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Commerce in Overbrook
Part of
Overbrook

    Author
    John L. Puckett
    1893–1917

    From the late-17th to the mid-19th century, Overbrook was home to agricultural estates and water-powered mills. By the turn of the twentieth century, it was a residential section of the city dominated by Overbrook Farms, with business activity concentrated along 63rd Street above Lancaster Avenue.  

    From the late-17th to mid-19th century, the area that became Overbrook composed agricultural estates and grist, saw, and paper mills that were powered by the area’s abundant streams. In the late-19th century, as Overbrook transformed into a residential neighborhood dominated by Overbrook Farms, its commercial activity was concentrated primarily along 63rd Street, near the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Overbrook Station. Retail operations, restaurants, and professional services opened on the street; the first apartment building arrived in the early 1900s.   

    The urban-watershed historian Adam Levine neatly summarizes the bounty of natural resources available to Overbrook farmers and mill operators from the late-17th to mid-19th century: “The land, once cleared of trees, proved to be fertile farmland. The small streams, once dammed, provided power for numerous mills. Grist mills ground grains into flour and meal. Saw mills took the trees cleared from the land and turned them into lumber, for local buildings and those in the nearby city. Paper mills and gunpowder mills were also in operation along the local creeks for a time. In the 19th century, with the coming of the Industrial Revolution, textile factories were built that employed hundreds of men, women, boys and girls. Even after these factories converted to steam power by the mid-19th century, they still used the creeks as sources of water for their bleaching and dyeing operations, as receptacles for their wastes.”[1] 

    At the turn of the 20th century, Overbrook’s commercial activity was concentrated primarily along 63rd Street in Overbrook Farms. At that time, 63rd Street was a dirt thoroughfare that paralleled the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) tracks. The PRR’s Overbrook Station fronted 63rd Street near City Line Avenue; its location was the catalyst for small business development; until 1917 the station also served as the Overbrook Farms post office.

    Opened in 1894, Lafferty’s Market, near the Overbrook Station, was Overbrook Farms’ first commercial building, with space allocated for community gatherings on the second floor. Complementing the Revivals motifs of Overbrook Farms’ houses, Lafferty’s was a “Pompeian brick Italianate-style structure.”[2] 

    “Businesses that came after Lafferty’s were the Hines bakery, Herald’s Livery Stable, and “eventually . . . restaurants, large apartment buildings, medical and dental offices, and real estate and service offices.”[3] In 1909, the Drexel Apartments of Overbrook, built in the Tudor Revival style, opened at 6301–15 Overbrook Avenue opposite the Overbrook Station.[4] 

    Built in 1893, the Overbrook Steam Heat Company provided a commercial service that was unique to Overbrook Farms: a centralized heating system that “eliminated polluting high-maintenance coal-fired furnaces in homes and reduced the number of servants necessary to assist the household.” Located just off Woodbine Avenue adjacent to the PRR tracks, this plant generated and distributed steam via a protected-pipe network into the cellars of the Overbrook Farms homes.[5] 

    Neighborhoods
    Overbrook
    Themes
    City of Homes, Commercial and Industrial Development
    [1] Adam Levin, “A Brief History of the Overbrook Neighborhood of Philadelphia, Focusing on Changes in the Natural Landscape,” accessed from http://www.phillyh2o.org/backpages/OverbrookHistory.htm, 20 July 2016.
    [2] Overbrook Farms Club, Overbrook Farms (Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2014), 53 –54; University City Historical Society, “Overbrook Farms,” accessed from http://uchs.net/HistoricDistricts/overbrook.html, 27 July 2016.
    [3] Overbrook Farms Club, Overbrook Farms, 53.
    [4] Ibid., 48. 
    [5] Ibid., 14.

    Continue reading Overbrook
    Map of Blockley Township Including All Public Places, Property Owners, etc., 1849
    Estates in Overbrook

    Arriving in the mid-1680s, Welsh Quakers held the original patents in the Western Liberties. The descendants of these immigrants maintained sizable estates in the 18th and 19th centuries that evolved into the modern Overbrook.

    Landscapes in Overbrook

    Mill Creek, Indian Run, Morris Park, and City Line are notable historical features of the Overbrook landscape.

    Overbrook Farms

    Overbrook Farms, an elite turn-of-the-20th-century suburban development notable for its curvilinear streets and late-Victorian and early-modern houses arose in the quadrant of 59th to 66th streets between City Line and Woodbine Avenues. The project involved more than 50 architects; its hallmarks were (and still are) spacious late-Victorian and early-modern houses arrayed on curvilinear streets.

    Commerce in Overbrook

    From the late-17th to the mid-19th century, Overbrook was home to agricultural estates and water-powered mills. By the turn of the twentieth century, it was a residential section of the city dominated by Overbrook Farms, with business activity concentrated along 63rd Street above Lancaster Avenue.  

    Railroads and Trolleys in Overbrook

    From the mid-19th century onward, the Pennsylvania Railroad’s “Main Line” trains spurred the development of affluent suburbs just northwest of the City of Philadelphia. Overbrook’s residential development benefited immensely from the railroad’s passage through West Philadelphia to the central city. Electric trolleys arrived in Overbrook in 1895.

    Institutions in Overbrook

    Throughout the late 19th century and early 20th century, houses of worship and benevolent/charitable institutions played a role in the Overbrook section.