyed-for-market-shambles\/","title":{"rendered":"Misty Eyed for Market Shambles"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"2nd<\/a>
Head House Square, South 2nd Street – Pine to Lombard Streets. May 10, 1916 (PhillyHistory.org)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As early Philadelphia expanded, the city\u2019s spine of market shambles kept up. \u201cThe market could…be conveniently extended in the same plan,\u201d wrote an observer in 1809, almost giddy that Philadelphia might be able to maintain its century-old shopping traditions in the new century. But 19th<\/sup>-century growth would outpace everyone\u2019s expectations, rendering the last remaining shambles a quaint, shabby, vestige.<\/p>\n

The city mid-century \u201cmarket mania\u201d ushered in an era of grand market halls<\/a> that modernized food buying with a collection of block-long, light-filled, state-of-the-art venues for hundreds of vendors and thousands of shoppers. Many Philadelphians liked these markets, as well as the bragging rights they offered, but others preferred to shop at the city\u2019s vestigial vintage shambles.<\/p>\n

“There were three phases in the logical development of a market,\u201d explained the author of a 1913 study, \u201cfirst, the curbstone market; second, the open shed; and third, and the modern enclosed market house. Strange as it may seem, Philadelphia’s municipal markets are in the second phase\u2014namely open sheds. The North<\/a> and South <\/a>Second Street markets are all that remain to us of Philadelphia’s once well-developed market system.\u201d The 18th<\/sup>-century design had been updated with \u201csheet iron roofs, cement floors and the systematizing of the numbering of the stalls.\u201d Otherwise \u201cthey stand as they were built.\u201d Just the way many Philadelphians, who were exceedingly proud of their old market shambles, and their old marketing ways, had always liked it.<\/p>\n

\u201cFew cities can boast of markets better supplied with the bounties of nature than Philadelphia,\u201d claimed one mid-19th-century guidebook. \u201cLet the reader, particularly if a stranger, take a tour of observation through them, especially on Wednesday and Saturday mornings, and he will behold an exceedingly interesting and gratifying spectacle. He will find those buildings well supplied with all kinds of meat, poultry, game, fish, vegetables, fruit, &c., while the streets in the immediate vicinity are crowded in all directions with well-filled baskets.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThese markets, distributed throughout the city, embrace altogether over forty entire squares, in addition to the range of wagon stands on Market Street and Second Street, which of themselves form a line equal in extent to three miles.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s where the shambles stood:<\/p>\n

\"2nd<\/a>
2nd Street Market – Butter and Egg Stall, June 14, 1935 (PhillyHistory.org)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cHigh Street Market.<\/strong> \u2014 Those long ranges of buildings that line this noble avenue, were not contemplated in the original plan of the city. Penn designed Centre Square for this purpose.\u00a0The first of these houses was erected in 1710; it extended half way up from Second Street. In 1729, it was carried up to Third Street, where, for a long period, it was marked with the appendages of Pillory, Stocks, and Whipping Post. \u2026 Before the Revolution, the markets were extended to Fourth Street and eventually stretched all the way to Eighth Street. \u201cIn 1836, the old market-houses were torn down, and the present light and airy structures<\/a> were erected.\u201d At the easternmost end stood a fish market and a New Jersey Market with a domed head house<\/a> flanked by cornucopia. West of Broad Street, the markets extended from two more blocks.<\/p>\n

\u201cSouth Second Street Market<\/strong> extends from Pine to Cedar (South) Street.<\/p>\n

\u201cNorth Second Street Market<\/strong> extends from Coates (Fairmount Avenue) to Poplar Street.<\/p>\n

\u201cCallowhill Street Market<\/strong> is situated in Callowhill Street, between Fourth and Seventh Streets.<\/p>\n

\u201cShippen (Bainbridge) Street Market<\/strong> extends from Third to Fifth Street.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaiden (Laurel) Street Market<\/strong>, Kensington, Maiden Street, between Broad and Manderson Streets.\u00a0 This is Laurel and Frankford Ave at Delaware Avenue.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpring Garden Market<\/strong>, Spring Garden Street. Extensive ranges of light and graceful market-houses line this elegant avenue, from Sixth to Twelfth Street.\u201d The 1862 Philadelphia atlas shows another block of market sheds from 13th to Broad.<\/p>\n

\u201cGirard Market<\/strong>, Girard Avenue, between Tenth and Lewis (Warnock) Streets.\u201d The 1862 Atlas shows market sheds from Lawrence Street (between Fourth and Fifth) to Seventh and then also from Tenth to Twelfth.<\/p>\n

\u201cMoyamensing Market<\/strong>, extends from Prime (Ellsworth) to Wharton Street.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFranklin Market<\/strong>, Franklin (Girard) Avenue\u2026consists of two ranges; one extending (a block east to) Hancock Street to the Germantown Road (now Avenue), the other from Crown (Crease) Street to the Frankford Road (Avenue).\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEleventh Street Market<\/strong>, Moyamensing. Eleventh Street, extends from Shippen (Bainbridge) to Fitzwater Street.\u201d\u00a0 The 1862 atlas shows four blocks, from Bainbridge to Carpenter Streets.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Head<\/a>
2nd Street, South to Lombard Street, May 10, 1916 (PhillyHistory.org)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By 1917, market watchers knew that more than 1,500,000 Philadelphians, living in hundreds of miles of new and old blocks of rowhouses made 25,000 market visits every day. More and more, these visits were shifting to a new market genre: the corner grocery store<\/a>. Philadelphia had 5,266 retail grocery stores as well as 2,004 butchers and retail meat dealers<\/a> and\u00a0 257 delicatessens<\/a>\u2014approximately one store for every 54 families.<\/p>\n

“If retail markets are to succeed,\u201d worried Clyde Lyndon King in 1917, \u201cthey must change their locations as population centers shift. Public markets have evidently not adapted themselves to these changes as quickly as have private stores.\u201d<\/p>\n

And to further disrupt the old market system, buyers began to use their newly-acquired telephones as shopping aides, leading some market experts to believe “there can be no public market in the day of the telephone.”<\/p>\n

\u201cCan we, in this day of the telephone and the corner grocery store,\u201d wrote Achsah Lippincott, \u201cbring back the old custom of marketing?\u201d Many Philadelphians still appreciated the idea, but more as wistful sentiment than serious possibility. \u201cThe corner grocery has come to stay,\u201d admitted Lippincott. And so had the telephone. If the city\u2019s remaining vintage market shambles were going to survive, they\u2019d do so as quaint relics at the margins of the city\u2019s increasingly massive food distribution system.<\/p>\n

[Sources include: Some Account of the Markets of Philadelphia,\u201d The Port Folio,<\/em> (1809), pp. 508-511; Clyde Lyndon King, Public Markets in the United States<\/a> (Philadelphia, The National Municipal League, 1917); Achsah Lippincott, Municipal Markets in Philadelphia<\/a> (The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science) Vols. 49-50, 1913; R. A. Smith, Philadelphia as it is in 1852<\/a>, (Lindsay and Blakiston, 1852); E. M. Patterson, Co-operation among Grocers in Philadelphia<\/em>, University of Pennsylvania, Dissertation, 1915.]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As early Philadelphia expanded, the city\u2019s spine of market shambles kept up. \u201cThe market could…be conveniently extended in the same plan,\u201d wrote an observer in 1809, almost giddy that Philadelphia might be able to maintain its century-old shopping traditions in the new century. But 19th-century growth would outpace everyone\u2019s expectations, rendering the last remaining shambles […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11149\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}