From Above: ‘Looking in the Parkway, 1925’

Last week, I shared two aerials of the Parkway from 1920 and 1921. This week, as we close out our time on the Parkway for the moment, we zoom out and fast-forward to 1925 for an aerial titled “Looking in the Parkway.”

By 1925, construction on the Art Museum has progressed significantly, and Alexander Stirling Calder and Wilson Eyer’s Fountain of the Three Rivers (aka Swann Fountain) was newly gracing the center of Logan Circle. Just to the left of Logan Circle, the new Free Library building’s exterior was completed in April 1925, though the library wouldn’t open for two more years. The Philadelphia & Reading’s City Branch is visible as it disappears, submerged under Pennsylvania Avenue at 21st Street, and emerges in the foreground just past the museum. In the distance the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, still under construction, doesn’t yet have its decking. The new Inquirer Building (then the Elverson Building) glows a bright white against its sooty industrial context amid Baldwin’s empire. In July of 1925 the Inquirer printed its first issue in its new home at Broad and Callowhill.

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This image is part of the Free Library’s Print and Picture Collection, and is used by PlanPhilly/Eyes on the Street with the express permission of Aerial Viewpoint, which owns these aerial images. For reproductions contact Aerial Viewpoint.