FAMOUS ALLEY
A great many cities lay claim to having some beautiful and historic streets, boulevards and very often their special names causes you to think of them as being wider area than just a single street. Philadelphia has a passageway which has survived over three hundred years of growth and change in that vibrant city. It's an alley and when TV shows are done from Philly you can almost assured that some of the background you see will be shots from Elfreth's Alley.
It narrow street is named after a blacksmith by the name of Jerimiah Elfreth who had a successful business on 2nd Street no too far from the Delaware River. In the mid-l8th Century Elfreth became one the largest real estate owners in the city when he built a long line of homes along that passageway. He rented many of them to sea captains, boat wrights and one to lady who created fine do-dads to decorate that day's finest window drapes. At the turn of the century there was decided change in the alley's population. The industrial era boomed it became home to skilled laborers, tailors and it even had a stove factory. The people who rented homes in the Alley up from Elfreth's blacksmith's shop were caring individuals, both the original occupants and those who took their places. The general style of homes changed very little. Georgian and Federal styles of buildings predominated in Philadelphia and Elfreth's Alley has a modest but well- preserved set of exampl,es for both architectural styles. One, in particular, known as the Georgian “Trinity”, is said to be unique.
You may say you have not seen it because you have never visited the City of Brotherly Love, but if you watched recent editions of "Wheel of Fortune" or of "Jeopardy" many of the background shots originated in The Alley. Today it is yet another dwelling site- this time for professional,persons, for artists, handicraftsmen and people interested in the historical heritage of the area. One of the homes is set aside as museum and the Philadelphia's Historical mission has provided ease a treasury of Americana. The Museum is the product of seen decade of study, preservation, restoration and good housekeeping in a large sense. It has have enabled the Commission to create and maintain the museum, do tours of the Alley area and and two housed are used - the Mantua House for tours and the Windsor Chair Maker's Chair Maker's House is open to the public as a gift shop.
Many of the homes along the alley were built around 1720 and the butchers, the bakers and the candlestick maker's who lived in them were the backbone of of colonial society. You may think the houses were too small by today's standards.. That problems become even more troubling when you find that two families often shared them. By family sizes those days, that means twenty-seven people shared the living space in and around them.
A fourth change is taking place gradually in the Alley. The very homes which in the time of blacksmith and land speculator Jeremiah Elfreth's provided a place for small, home-owned, family-operated businesses are a phase which is coming around once more. Today's service and technology culture puts individuals in charge of new fields of work they can do on their own and their presence is changing Elfreth's Alley back to what it used to be save in modern dress featuring Colonial era finery. Cobblestone street pavements, the old-fashioned flower boxes at the window sills, spilling bright colors between the heavy shutters fixed to the sides of each opening. Flemish bond brick work of the finest is there along with other older architectural details and, once again, people who make things are vying to re-occupy the historic alley which seems to be ready to “boom “ all over again.
A.L.M. January 2, 2005 [c656ds]
