Miggle has it right that there are "at least two different descriptions" of
the Colossal Mill Creek cave-in. The most authoritative is to be found in
which is the only account to my knowlege that documents the fact that an
entire schoolbus full of Negro children being bussed to the suburbs was
swallowed by the giant cavity. A further overview of the history of the 'hood is
at:
Finally, a large and growing archive of maps of University City is to be
found at
Readers will have to judge for themselves as to the relative veracity and
accuracy of the duelling historians. Two of us, at any rate, hold the Ph.D. from
Columbia University.
Ross Bender
In a message dated 8/8/2004 11:26:58 PM Eastern Standard Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
On 07
Aug, 2004, at 13:31, Elliot M. Stern wrote: > I moved to Philadelphia
from New York in August 1972. I remember > having noted various signs
of the effects of Hurricane Agnes. Some of > the Septa entrances at
30th and Market were closed, and passageways > showed residual signs of
flooding for some time. I recall that a block > of 43rd Street was at
that time, and for some time thereafter, an open > ditch with wooden
beams shoring it up. I also remember at least one > car in the hole,
too. As I recall, the hole extended along the entire >
block of 43rd Street between Walnut and Sansom (not between Sansom
> and Chestnut). I remember seeing Mill Creek water flowing
through, I > don't remember that it extended beyond Sansom toward
Chestnut. If the > map at the UCHS site is accurate, it supports my
memory: the Mill > Creek culvert appears to run along the 4400 block of
Sansom, then turn > south onto 43rd Street. > > My
understanding at the time was that the street collapse was >
immediately an effect of Hurricane Agnes.
There are at least two
different descriptions of recent Mill Creek Cave-ins. The 1960s storm was
in 1961 and not at 43rd and Sansom. If one shifts the "Late 1960s" to
1972,
The description of the cave-in on the Philadelphia Historical
Society page is clearly wrong - even just based on their own map.
Examining the buildings makes it quite clear that nothing on the west side
of 43 Street between Chestnut and Sansom is "missing," and all of the
construction is much older than 1960 or 1970. Sansom to Walnut,
however, is a different story, it's now a parking lot.
As for
timing, one description of the area of Philadelphia known as Mill Creek -
44th-45th from Haverford Ave NORTH to Girard however describes a major
cave in there in 1961.
"The Mill Creek neighborhood is located between
44th and 52nd Streets from Haverford Avenue north to Girard Avenue. Its
population of approximately 10,000 is the largest among the Neighborhoods
Northeast of 52nd & Market Streets. Long-time residents of the
neighborhood have seen some important and sudden changes since the mid
1950's. In 1955, the first public housing community to be constructed in
West Philadelphia opened at 46th Street & Fairmount Avenue. Six years
later, the huge Mill Creek sewer caved in, causing the collapse of several
homes and the demolition of more than 100 additional homes that were
endangered by the cave-in. Today, a string of connected improved open
spaces marks the underground route of the Mill Creek
sewer." http://www.penn-partners.org/wp/plan/part3-4-2.html (This web
site was last updated in 1995)[This is an excerpt form the City Planning
Commission's "Plan for West Philadelphia, published in
1994.] ===================================== Here's another
interesting Mill Creek Sewer tidbit from Google ... It would appear that
Mill Creek has caved-in quite a few times!!!
" Consider this excerpt
from a memo, circa August 1948, from then-Mayor Bernard Samuel to City
Council (as lifted from a tattered, brittle clipping buried deep within
Inquirer archives):
"The Director of Public Works has requested
me to transmit for the consideration of your Honorable Body the attached
draft of an ordinance entitled "An ordinance to further amend an ordinance
entitled 'An ordinance to amend an ordinance entitled 'An ordinance to
authorize the reconstruction of the Mill Creek sewer . . . "
In a blessedly bureaucratic way, the law referred to Mill Creek, a
five-mile, brick-and-mortar sewer line that caused cave-ins and
sometimes-fatal house collapses after the Great Depression. Built in
the 1870s, it incorporated what had been a flowing creek through West
Philadelphia.
Councilman Michael Nutter, whose district includes
sections of West
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