Working hard or hardly working? Construction began last week on restoring the vaulted walkway of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The entrance, closed to the public 50 years ago, was intended to also serve a subway station to a rail line underneath the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. | Photo: Michael Bixler
Last week, the Philadelphia Museum of Art broke ground on the first major renovation and expansion at the museum since opening in 1928. The $196 million “Core Project,” designed by internationally renown architect Frank Gehry, is part of a $525 million dollar campaign to remap the interior of the museum for the 21st century. PMA officials say 62 percent of the project is funded, mostly through private donations. Renovations are scheduled for completion in 2020 and will create 67,000-square feet of new public space and 23,000-square feet of gallery space. Included in the renovations is the entrance and corridor to the so-called “Art Museum Station,” a ghost transit station that was never put into service.
Dreams In Transit
Mass transit planner A. Merritt Taylor was appointed as the first commissioner of the new Department of City Transit in 1912 to pursue a mass transit expansion in Philadelphia. Taylor released his recommendations for new subways and elevated railways for the city the following year (read the full 1913 report HERE). Taylor was a visionary planner and, perhaps, a bit ahead of his time.
The “Taylor Plan” outlined creating subway lines along Chestnut, Walnut and Arch Streets, a loop to distribute riders of the Broad Street Subway around City Center, a spur into Northeast Philadelphia on Roosevelt Boulevard, and a line along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway to points north. In his plan, Taylor outlined this Parkway line as an extension of the Broad Street Line, which eventually opened with service from City Hall to Olney Avenue on September 1, 1928. The Parkway-Roxborough (or Northwestern) line would have started as an subway at City Hall and then proceed below the Parkway to 29th Street, where it would have continued as an elevated line to Henry Avenue, following that road north past Wissahickon Creek. Space for the transit line was incorporated into the bridge over the Wissahickon; box tunnels that were never used are still inside each flank of the Wissahickon Memorial Bridge, built in 1932. This route originally was to have followed Ridge Avenue, but revisions moved it to Henry Avenue due to concerns about steep grades.
Restored Vaulted Walkway. | Image: Gehry Partners
A cavernous entrance to a subway station was built on the ground level of the Philadelphia Museum of Art for this proposed line. The expectation was that visitors would arrive at the museum through this underground “Art Museum Station.” With its 24-foot high vaulted ceiling and limestone walls, the vaulted walkway was intended to be a transit entryway and a third main entrance to the museum, with elevators to the upper floors. The actual subway was probably planned to pass underneath this space.
The 640-feet long corridor has been closed to the public for roughly 50 years, used thereafter for storage by the museum. It runs north-to-south beneath the building’s southeastern foundation, under the iconic “Rocky Steps.” The PMA’s subsurface expansion will serve as an entrance to the main building, as originally proposed, through a new public area that will be opened up by the removal of the museum’s auditorium. An open plaza three stories high will be built in place of the auditorium. Additional gallery space will be excavated underneath the Rocky Steps.
Can’t Get There From Here
The majority of Taylor’s planned routes never came to be. A. Merritt Taylor was replaced in 1916 by a more pragmatic transit commissioner, William S. Twining, who took exception to many of Taylor’s ideas. Where Taylor saw transit as a stimulant of growth, Twinning believed that lines should only be built where there was already demand.
A. Merritt Taylor had Philadelphia in motion with his 1913 master plan for mass transit expansion. | Image: Greater PRT
World War I stunted the development of Philadelphia’s rapid transit system even further as labor became scarce, construction costs increased, and materials were in short supply. The City had also recently spent large sums on building the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and hosting the Sesqui-Centennial Exposition of 1926.
There was persistent wrangling among Philadelphia’s bicameral City Councils and the mayor about which subway lines should receive priority. Endless studies of the lines and their expected profitability, not to mention a incessant rearranging of routes, slowed transit expansion to a crawl.
Legal complications with the awarding of contracts made matters worse. Much of that trouble arose from the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company, predecessor of SEPTA, which was persistently at odds with city government. The PRTC rejected proposals to build any subway line that the company saw as potentially unprofitable or that would compete against one of their own trolley routes. The transit company even balked at offers by the City to build subway lines at the taxpayer’s expense, with PRTC merely operating them.
The last gasp of an enhanced mass transit system came in July of 1929 when Mayor Harry Mackey signed an ordinance for a ten-year transit program that included the Ridge Avenue subway line, the Locust Street subway line, and several other never-built transit routes. The Mayor authorized a $55,000,000 loan that never materialized. Unlike New York City, Philadelphia did not move forward with subway expansion projects to alleviate the city’s crushing unemployment rate during the Great Depression.
When prosperity returned to Philadelphia after World War II, highway construction and urban renewal efforts took priority over new mass transit projects.
We used this entrance in 1969 to study technique in the museum galleries – so just under fifty years.
There’s a small segment of the Arch Street tunnel built from about 8th to 12th or 13th Streets. You can see the change in the ceiling when riding PATCO out of the city, just north of 8th and Market.
Legend has it that the Trocadero had an entrance into the tunnel during its burlesque days so that a quick exit could be made.
Here are some photos of the Arch Street tunnel:
https://www.phillyhistory.org/PhotoArchive/Detail.aspx?assetId=41715
https://www.phillyhistory.org/PhotoArchive/Detail.aspx?assetId=71133
https://www.phillyhistory.org/PhotoArchive/Detail.aspx?assetId=71134
Any truth to the PMA’s reason/excuse that a north/south tunnel connecting main building with Perlman is impossible because of an active rail line under Kelly Drive? Also, what is the meaning of the inscription in Roman/Greco letters(?) on pediment at north entrance of vaulted walkway? I have asked numerous PMA persons regarding this. They promise to get back. Never do. Liked the article. All best, Richard.
Yes, the line has existed for over a century and served the waterfront ports and Baldwin Locomotive Works. The tunnel continues under Eakins Oval and is part of CSX’s main line to Baltimore. Here’s the south portal:
https://www.google.com/maps/@39.9628981,-75.1797402,102m/data=!3m1!1e3
The Greek mottoes are identified and translated in my Making a Modern Classic (1997) pp 119-20, n. 18.
That CSX line is the one that carries the Bakken Crude oil trains from ND through the tunnel and then along the Schuylkill River to the refinery in South Philly. This means that the Art Museum is in the blast zone if there is a derailment or accident. Luckily there are fewer 100 car trains running through daily than there were last year because of the drop in price.
when the CC commuter tunnel was being built I remember a article that during construction of the new tunnel a crack of sorts was found along Arch St. and tons of grout was pumped in before anyone realized they had run into part of this old never completed subway..
Interesting! I wonder if the Arch St subway is still in its original configuration or was it grouted over to enable the cc commuter tunnel to be built? Wish we had subways to Northeast, Germantown southwest Philadelphia in operation. I wonder if the railroads controlling both Chèstnut Hill East and West didn’t want the subway extended up to Chèstnut Hill. No accident fares on Regional Rail higher than on SEPTA bus lines.
He certainly had the right ideas about expanding the subways, and had they been built, the city would be far more vital today. Such routes are still needed.
There are also unused stations on the Ben Franklin Bridge and at the old Sears site on the Boulevard.
The city sunk 1M to build a planned subway station under the parking garage Sears built in 1967. Had the Boulevard line been built, Sears would have benefited from shoppers taking the subway. However in 1964, voters turned down a bond issue to build the line for 70M in 1964 dollars due to racial reasons about giving blacks access to buying homes in the Northeast Philadelphia. Ironically, the Philadelphia Human Relations Commission decreed that Realtors could not discriminate against anyone regardless of their race, creed or nationality in selling homes. Nevertheless interest in constructing subway lines. waned due to automobiles. Today to construct the Boulevard Line would cost 6 billion dollars or more in 2018 dollars
This is so interesting. Love people sharing obscure history.
I remember seeing a trolley car tunnel under the Art Museum steps. I don’t know which trolley car route, but I was told that the purpose was to preserve the view from the Art Museum steps by hiding the trolley cars in the tunnel. Does anyone have any information on which trolley car route?
From my upcoming book, Underground Philadelphia:
The Spring Garden Tunnel opened on December 20, 1925, for the exclusive use of Route 43 trolleys, after the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and the Philadelphia Museum of Art were constructed. The Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company soon concluded that streetcars heading both east and west on Spring Garden Street could not safely traverse the heavy traffic density surrounding Fairmount Plaza (the predecessor to Eakins Oval). Moreover, museum officials did not want streetcar traffic, wires and poles in front of the new building and surely used their influence to get the tunnel built.
If I am not mistaken, the tunnel you speak of is still in use but a one way passage for cars. No Bikes allowed. The Pennsylvania Ave entrance at Spingarden St was reconfigured so as it is now a 90 degree left hand turn. The tunnel exits at Philadelphia Museum of Art, Anne d’Harnoncourt Dr. continuing onto the Spring Garden St Bridge over the Schuylkill River.
There are 3 tunnels in the vicinity: 1) the Spring Garden Street vehicular (former trolley) tunnel, 2) the tunnel under the Art Museum (discussed in this story), and 3) the former B&O Tunnel that skirts the museum grounds and which is still used today by CSX freight trains. I investigate them all in my upcoming book, Underground Philadelphia (due by spring)…
Don’t forget about the fourth tunnel 😉
I am writing a book, Underground Philadelphia, that will cover the unused stations on the Ben Franklin Bridge and at the old Sears site on the Boulevard. It will discuss all tunnels and subways of downtown Philadelphia, as well as electrical, telephone, cable, gas, steam, water and sewer infrastructure in the city.
When will it be published?
Sometime early in 2018. but possibly the end of this year…
Any probability that there will discussion about the Henry ave. bridge / tunnel? I was personally down there before PENNDOT did their handiwork at the surface and closed off surface access. Considering the amount of graffiti below the bridge I was amazed to only see one tag from 69′.
Yes, I will mention the “never-used box-tunnels are within each flank of the Wissahickon Memorial Bridge”…
What’s sad is that after this renovation there will still be no rail station. I worked near the Eastern state penitentiary briefly for a few months around 9/11. Drove in from Gloucester co. Because I would have train to bus transfer galore. I would have taken a train in and out of the city in a heartbeat. What a shame.
For the first six months of the Art Museum trolley tunnel’s operation (December 20, 1925 to June 19, 1926), a second trolley route (in addition to Route 43) utilized the tunnel. That was Route 44, which, dating back to July 30, 1895, had linked Overbrook with Center City (Front & Arch Its). On June 20, 1926, PRT (Philadelphia Rapid Transit Co) discontinued Route 44, and realigned its trolley Route 10 to serve Overbrook, which it does to this day.
A fascinating story. Philadelphia posessed much wealth and public purpose in that period. It is sad that much of this has been lost to suburban migration, the automobile, and lack of visionary leaders having both a civic purpose and the financial wherewithal to make big projects happen.
A. Merritt Taylor was a force to be reckoned with. The Broad Street line was also in his original plan, but he did not live to see it completed.
Carter Taylor
Vero Beach, FL
Taylor was from an old South Jersey-based Quaker family (I’m a Quaker and knew other Taylors growing up) that built & owned the successful Phila Suburban Transportation Co. (“Red Arrow Lines”) through most of the 20th century. Glad his Broad St. proposal happened, his other ideas esp. the Henry Ave. route would have been great assets to the city.
(To whom it may concern I’m a history prof. & would love to see the old PRTC records if exist).