Wissahickon Transfer Center

You come out of the Wissahickon suddenly, and the energy changes. Doesn’t matter if you are on foot, bike, or car. Hurry. Choose. Horns are honking. Is it Manayunk or Center City? Kelly Drive or City Line Avenue?

This is not a place for the indecisive. It is where old paths end and new one’s must be chosen. Bus passengers are disgorged on one side of Ridge Avenue and must scurry dangerously through traffic to the other side to pick up the next connection.

Exposed. Raw. Bright. The volume is suddenly turned to eleven. The monstrous rush of water over the dam contends with the equally monstrous rush of traffic and the stink of diesel.

A hundred yard from here, quietly and unnoticed, the Wissahickon dissolves itself into the Schuylkill.

Markers

St. Peter's Church, Sunday afternoon.

Although no official reported the number of Oneidas killed in the fight, some years afterward Pennsylvanians placed a plaque at St. Peter's Church Cemetery in Barren Hill that memorialized the SIX INDIAN SCOUTS WHO DIED IN BATTLE MAY 1778. According to the church's official history, at least four of them had been buried there, their graves marked by ordinary headstones, all in a straight line.
-- Joseph T. Glatthaar, James Kirby Martin, Forgotten Allies: The Oneida Indians and the American Revolution

Holy holly

St. Peters Church, Sunday.

Support

Ancient tombstones, St. Peters Church, Lafayette Hill, Sunday afternoon.

Mockingbird; church

We decided to take some photos of St. Peter's today and upon arriving were immediately serenaded by this mockingbird. Well, actually, we weren't being serenaded. He could not have been more indifferent to our presence. Instead, he was showing off for any potential mates who might have been within hearing range. Cardinal songs seem to be a favorite with mockingbirds, and that was the case with this fellow. He did every cardinal song he knew, even the obscure stuff.

Catfish and waffles

Valley Green Inn, Saturday afternoon, around 2:30.

In the middle of the 1800s, as the Wissahickon became a popular destination for tourists and day trippers out from the city, several road houses sprang up to cater to their desires for a meal or a drink. Only two of these buildings exist today: Wissahickon Hall, which now serves as the headquarters for the 14th police district, and Valley Green Inn, which is still a restaurant. A favorite dinner of the day was something called "catfish and waffles."

Catfish and waffles began with fried catfish and a relish. A steak of beef followed, with fried potatoes, generally a simple form of what we know now as hashed brown. Then came stewed chicken and the waffles. And after the chicken and the waffles, the coffee. Dessert was served at some places, too, but not invariably. As a veteran of many bouts with catfish and waffles said to me, You more often had ‘catfish and waffles’ with a wink than with a dessert. For my part I liked beer with ‘catfish and waffles.’ Catfish is a rich fish. It is fried in butter. That makes it richer. Good steak has streaks of fat through it, and there is butter in hashed-brown potatoes. Stewed chicken with gravy is rich too, even if the waffles sop up a good deal of the gravy. Coffee is not enough to settle such a dinner. You need a good hoppy beer. I know those liked a sour wine, a Rhine wine or the like. The trouble with such was that it took too much of it, and it came high. You wouldn't want whiskey after ‘catfish and waffles.’ Beer was the thing to settle it. It would do the trick.
-- The Wissahickon Hills, Cornelius Weygandt, 1930

Saylor's Grove

Roughly triangular in shape, the three acre island of parkland know as Saylor's Grove is defined by Lincoln Drive, Wissahickon Avenue, and Rittenhouse Street. High-rise apartment buildings loom overhead, and traffic whooshes around its perimeter constantly. And if you're jonesing for a cup of coffee before stepping down into this fragile basin, the shiny Sunoco-cum-QuickieMart abutting the eastern border of the park will suffice.

Nonetheless, Saylor's Grove stands as an example of natural restoration within the urban environment. Described as the city's first storm water-treatment wetland, the five year project that converted the largely abandoned park into a vital natural oasis was an answer to growing concerns over the contamination of the Monoshone, or Paper Mill run, which flows into the Wissahickon.

I don't know what the success metrics are, or what, if any, studies are being conducted to determine if they are being met. But I imagine that if the City does not continue to support this project, Saylor's Grove will soon revert back into a neglected backyard of the park system, and the half million dollars spent on it's refurbishment will have been wasted.

On the particular day in late February, however, when this photo was taken, there was no real reason to presume that Saylor's Grove would not continue to be a success. Given the quality of light, and the ducks and the cattails in the pond, it was probably best not to presume at all, and just enjoy the day.

Not corn dogs

Cattails, Saylor's Grove, Monday afternoon.

Children at Play

Detail from the sculpture Children at Play, Saylor's Grove, near Wissahickon Avenue and Lincoln Drive, Monday afternoon, February 25.

The plaque accompanying the sculpture reads:

CHILDREN AT PLAY
GIVEN BY
EDWIN DAVID WOLF
1938-1976
SCULPTURED BY HIS FRIEND
PETER ROCKWELL.

General Lafayette Inn

The General Lafayette Inn, located at the intersection of Germantown Avenue and Church Lane, has been serving beer for 275 years. Well, at least part of this structure has been there that long -- originally called The Three Tuns -- and has been a tavern for most of that time. Surely the esteemed young general for whom the establishment is now named hoisted a few pints when he and his troops were holed up nearby in the fall of 1777. On this particular day -- Saturday, February 16 -- the inn was hosting a festival in which breweries from around the region were invited to share their winter beers with 250 ticket-holding patrons.

You can read more about the local beer culture at Beers of the Wissahickon. (Warning: shameless self-promotion.)

Harper's Meadow

Sunday afternoon, February 10.

Keeping the sycamores out

To the left, Germantown Avenue. To the left of that (and beyond the boundaries of this photo), Montgomery County and the grounds of Chestnut Hill College. To the right, Harper's Meadow, the northernmost reach of Philadelphia's Wissahickon Park.

Toleration, another view

I'm cheating today -- this photo was taken two weeks ago, on January 26. I want to spend a little more time talking about this fellow.

The statue is known as Toleration, and stands as a tribute to the local Quaker tradition. It has been presiding over this spot on Rinker's Rock on the eastern ridge of the valley since 1883. To give you an idea of scale, he stands close to ten feet tall; this photo was taken from the trail at the bottom of Rinker's rock, maybe forty feet below. The Wissahickon itself runs about one hundred and fifty feet below.

The most outstanding characteristic of this statue, to me, is its obscurity. He's not easy to find, standing on a secluded outcropping of rock far from the most used trails. Most stumble upon him by accident.

Looking for snow

Taken around 9:00 this morning, atop Rinker's Rock, looking out toward the western ridge of the valley. That's the Toleration statue to the left. A dank, drizzly and cold morning, appropriate for February.

This has been a mild winter, with no more than a coating of snow. It occurs to me that if we don't get snow in the next week or so, the chances of it for this season will soon quickly diminish. In three weeks it will be March. To be sure, we can get a major snow storm in March -- anyone of a certain age living in Philadelphia in 1993 will remember that year's late season blizzard. But that storm is remembered as much for its rarity as for the amount of snow.

Duck. Duck. Goose!

Tuesday, February 5, a little after noon, Valley Green. The sky was overcast, but the temperature was pushing sixty, and it felt every bit of spring. Someone was feeding bread to the ducks and geese, and I had my camera ready.

Inside: out

January 27. I crawled into the cave off of Gorgas lane for this one. Really, I'm getting too old for this stuff.

Good morning

I took this photo at RittenhouseTown around 7:40 this morning, as the sun was just coming over the horizon.

I like the layers of history -- the buildings in the foreground date to the early 1700's, the castle-like looming structure in the foggy background is Auden Park, built in the 1920s, and in between (look closely), the blur of a car on Lincoln drive.