This photo shows the El near 32nd Street on the eve of renewed tunneling of the West Philadelphia integrated rapid transit and subway system, which had been halted during the Great Depression and Second World War.
The frame of a historic Woodland Avenue trolley marks the entrance to the SEPTA station at 37th and Spruce streets. The trolley was manufactured by the J.G. Brill Company. The station itself is some 40 feet below ground. Across Spruce is the Memorial Gate of Penn’s Upper Quad college houses.
Between 1947 and 1955, the Philadelphia Transit Company completed a subway tunnel for the Market Street Elevated west of the Schuylkill and took down the El between 32nd and 45th streets.
View north from Overbrook Station, at City Line Avenue. The Pennsylvania Railroad opened this station ca. 1860 and renovated it in the 1890s. Today, the station and tracks are part of SEPTA’s Regional Rail system.
Following World War II, urban renewal provided the resources for city officials and developers to create dramatic changes to the physical and social landscape of West Philadelphia.
A semi-aerial view southwest along Woodland Avenue near the intersection with 37th and Spruce Streets. Today a full-sized reproduction of a Woodland Avenue trolley can be found at this location on the north side of Spruce Street.
View east from a ridge on Drexel University’s boundary that overlooks the Amtrak–SEPTA rail yards, the long-term, projected site of an over-build for development of University City’s Drexel-centric Innovation Neighborhood.
