Philadelphia built the first municipal water works in America. Councils authorized a "Wholesome Water" loan ($203,001.70) ; and ground for reservoirs was broken orl the site of the old British fort at Fairmount, March 12, 1799. The first water was sent through the pipes—then of wood, a little later of cast-iron—on Jan. 27, 180i. Up to 1902, the city's expenditure for water from the Delaware and Schuylkill had been $56,498,000. Then it became necessary, on account of river pollution to provide for the present comprehensive sand filtration system. There are five filter plants: Torresdale, 52 ac., capacity 220,000,000 gal.; Queen Lane, 16 ac., 100,000,000; Belmont, 14 ac., 55,000,00o (under reconstruction, 75,000,000) ; Upper Roxborough, 5.6 ac., 20,000,000; Lower Roxborough, 2.7 ac., 8,000,000. East Park dis tribution reservoir has three basins holding 688,618,000 gal.; Oak Lane reservoir, 2 basins, 7o,o0o,000; Belmont, 40,000,00o; five clear-water basins, 127,000,00o; four raw-water reservoirs, 609,350,000. The pumping stations have a total capacity of 2,310, 000,00o gal. in 24 hours. Consumption in 1934 averaged 313 mil lion gallons daily.
Philadelphia was built on a plan. Penn wanted an open-spaced, well-shaded town, with every dwelling in the centre of its plot. There was eventually a complete departure from this idea. Brick buildings, standing wall to wall and so much alike that a man hardly knew his own house, filled large sections of the 19th century city. Another of Penn's ideas was to have "a promenade on the high bank of the river-front the whole length of the city—a top-common from end to end," after the manner of the celebrated Bomb Quai at Rotterdam. But this detail of the original plan was likewise unexecuted. Penn wanted a io,000 ac. city; Thomas Holme, his surveyor-general, succeeding Penn's cousin, Capt. William Crispen, used less than a third of that space in the original urban section, making up their due allotment to the first purchasers, or adventurers, by assigning them much larger additional lots in the adjoining Northern Liberties. Penn expected the Delaware and Schuylkill halves of his city to meet at Centre square ; but necessity, or convenience, caused the development to be along the Delaware, up and down, rather than in the wooded westward parts of the area plotted by Holme. This area—the nucleus and heart of the present city—was a parallelo gram in shape, a mile north and south, and two miles east and west from river to river, with a Delaware front street and a Schuylkill front street. The Broad street of to-day, which ex tends for 11.7 m. from League island to township line and York road, is 113 ft. wide. At Centre square, Market street, ioo ft. wide, crosses Broad, halving the city, north and south.
The most conspicuous object in Philadelphia is the architec turally much criticized City hall, French Renaissance style, de signed by John M. Arthur, Jr., with its tower, 547 ft. 11 in. high, topped by Alexander Calder's colossal bronze statue of William Penn. With its courtyard, it occupies an area of 44 ac.
The public buildings commission—authorized Aug. 5, 1870, abol ished July I, 1901—erected it at a cost of $25,000,000 (not with out public scandal). The foundation stone was laid on Aug. 18, 1872. Here are housed the State and county courts and municipal and county offices. Across the plaza to the north-east is the new City Hall annex, an office building harmonizing with the adjacent Wanamaker and Widener buildings. Old ferry and township roads in Southwark, Passyunk and Moyamensing have been modern ized into diagonal avenues, running south-west and north-east. In 1937 the urban area was 128 square miles.
Philadelphia has 2,000 streets. Houses are numbered decimally, ioo numbers being allotted to each square. Asphalt paving is used chiefly, with vitrified, granite or wood block; total urban mileage, 2,098 of which
are improved.
Floating bridges were erected in the 18th century over the Schuylkill; in the 19th century permanent bridges. White and Hazard's foot bridge was the first wire bridge in the world. Un til recently, Girard avenue bridge was the widest. Ellet's sus pension bridge was the first American bridge of the kind. Chest nut street bridge is the largest cast-iron arch-bridge. Below Wal nut street the bridges are "swings" and bascules. Spring Garden bridge, like that of Girard avenue, is of wrought-iron, Whipple truss type. Green Lane (under construction), is of re-enforced concrete. A fine concrete arch-bridge spans the Wissahickon at Walnut Lane. The Philadelphia-Camden bridge was in 1930 the longest suspension bridge in the world ; construction began Jan. 6, 1922; it was opened July 1, 1926; cost, $37,196,971. Total length, 1.81 m. ; main span, 1,750 ft. between towers; height of towers, 385 ft. mean high water; overall width, 125 ft. 6 in.
There are 172 parks and playgrounds, covering 7,859 ac. Playgrounds and recreation centres are supervised by the bureau of recreation, and small parks and squares by the bureau of city property. The Fairmount park commission (15 members, appointed by the common pleas judges) has charge of Fairmount park, 3,845 ac. and 25 other parks, with an acreage of 3,947, of which the largest, Pennypack park, has 1,255 ac.; Cobb's Creek, 621; League Island, 364; Roosevelt Boulevard, 25o; Hunting park, 86; Wister's Woods, 42; and Bartram's garden, 37. Fair mount park (with the parkway) is practically continuous from City Hall to the county line on the Wissahickon. It originated in June 1812, with the acquisition of a 5 ac. tract (summer-home of Robert Morris, financier of the Revolution) and was repeatedly enlarged by other purchases, until in addition to Letitia Cottage, it now contains 15 historic mansion houses, two surviving struc tures of the Centennial Exposition (Memorial hall and the Horti culture building) and hundreds of miles of driveways, avenues, footpaths and bridle paths, beautified at many points of vantage with over 5o bronze groups and figures.