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78-669: The neighborhood hosts one of the largest concentrations of original 18th- and early 19th-century buildings in the United States. Society Hill is noted for its Franklin street lamps , brick sidewalks, cobblestone and Belgian block streets bordered by two- to four-story brick rowhouses in Federal and Georgian architecture , and public buildings in Greek Revival architecture such as the Merchants' Exchange Building and

156-670: A WPA traffic survey. This project transformed into a permanent position for Bacon at the Flint Institute for Planning and Research. Bacon became very active in civic life in Flint, helping to establish the Flint Housing Association and reforming the city's Planning Commission. During his time in Flint, Bacon witnessed the 1936-37 Flint Sit-Down Strike , and felt empathetic to the workers. Bacon gained close contacts with individuals who were active in establishing

234-519: A floodlight to illuminate an intersection. By 1917, the number of incandescent filament lamps used in street lighting had reached 1,389,000 across the United States, while the number of arc lamps had started to decline. In 1919, San Francisco introduced tungsten bulbs on Van Ness Avenue , between Vallejo and Market Street , replacing gas mantles and arc lamps. The city used two 250-candlepower tungsten lamps per column, on sixteen columns for every block. According to The Electrical Review : “Under

312-474: A December 1973 article in the Chicago Tribune was optimistic about the "more cheerful, brighter, gold-colored vapor lamps", the newspaper's own architecture critic worried about the "eerie, ominous quality of sodium vapor illumination". In 1976, the large-scale installation of sodium vapor lamps began on Chicago's arterial streets. In the end, the most critical factor in favor of sodium vapor lamps

390-808: A citizens' committee led by John Hancock installed more than 300 oil lamps from England in 1773. The year before, a newspaper editorial had called for a system of public lamps to prevent crime and protect citizens at night. The glass globes were placed on posts ten feet high and spaced fifty feet apart along the street, following the system used in London. These early street lights were "more suggestive than real"; in practice, pedestrians moved from one pool of light to another, walking through shadow in between. In New York , more than 1,600 oil lamps were in use as city street lights in 1809. The city had started using spermaceti oil , which burned more brightly than candles, in its street lamps from as early as 1792. Philadelphia

468-533: A compelling alternative to incandescents. However, because they enhanced visual acuity , they were recommended for safety lighting in tunnels, on bridges, and at "cloverleaf" interchanges on express highways. In the US, street lights using sodium vapor were first installed on a rural highway near Port Jervis, New York , in 1933. In 1938, a study of sodium vapor light use at selected intersections in Chicago claimed that

546-426: A crosstown buffered bike lane pilot project, bike lanes were installed that run eastbound along Pine Street and westbound along Spruce Street. Society Hill is served by Indego bike-share stations at 9th and Locust Streets, 4th and Walnut Streets, Dock and Front Streets, 2nd and Lombard Streets, and 6th and Locust Streets. Society Hill contains pathways that connect the residential neighborhood with historic areas to

624-523: A crowd of thousands, Brush positioned twelve 2,000- candlepower lamps on towers around Cleveland's Public Square (then known as Monumental Park), and fully illuminated it with electric light. The first municipal government to purchase and install the Brush arc lighting system was the city of Wabash, Indiana . On March 31, 1880, Wabash became "the first town in the world generally lighted by electricity," as four 3,000-candlepower Brush lights suspended from

702-471: A decade, and expected to reduce its public lighting energy use by half. However, for the first two years, DTE Energy continued to bill Ann Arbor at the same rate as before, because the street lights were not metered, and electricity charges were estimated based on past use. Under the direction of the state utility regulator, DTE Energy eventually revised its rates for Ann Arbor based on the expected energy use for "experimental lighting technology", and credited

780-444: A grid, the new Dock Street's arc connecting Chestnut and Spruce Streets between 2nd and 3rd, owes its uncharacteristic shape to the path of the former creek as it ran to the river. In the 19th century, the city expanded westward and the area lost its appeal. Houses deteriorated, and by the 1940s, Society Hill had become a slum neighborhood, one of the worst in the city. In the 1950s, the city, state and federal governments began one of

858-565: A neighborhood that is walkable, rather than a disjointed collection of historic buildings. Society Hill has long been a popular neighborhood for numerous notable people. Past and present notable residents include: Some of the most notable points of interest within Society Hill are listed below and marked on the adjacent map. Points of interest just north of Society Hill are the Liberty Bell , Independence Hall , Carpenters' Hall ,

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936-611: A new Home Rule Charter was instituted. In 1949, Bacon succeeded Mitchell as executive director of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission. Serving under Mayors Samuel , Clark, Dilworth, and Tate , his work brought him national repute along with his counterparts Edward J. Logue in Boston and Robert Moses in New York City during the mid-century era of urban renewal . His face appeared on

1014-753: A state historical marker honoring Bacon's memory and commemorating his work. Bacon was awarded the Frank P. Brown Medal in 1962, the American Institute of Planners Distinguished Service Award, the Philadelphia Award , and an honorary doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania . In 1983, Bacon was elected into the National Academy of Design as an associate member, and became a full member in 1994. From 2004 until his death at

1092-926: A tall column in Richmond, Virginia , which failed to cast as much light as he had hoped for. In Washington, DC , city planners considered using the Washington Monument as a tower platform for lighting, but rejected the idea after placing test lamps on the Smithsonian Institution and United States Capitol buildings. Municipalities that adopted tower lighting or "moontowers" for a period included Akron, Aurora, Austin, Buffalo, Chattanooga, Denver, Detroit, Elgin, Evansville, Fort Wayne, Hannibal, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Louisville, Minneapolis, Mobile, San Francisco, and San Jose. Most of these cities erected only one or two towers, before falling back on traditional lamppost lighting. One exception

1170-543: A whiter light, and contain less mercury. Following extensive field tests, the City of San Diego decided in 2010 to replace 10,000 of its high-pressure sodium (HPS) streetlights with cobra-head induction luminaires. Astronomers from the nearby Palomar Observatory had objected to replacing the HPS lamps with light sources with higher color temperatures, which would increase light pollution and interfere with their research. One of

1248-703: A year in China, he returned to Philadelphia where he worked for architect William Pope Barney . He soon was awarded a scholarship to the Cranbrook Academy of Art , in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan , with Finnish architect and planner Eliel Saarinen , who Bacon revered and whose theories about the city as a living organism as expressed in Saarinen's book The City were a basis for Bacon's later work. Saarinen sent Bacon to Flint, Michigan to guide

1326-523: Is St. Mary Interparochial Grade School. The Free Library of Philadelphia operates the Independence Branch at 18 South 7th Street. The Athenaem is a private library and museum with collections including architecture and interior design history, particularly for the period from 1800 to 1945. Society Hill's many historically significant congregations reflect the fruition of William Penn's Quaker maxim of religious toleration. Society Hill

1404-425: Is accessible via several forms of public transportation . The Market–Frankford subway line stops at 2nd Street and 5th Street , which are two blocks north of Society Hill's Walnut Street boundary. The PATCO Speedline , a rapid transit system connecting Philadelphia and southern New Jersey stops at 8th and Market Street station, two blocks north of Society Hill, and at the 9th and Locust Street station, which

1482-541: Is an assemblage of historical street lights taken from actual usage in Southern California in the form of a 2008 sculpture by Chris Burden . Edmund Bacon (architect) Edmund Norwood Bacon (May 2, 1910 – October 14, 2005) was an American urban planner , architect, educator, and author. During his tenure as the executive director of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission from 1949 to 1970, his visions shaped today's Philadelphia ,

1560-539: Is approximately 0.254 square miles (163 acres). Bordering the Delaware River just south of Old City and Independence Hall , Society Hill is loosely defined as bounded by Walnut , Lombard, Front and 8th Streets. The Society Hill Civic Association further subdivides Society Hill along Spruce Street and 4th Street into quadrants by intercardinal directions : northeast (NE), southeast (SE), southwest (SW), and northwest (NW). Across different sources, variation in

1638-407: Is one block west of Society Hill's 8th Street boundary. The SEPTA 9 and 21 buses run westbound along Walnut Street. The 12 and 42 run westbound along parts of Spruce and Walnut Streets. The 12 also runs eastbound along Pine Street. The 47 runs northbound along 7th Street and southbound along 8th Street. The 57 runs northbound along 3rd Street and southbound along 4th Street. Since 2009, as part of

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1716-470: The Far Northeast . The Center City Commuter Connection , a seemingly radical idea at the time, was conceived during the 1950s by Planning Commission staff member, R. Damon Childs, who succeeded Bacon as executive director. Not all of the concepts that Bacon supported materialized. One proposal that he inherited from Robert Mitchell was to encircle Center City with a series of expressways, including

1794-732: The First Bank of the United States , the Second Bank of the United States , the Merchants' Exchange Building , and the Museum of the American Revolution . History of street lighting in the United States The history of street lighting in the United States is closely linked to the urbanization of America . Artificial illumination has stimulated commercial activity at night, and has been tied to

1872-739: The Greenland or Arctic right whales of the North Atlantic, or from sperm whales of the South Atlantic, South Pacific, and beyond. Lamplighters were responsible for igniting the lamps and maintaining them. As early as the 1750s, inventor Benjamin Franklin of Philadelphia introduced innovations in oil lamp design, such as using two woven wicks to siphon oil from a reservoir, and flat panes of glass which could be easily replaced and were cheaper than blown glass bowls. In Boston ,

1950-488: The Old Pine Street Church . Society Hill is named after the 17th-century Free Society of Traders, which had its offices at Front Street on the hill above Dock Creek . The Free Society of Traders was a company of elite merchants, landowners, and personal associates of William Penn who were granted special concessions in order to direct the economy of the young colony. Society Hill was initially known as

2028-691: The School District of Philadelphia . Society Hill residents are zoned to the General George A. McCall School , located at 325 S. 7th Street, for kindergarten through eighth grade, and all persons zoned to McCall are assigned to Benjamin Franklin High School . Previously Furness High School was the zoned high school for Society Hill. The McCall School serves Society Hill and the Chinatown areas. A construction contract for

2106-472: The Society Hill Towers . In 1957, Edmund Bacon , the executive director of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission, awarded developer-architect firm Webb and Knapp the competition for the redevelopment of Society Hill. Architect I. M. Pei and his team designed a plan for three 31-story Society Hill Towers and low-rise buildings. The Towers and townhouses project was completed in 1964, while

2184-462: The cover of Time magazine in 1964, and in 1965, Life magazine devoted its cover story to his work. That same year, Bacon was appointed by President Johnson to serve as a member of the White House 's Conference on Recreation and Natural Beauty. In 1967, he wrote Design of Cities , still considered an important architectural text. It’s a seminal work on urban design that illustrates

2262-583: The 20th century, there was intense competition among providers of various forms of street lighting, including carbon arc lamps; incandescent lamps; traditional coal gas lamps; and gasoline and naphtha street lamps. Incandescent lamps were initially developed primarily for indoor use, but major technology breakthroughs in 1907 and 1911 perfected the use of tungsten filaments. From 1911 onward, electric incandescent lamps with tungsten filaments became an increasingly popular choice among municipal utilities for public street lighting. In 1917, Fargo, North Dakota used

2340-623: The City Policy Committee, a grassroots movement of young Philadelphians, established by future civic leader Walter M. Phillips, that was instrumental in Philadelphia's political reform movement. Members of the Committee went on to become leaders in Philadelphia government after 1952, when the reform Democrat and later ( U.S. Senator ) Joseph Sill Clark was elected Mayor , Richardson Dilworth became District Attorney, and

2418-577: The Crosstown Expressway proposal depressed property values and rents in the South Street corridor, leading to a turnover of the neighborhood's character from largely Jewish-owned garment shops to the thriving commercial and nightlife center that it is today. Other concepts conceived during Bacon's tenure, such as Schuylkill River Park, included in the 1963 Center City Plan, came into being many years later. After Bacon's retirement from

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2496-550: The Dock Ward, an appropriate designation until the post- World War II period when the shipping industry declined and relocated. The Dock Ward, first defined in 1705, was one of the ten original wards that the city used to subdivide land east of 7th Street. As part of the 1854 Act of Consolidation , the Dock Ward was renamed the 5th Ward. The wards were realigned in 1965 and the boundaries of the 5th Ward no longer correspond to Society Hill's boundaries. The land area of Society Hill

2574-629: The Federal Housing Authority, such as Catherine Bauer and Lewis Mumford . Through these contacts he helped secure federal housing dollars for Flint. However, the local real-estate industry came to see this Federal funding for public housing as a threat to their business, as was the case in several cities early in the history of the FHA. The funding was turned down, and Bacon was effectively run out of Flint in 1939. From Flint, Bacon returned to Philadelphia to serve as managing director of

2652-518: The McCall school building was awarded on October 26, 1909 and the official opening occurred in February 1911. Russell Scott Smith of Edutopia wrote that in 2004, compared with other schools in Philadelphia, "McCall already had a fairly good reputation for academic rigor and safety" and that by 2009 it had improved even more. In 2012 Kristen A. Graham of The Philadelphia Inquirer stated that McCall

2730-506: The New Orleans Brush Lighting Company installed one hundred 2,000-candlepower arc lamps along five miles of wharf and riverfront; by 1885, New Orleans had 655 arc lights. In Chicago , arc lamps were used in public street lighting starting in 1887. At first, arc lamps were only used on Chicago River bridges , but by 1910, they were used more widely on major Chicago streets. During the first two decades of

2808-744: The Philadelphia Housing Association. He served in the United States Navy aboard the USS Shoshone in the Pacific in World War II . In 1947, he joined the staff of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission under executive director Robert Mitchell, and served as co-designer to the 1947 Better Philadelphia Exhibition in collaboration with Oscar Stonorov and Louis Kahn . Bacon was also an early member of

2886-570: The Planning Commission in 1970, he served as vice president for the private planning firm Mondev U.S.A., was an adjunct professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and at the University of Pennsylvania , from 1950 to 1987, and narrated "Understanding Cities", an award-winning series of documentary films describing the history and development of Rome under Pope Sixtus V , Paris under Georges-Eugène Haussmann , Regency London under John Nash , American cities, and cities in

2964-439: The US were mercury vapor, while incandescents accounted for 60 percent. By 1973, the use of incandescent outdoor lamps was rapidly declining, while the production of mercury vapor lamps soared. Low-pressure sodium vapor street lights produce a strong monochromatic yellow light, which also reveals more detail to the human eye, even at low levels of luminance. In the 1930s, sodium vapor lamps were not efficient enough to make them

3042-535: The United States after 1950, mainly due to their cost efficiency. By then, the lifespan of mercury vapor lamps had been extended to 16,000 hours, and they could provide up to 40 lumens per watt, whereas incandescent lamps could only deliver 16 to 21 lumens. The first large street installation of mercury vapor lamps in the United States was in Denver, Colorado , on Park Avenue, where they were used together with incandescents. In 1964, nearly 39 percent of street lights in

3120-400: The advertisements. Demand for the Brush street lighting system grew quickly, as it provided higher-quality light for one-third the cost of gas lamps. In 1880, Brush conducted a demonstration in New York City, erecting 23 arc lamps along Broadway . As a result, Brush won several city contracts including contracts for lighting Union Square and Madison Square , where towers were erected for

3198-699: The age of 95 the following year, Bacon helped found and served as an honorary director of a foundation that bears his name, the Ed Bacon Foundation, whose programs are now managed by the Edmund N. Bacon Memorial Committee at the Philadelphia Center for Architecture . Bacon was the father of six children, including two sons, actor Kevin Bacon , musician Michael Bacon , and four daughters, Karin, Elinor, Hilda and Prudence (later Kira). His wife

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3276-547: The arc lamps. On major thoroughfares such as Broadway, arc lamps were placed on lampposts at 250-foot intervals; by 1886, approximately 30 miles of thoroughfares in New York City were lit by arc lamps. On Fifth Avenue , however, arc lamps were dismantled after residents complained that the wires connecting the fixtures were "unsightly", and most of the street "returned to the gloom of gas." By 1893, New York City had 1,535 electric arc street lights. In New Orleans , arc lamps were used for street lighting starting in 1881. In 1882,

3354-582: The case for a new civic center for Philadelphia that included an urban park where LOVE Park was ultimately built. After college, while traveling the world on a small inheritance, Bacon found work as an architect in Shanghai , China in Henry Murphy's office. He was responsible for designing the Nanking airport. With Murphy, he visited Beijing, a city that exerted a deep influence on his thinking. After

3432-737: The city of his birth, to the extent that he is sometimes described as "The Father of Modern Philadelphia". He authored the seminal urban planning book Design of Cities . He was the father of actor Kevin Bacon . Bacon was born in West Philadelphia , the son of Helen Atkinson ( née Comly) and Ellis Williams Bacon. He grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs and graduated from Swarthmore High School in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania in 1928. He attended Cornell University , where he studied architecture. His senior thesis at Cornell made

3510-673: The city retroactive to the installation. As of January 2011, the city of Ann Arbor had switched 1,400 of its 7,000 streetlight fixtures to LEDs, and saved approximately $ 200,000, including reduced maintenance costs. Many cities across the United States experimented with tall tower structures to deliver light to entire city neighborhoods, similar to the arc lamp installation at the Wabash County Courthouse in Indiana. In 1802, Benjamin Henfry erected an oil-based "thermolamp" on

3588-739: The colonial atmosphere. Empty lots and demolished buildings were replaced with parks, walkways, and modern townhouses. From 1957–1959, the Greater Philadelphia Movement, the Redevelopment Authority and the Old Philadelphia Development Corporation bought 31 acres (130,000 m) around Dock Street. They demolished and relocated the Dock Street market, setting aside 5 acres (20,000 m) of land that would become

3666-451: The country's economic development, including major innovations in transportation, particularly the growth in automobile use. In the two and a half centuries before LED lighting emerged as the new "gold standard", cities and towns across America relied on oil, coal gas, carbon arc, incandescent, and high-intensity gas discharge lamps for street lighting. The earliest street lights in the colonial America were oil lamps burning whale oil from

3744-639: The entire plan was completed in 1977. Architect Louis Sauer designed dozens of rowhouse projects for the area around Society Hill, including Waverly Court and Penn's Landing Square. Historic buildings in Society Hill include the Society Hill Synagogue , built in 1829 as a Baptist church by Philadelphia architect Thomas Ustick Walter , one of the architects of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. The synagogue

3822-490: The exact border includes extending the eastern boundary to the Delaware River, the southern border to South Street , the northern border to Chestnut Street, or limiting the western border to 7th Street, making the boundaries coterminous with U.S. Census tracts 10.01 and 10.02. With prime access to the Delaware River and Philadelphia's civic buildings, including Independence Hall, the neighborhood quickly became one of

3900-498: The first urban renewal programs aimed at the preservation of historic buildings. While most commercial 19th-century buildings were demolished, historically-significant houses were restored by occupants or taken over by the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority and sold to individuals who agreed to restore the exteriors. Replicas of 18th-century street lights and brick sidewalks were added to enhance

3978-415: The flagstaff on top of the Wabash County Courthouse were switched on, flooding the neighborhood with light. According to an eyewitness, "The people, almost with bated breath, stood overwhelmed with awe." The journalist reported that he had been able to read a newspaper, held up to the light, from one street away; from two blocks away, he could still read the headlines; from four blocks away he could make out

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4056-682: The future of Philadelphia's downtown. Bacon continued to assert his vision for Philadelphia's future actively in his later years. During the 1990s, he proposed new concepts to improve Independence Mall, Penn's Landing, and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway . During the same period, he promoted a design competition for North American cities to design the best "Post-Petroleum" city. Only one municipality, in Ottawa, Canada, committed to it. In 2002, at age 92, he skateboarded in LOVE Park ,

4134-530: The future post-oil era. He vociferously but unsuccessfully opposed the development of skyscrapers in Center City Philadelphia taller than Philadelphia City Hall , which until 1984 set the informal height limit for downtown at the hat of the statue of William Penn . That custom, known as the " Gentlemen's agreement ", was broken by developer Willard G. Rouse III 's One Liberty Place . The New York Times correctly noted Bacon's opposition to

4212-486: The key findings of the field assessment was that LED luminaires became more expensive and less efficient at lower color temperatures. The City of San Diego has standardized on induction lighting for street lights, but uses low-pressure sodium (LPS) lamps within a 30-mile radius of the observatory. Urban Light at the entrance to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) Center, Los Angeles ,

4290-579: The mid-1960s, lamp manufacturers once again promoted the potential for sodium vapor lighting to enable better street surveillance. High-pressure sodium lamps produced a distinct "yellow/orangeish light", brighter than mercury vapor light, which has been described as a "harsh metallic blue" in hue. During the OPEC oil embargo , Mayor Richard J. Daley announced a plan to make Chicago "the first large U.S. city to have sodium vapor lamps on all residential streets", replacing 85,000 mercury vapor streetlights. Although

4368-484: The most populous areas in colonial Philadelphia. Several market halls, taverns and churches were built alongside brick houses of Philadelphia's affluent citizens. After the Revolutionary War , the polluted Dock Creek—which had been used as a public sewer—became Dock Street when the city filled in the creek and created a new food distribution market. Though the streets of Philadelphia were carefully laid out in

4446-422: The new lighting had helped to reduce the number of accidents in those areas. Lamp manufacturers started to promote sodium vapor lamps for "crime fighting", a marketing strategy that backfired when cities such as Newark and New Orleans rejected sodium vapor, to avoid publicly stigmatizing high-crime neighborhoods. When the availability of high-pressure sodium vapor lamps coincided with the rise of social unrest in

4524-596: The north. These paths are known as greenways and were designed specifically for pedestrian travel to minimize interaction with automobile traffic. The landscaped greenways were conceived by Edmund Bacon, who hired John Collins of Adleman, Collins & DuTot to design small-scale greenway parks and pedestrian connections woven mid- block between buildings. St. Joseph's Way, St. Peter's Way, and Lawrence Court Walk are greenways that connect community places including St. Peter's, Old Pine, Three Bears Park, and Bingham Court. The greenways feature public art and are designed to create

4602-418: The old system of lighting it was dangerous for a pedestrian to attempt to cross the street because of the heavy automobile traffic. Now the entire street is flooded with evenly distributed light and the appearance of the street as well as the public safety has been greatly enhanced." By the mid-20th century, increasing motorization necessitated better illumination, particularly in business districts where there

4680-815: The only lighting towers that remain in the United States are in Austin, Texas . The city of Austin purchased 31 of Detroit's used moonlight towers in 1894. Seventeen of those towers, erected in Austin in 1895, continue to function as working lighting towers today. In 2009, PSE&G in New Jersey became the first utility in the US to use induction fluorescent lamps to replace mercury vapor lamps, in 220 municipalities. The induction lamps were expected to last 100,000 hours before requiring maintenance and consume 30 to 40 percent less electricity, thereby saving an estimated $ 1 million annually. The induction lamps also provide

4758-424: The planet." In recent years, efforts to make street lighting more energy efficient have focused on using light-emitting diodes (LEDs) to replace high-pressure mercury (HPM), metal halide (MH), and high-pressure sodium (HPS) luminaires. LEDs also produce a whiter light, and can be installed as part of a centrally managed system with further energy saving controls, such as part-night lighting and dimming. Although

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4836-425: The plaza he founded and designed at Cornell University in 1932, as a protest against the city's ban on skateboarding in the park. In 2003, he appeared in the documentary My Architect about Louis Kahn , a Philadelphia architect . In September 2006, at the northwest corner of 15th Street and J.F.K. Boulevard, by LOVE Park, The Ed Bacon Foundation and the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission dedicated

4914-404: The project, but it was incorrect in saying that "in opposing the skyscraper One Liberty Place, Mr. Bacon refused to attend the tower's 1986 groundbreaking and stopped speaking to his friend Willard G. Rouse III, who built it. 'I think it's very, very destructive that he and he alone has chosen to destroy a historical tradition that set a very fine and disciplined form for the city,' Mr. Bacon said at

4992-441: The relationship between historical and modern principles as well as practices of urban planning, applied particularly to Philadelphia. It was during his tenure at the City Planning Commission that Bacon and his staff conceived and implemented numerous large and small-scale design ideas that shaped today's Philadelphia. These design concepts became Penn Center , Market East , Penn's Landing , Society Hill , Independence Mall and

5070-415: The so-called " Crosstown Expressway " ( I-695 ) and the Vine Street Expressway ( I-676 ) linking the Schuylkill Expressway ( I-76 ) with the Delaware Expressway (I-95) via South Street . Three of the four expressways were built, however the Crosstown Expressway faced significant local opposition and was never built, while a scaled-down expressway was built at Vine Street. As an unintended consequence ,

5148-602: The sophistication of their existing oil-based lighting systems meant that those cities were slower to replace the street lamps they already had with technology that was still unproven. By 1835, New York, Philadelphia, and Boston had also built the requisite infrastructure of piped networks connected to manufacturing gas plants (MGPs) to supply gas light to shopping boulevards, wealthy residential neighborhoods, and major thoroughfares. That year, only 384 of New York City's 5,660 street lamps were gaslights. Chicago turned on its first hundred-odd gaslights on September 4, 1850. Gas light

5226-400: The steps." By 1893, New York City had 26,500 gas street lights and only 1,500 electrical lights. The first public demonstration of outdoor electrical lighting in the US was in Cleveland, Ohio , on April 29, 1879. Inventor Charles F. Brush had been perfecting the dynamo arc light , which could produce a glow equivalent to 4,000 candles in a single lamp. For the demonstration, which drew

5304-427: The time." Bacon was present at the groundbreaking, which took place in May 1985. Of course, Rouse was not capable of single-handedly changing the custom, even if it was not formally legal. Rouse's enormous project had the support of Mayor W. Wilson Goode , Philadelphia City Council, and the City Planning Commission, which was forced by the announcement of Rouse's plan to admit that it had no up-to-date plan of its own for

5382-572: The up-front costs of installing LED fixtures is significant, municipalities switching to LED street lighting generally expect to recoup their investment through reductions in ongoing electricity and maintenance costs. Many of the early projects in the United States also benefitted from economic stimulus block grants. In 2007, the city of Ann Arbor, Michigan , announced plans to become "the first US city to convert all of its downtown streetlights to LED technology." The city replaced 120-watt bulbs which lasted only two years with 56-watt LEDs that would last

5460-470: The use of gas lamps to light exhibits at the Peale Museum in Baltimore, displaying what The Federal Gazette and Daily Advertiser called "the beautiful and most brilliant light". The following year, a group of investors formed the Gas Light Company of Baltimore, which was authorized by the municipal government to lay pipes to use coal gas to light public streets. Although both New York and Philadelphia experimented with gas street lighting around this time,

5538-491: Was Los Angeles , which erected 36 towers, fifteen of which were 150-feet tall and equipped with three 3,000-candlepower arc lamps each. Another exception was Detroit , which attempted to use 122 towers to illuminate 21 square miles of the city. Although the tower lighting in Detroit provided "uniform carpets of light", it was ineffective in providing sufficient lighting for high-traffic areas and routes. After five years, Detroit began to dismantle its towers. As of October 2021,

5616-433: Was close behind during this period, with 1,100 street lamps. Gas lamps gradually started replacing oil street lamps in the United States, beginning in the first quarter of the 19th century. The first street in the world to be illuminated by gaslight was Pall Mall in London, starting in 1807. The first US city to use gas street lights was Baltimore , starting in 1817. In 1816, artist Rembrandt Peale had demonstrated

5694-631: Was entered into the National Register of Historic Places in 1971. Another notable building is St. Peter's Church , constructed between 1758 and 1761 by Robert Smith . Congregation Kesher Israel occupies and has renovated the building constructed by the Universalist Church in 1796 at 412 Lombard Street. The Society Hill Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971. In 1999, it

5772-504: Was listed on the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places . As of the 2010 U.S. Census, there were 6,215 people residing in Society Hill, which accounts for 0.4% of Philadelphia's total population. With 22,281 people per square mile, Society Hill's population density is about twice that of Philadelphia's 11,497 people per square mile. Residents of all neighborhoods in Philadelphia are assigned to specific public schools by

5850-623: Was more mixing of cars and pedestrians, as well as along commercial thoroughfares. Streets needed to be illuminated more evenly, and a minimum level of lighting needed to be maintained throughout the night. Street lighting became a major expense for US cities, which sought to control costs in various ways. From the point of view of a municipal lighting department, the fact that incandescent lamps "radiate with very low efficiency, producing relatively little light at visible wavelengths", made them less and less attractive for public street lighting. Mercury vapor streetlights started to be used more widely in

5928-511: Was one of "the district's stronger neighborhood schools". St. Peter's School , located on Lombard Street between 3rd and 4th, is an independent, coeducational, non-sectarian day school, serving students in preschool (age 3) through eighth grade. The school was founded in 1834. The designated parochial grade school of Old St. Mary's Church and Old St. Joseph's Church , of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia ,

6006-554: Was their cost. In 1980, the annual operating cost for the average incandescent lamp was $ 280; for mercury vapor lamps, it was $ 128; and for low-pressure sodium vapor lamps, it was $ 60 a year. Meanwhile, high-pressure sodium vapor lamps cost only $ 44 a year to operate, with a standard life expectancy of 15,000 hours, which also helped to lower labor and maintenance costs. According to the Edison Tech Center, sodium vapor lamps are "the most ubiquitous lamp for street lighting on

6084-437: Was up to ten times brighter than light from oil lamps, but by present-day standards, the lights appeared "distinctly yellow and not very bright". In 1841, British author James Silk Buckingham observed that New York City's street lights were inadequate: “The lamps are so far apart and so scantily supplied with light that it is impossible to distinguish names or numbers on the doors from carriages or even on foot without ascending

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