RE: [UC] 43rd & Sansom

Mon, 09 Aug 2004 09:22:23 -0700

One of the huge sink hole cave-ins happened at the corner

of 42nd and Chestnut Street during the late 60’s ..early 70’s.

I was there! ..and you could look down into the ground 30ft

or so and see running water in a stream. We were told it was

Mill Creek.

 

That particular intersection was notorious for flooding during

that time period. Bill might remember.

 

S.

-----Original Message-----
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Sent: Monday, August 09, 2004 8:27 AM
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Subject: Re: [UC] 43rd & Sansom

 

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

http://rossbender.org

 

 

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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