Commercial Buildings

Philadelphia Arcade, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

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The Arcade Hotel on the north side of Chestnut Street, between Sixth and Seventh Streets in Philadelphia, in January 1858. Image courtesy of the Library Company of Philadelphia, Frederick De Bourg Richards Collection.

The scene in 2019:

In 1819, the Burlington Arcade opened in London, becoming one of the earliest precursors to the modern shopping mall. It soon inspired similar buildings here in the United States, including ones in New York, Providence, and here in Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Arcade, shown here in the first photo, was designed by John Haviland, an architect who was responsible for many important buildings in early 19th century Philadelphia. Work on the building began in 1826, and it was completed a year later, at a cost of $112,000.

In the architectural sense, an arcade is a series of arches, and this building featured four large arches here on the Chestnut Street façade. The Arcade extended the width of the block to Carpenter Street (modern-day Ranstead Street), and on the interior it featured three floors The first two floors each had two parallel hallways, or “avenues,” that were topped by skylights, and these avenues were lined by shops and offices on either side. On the third floor was the Philadelphia Museum, which had been established by prominent artist Charles Willson Peale. In total, the Arcade could house 80 shops and professional offices, and it also had a restaurant in the basement.

The intent was that this section of Chestnut Street would become the commercial center of the city, with the Arcade as an upscale shopping center that would attract high-end tenants and affluent customers. From the beginning, however, the Arcade struggled to fill vacant spaces in the building, and an 1829 report lists just 33 tenants here. In general, the ground floor primarily housed retail shops, selling goods such as books, boots and shoes, clothing, confectioneries, dry goods, lamps, and tobacco. The second floor also featured several stores, but it was primarily office space, with tenants such as lawyers, editors, employment services, an engraver, and a bookkeeping teacher. Overall, these businesses here in this building offered customers a variety of goods and services, but these were hardly the exclusive boutique shops that the Arcade’s founders had envisioned.

The decline of the Arcade continued over the next few decades, especially after the Philadelphia Museum moved to a new location. The building was eventually purchased by Dr. David Jayne, who converted the upper floors into the Arcade Hotel. It opened in 1853, and it provided accommodations for men only, at a rate of 50 cents per night. Guests could also eat here at the hotel, for 25 cents per meal for breakfast or supper, or 50 cents for dinner. The Arcade Hotel had nearly 200 guest rooms, and it also featured a saloon, a reading room, and a smoking room, in addition to the dining room. The saloon was located here at the front of the building, with a balcony that was likely added during the hotel renovations.

The first photo was taken a few years later, showing the Chestnut Street façade of the building. It was still in use as a hotel at this point, with storefronts on the ground floor, but it would only stand here for a few more years. In 1863, it was demolished and replaced by three new commercial buildings. These buildings, in turn, have long since been demolished, and most of this block is now One Independence Mall, a high-rise office building that has a parking garage here on the lower floors.

Fifth and Minor Streets, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

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Looking north on Fifth Street near the corner of Minor Street in Philadelphia, in February 1859. Image courtesy of the Library Company of Philadelphia, Frederick De Bourg Richards Collection.

The scene in 2019:

The first photo shows a row of commercial buildings along the west side of Fifth Street. Of these, the most significant is Robert Smith’s Brewery in the center of the scene. This brewery underwent many name changes over its long history, but it dated back to the colonial era, when Joseph Potts opened a brewery here around 1774. Potts operated it until 1786, when he sold it to Henry Pepper. By this point Philadelphia had become a leading producer of beer, and this brewery remained in the Pepper family for many years. Robert Smith, a native of England who had learned the trade as an apprentice at the Bass Brewery, joined the firm in 1837, and eventually took over the business in the following decade.

As was the case in most early American breweries, this facility produced ale. Americans began to acquire a taste for lagers by the second half of the 19th century, thanks to an influx of German immigrants with surnames like Busch, Coors, Miller, and Pabst. Here in Philadelphia, though, Robert Smith continued to have success brewing ales. He remained here for nearly 30 years after the first photo was taken, and eventually incorporated the business as the Robert Smith India Pale Ale Brewing Company in 1887. A year later, he moved to a new, larger facility at the corner of 38th Street and Girard Avenue. Smith ran the brewery at the new location until his death in 1893.

Smith’s brewery business was ultimately acquired by the Christian Schmidt Brewing Company, the largest brewery in the city. With the exception of the Prohibition era, Schmidt continued brewing Smith’s popular Tiger Head Ale until the company closed in 1987. In the meantime, the original brewery here on Fifth Street was likely demolished soon after Robert Smith moved to the new brewery, and it was definitely gone by the mid-1950s, when this entire block was demolished to make way for the Independence Mall. As a result, there are no surviving buildings from the first photo, and even Minor Street itself is gone. This site is now the southeastern section of the Independence Mall, and it is located only a few hundred feet to the north of Independence Hall.

Jayne Building, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

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Looking west on Chestnut Street between Bank and Third Streets in Philadelphia, around 1859. Image courtesy of the Library Company of Philadelphia, Frederick De Bourg Richards Photograph Collection.

The scene in 2019:

The first photo shows the view looking west along the south side of Chestnut Street, from near the corner of Bank Street. The scene features a variety of commercial buildings, but the most prominent of these is the Jayne Building in the center of the photo. Built between 1849 and 1851, this eight-story building was far ahead of its time, predating the advent of modern skyscrapers by nearly half a century. As such, it is generally considered to be the first skyscraper in the city, and arguably the first in the entire country as well.

The Jayne Building was designed by local architect William L. Johnston, and it featured a Gothic Revival exterior of Quincy granite. In contrast to most of the neighboring buildings, its façade featured strong vertical lines that emphasized its height, a technique that would later become common for 20th century skyscrapers. However, the building also featured a two-story crenelated tower atop the roof, giving it an unusual combination of modern and medieval-style architecture.

The building was owned by Dr. David Jayne, a physician who made his fortune selling patent medicines. Although based in Philadelphia, he sold his products across the country. He even published a free almanac that was replete with medical advice, most of which involved taking one or more of his products. Among these were the Expectorant, which was intended for lung diseases, and the Alterative, which Jayne claimed could treat a wide range of ailments, including cancer, gout, rheumatism, scrofula, scurvy, syphilis, ulcers, and various skin disorders.

Architect William L. Johnston provided much of the vision for Jayne’s building, but he did not live to see it completed. He died of tuberculosis during the early stages of the construction, and another Philadelphia architect, Thomas Ustick Walter, oversaw the rest of the work. Walter also designed two six-story wings, one on either side of the main building, which were completed in 1851 and are visible here in the first photo. Also in 1851, Walter was appointed as Architect of the Capitol, and in this capacity he designed both the House and Senate wings of the US Capitol, along with the current Capitol dome.

David Jayne died in 1866 at the age of 66, but his family carried on the business for many years. However, just six years later this building was gutted by a massive fire on the night of March 4, 1872. The fire started around 9:00 p.m. in the rear of the third floor, but it soon spread up to the top of the building. Firefighting efforts were hampered by the height of the building, and also by the sub-zero temperatures, which caused the water to freeze into icicles on the exterior. However, firefighters succeeded in preventing the flames from spreading to the six-story wings, and most of the exterior walls remained standing, despite extensive damage to the interior.

The building was subsequently reconstructed around the old walls, albeit without the ornate two-story tower atop the roof. It would remain here for the next 80 years, but by the mid-20th century it was threatened by an urban renewal project related to the Independence National Historical Park. Planners envisioned a park area that would feature the city’s prominent Revolutionary-era landmarks surrounded by open space, rather than being crowded by more recent development. This meant the demolition of many 19th century buildings that, despite their architectural and historic significance, were not a part of the park’s mission.

In the case of the Jayne Building, it stood on the periphery of the park, three blocks away from Independence Hall. The mid-19th century proto-skyscraper clearly had no connection to the American Revolution, but some preservationists made an effort to have the building spared. Among these was Charles E. Peterson, who in 1951 published a theory that the Jayne Building had likely helped to influence the design of more modern skyscrapers, since prominent architect Louis Sullivan had once worked out of an office across the street from here. However, this appeal failed to convince the park planners to save the building, and it was ultimately demolished in the fall of 1957.

Today, more than 160 years after the first photo was taken, there are no surviving landmarks from the first photo. Many of the older commercial buildings were likely replaced by newer buildings later in the 19th century, but anything that was still standing by the 1950s would have, like the Jayne Building, been demolished as part of the Independence National Historical Park. Here in the foreground, where the Jayne Building once stood, this site became a visitors center. This building was, in turn, demolished in 2014, and the site is currently occupied by the Museum of the American Revolution, which is shown here in the 2019 photo.

North Main Street, Fall River, Mass

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Looking north on North Main Street from the corner of Bank Street in Fall River, around 1914-1920. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The scene in 2020:

Throughout the 19th century, Fall River was a prosperous textile manufacturing center. The city saw dramatic population growth during this time, particularly in the post-Civil War period. Between 1860 and 1900, the city grew nearly eightfold, from 14,000 to nearly 105,000, and by the turn of the century it was the third-largest city in Massachusetts, behind only Boston and Worcester.

However, the same textile industry that had brought such prosperity also led to the city’s decline, as mills closed and businesses relocated to the south starting in the 1920s. This, combined with a catastrophic fire that destroyed much of the downtown area in 1928, both hurt the local economy, and these problems were only exacerbated by the stock market crash at the end of the decade.

The first photo was taken in the final years of the textile industry’s heyday in Fall River, probably sometime between 1914 and 1920. The earliest possible date is 1914, when the Fall River Five Cents Savings Bank building was built on the far right side of the scene, at the corner of North Main and Bank Streets. The neighboring building to the left of it was also built in 1914, and in the first photo it was occupied by the Fall River Electric Light Company.

Just beyond the electric company building is the Mount Hope Block, which was perhaps the oldest building in the first photo. It was built in 1845, in the aftermath of a large fire two years earlier, and it was originally known as the Mount Hope House. At the time, it was one of two hotels in Fall River, and in 1847 a state gazetteer declared that “in the erection and furnishing no pains have been spared to make it a desirable place for any one disposed to spend a few days.” Later in the 19th century it was known as the Narragansett Hotel, and by the early 20th century it was the Evans House. The building initially occupied the entire length of the block between Bank and Franklin Streets, but the southern portion was demolished to build the bank and the electric company buildings, leaving only the northern half as shown in the first photo.

Beyond the Mount Hope Block, on the other side of Franklin Street, the largest building in the first photo is the Hotel Mellen. It opened in 1888, and was the city’s finest hotel throughout the first half of the 20th century. The building survived the 1928 fire, but it was subsequently gutted by a fire in 1943, leaving only the brick walls still standing. The hotel was rebuilt inside the brick shell of the old building, although the new one was six stories in height, rather than five.

Today, more than a century after the first photo was taken, there is very little that survives from the first photo, especially in the foreground. The bank is still standing at the corner, but the former electric company building and the Mount Hope Block are both gone. Both of these buildings were here when the Downtown Fall River Historic District was created in 1983, but they were demolished at some point after that, and the site is now occupied by a large wing of the bank building. This facility still serves as the main offices of the Fall River Five Cents Savings Bank, which is now branded as BankFive.

Further in the distance, the reconstructed Hotel Mellen is also gone. The hotel closed around the early 1960s, and the building was converted into a temporary city hall after the old city hall building was demolished to build Interstate 195. The current Brutalist-style city hall was completed in 1976, and the old hotel was then demolished soon after. Beyond the Hotel Mellen, there are several surviving buildings from the first photo, but for the most part this side of North Main Street has undergone signficiant changes, unlike the right-hand side of the street, which has been better-preserved over the years.

Franklin and Armfield Office, Alexandria, Virginia

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The Franklin and Armfield Office at 1315 Duke Street in Alexandria, around the early 1860s. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Civil War Collection.

The scene in 2021:

The Franklin and Armfield Office at 1315 Duke Street in Alexandria, Virginia was built in 1810. It was originally built as a private residence for Brigadier General Robert Young of the Second Militia of the District of Columbia, but he was forced to sell the home in 1820 due to financial problems. By 1828, the home was leased, and eventually bought by infamous slave traders, Isaac Franklin and John Armfield. Franklin and Armfield were the largest slave traders in the United States between 1828 and 1836, and the Duke Street home was turned into their main office.

Since the transatlantic slave trade was banned in 1808, Franklin and Armfield would send agents across Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware in search of slave owners who were willing to part with their slaves for relatively cheap prices. The enslaved people would then be shipped back and held in the high-walled courtyards surrounding the offices (Seen to the left and right of the house in the top picture). In these courtyards, the enslaved people were subject to brutal beatings, rapes, and countless other forms of cruel control. Rapes were so frequently done by Franklin and Armfield to their slaves, that they bragged about them in letters between each other, and both men would father children to enslaved women in their captivity. Franklin would later go on to sell the woman he raped and the child he fathered with her. A two-story extension was added to the back of the building to serve as jail cells. These cells could be used to isolate certain slaves but were more often rented out by travelling slave owners who wanted to keep their slaves on the Virginia side of the Potomac.

Due to a surplus of enslaved people in the Upper South, slaves did not fetch high prices in Alexandra. The enslaved people were typically kept in the home’s courtyards until enough of them were bought for them to all be shipped together or marched to their offices in Natchez and New Orleans. Once in the Deep South, they could be sold at much higher prices than they were bought for in Virginia. It’s estimated that Franklin and Armfield sold between 1,000-2,000 people each year, transporting all of them by way of cramped slave ships or forced marches across the South.
By 1836, Franklin decided to retire, and his partner Armfield decided to sell off most of the business. He sold the Duke Street offices to another slave trader, George Kephart. He would continue the practice of selling slaves until he sold it to yet another slave trading firm, Price, Birch & Co. in 1858.

Price, Birch & Co. would become infamous not for their volume of slaves sold, but rather for one particular man that they enslaved. Solomon Northup, a freed slave from Saratoga Springs, New York was kidnapped in Washington, DC in 1841. He was shipped down to New Orleans where we was bought by a planter and re-enslaved. It would take Solomon 12 years before he would once again gain his freedom with the help of Samuel Bass. A Canadian working on the plantation, Samuel was able to get word back to New York about Solomon’s re-enslavement. After an appeal to the Governor of New York, Solomon was granted his freedom in 1853. Solomon would later go on to write his famous memoirs, 12 Years a Slave. In his memoirs, Solomon named his kidnapper as “Burch”, but it’s largely been accepted that the man he was talking about was James H. Birch, of Price, Birch & Co. in Alexandria. It should be noted though that Solomon Northup does not appear to have actually passed through the Alexandria slave pens, only that Birch used the building as his offices. Price, Birch & Co. would go on to own the building until the Civil War, when it was occupied by Union Forces in 1861. During the Civil War the slave pens were ironically, used as jail cells for captured Confederate soldiers.

After the Civil War, a railroader by the name of Thomas Swann bought the property in 1870 and tore down the slave pen extension. The buildings exterior also underwent changes that give it its modern appearance, such as the fourth story windows being added as well as the arches over the windows on the front façade. The property changed hands multiple times over the last century, serving as apartments for most of that time before being sold in 2017 to the Northern Virginia Urban League. Today, the building has been re-named the Freedom House, and features a museum to the building’s history on the first floor, and offices for the Northern Virginia Urban League on the upper floors.

Corner of Fifth and Arch Streets, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

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The northwest corner of Fifth and Arch Streets in Philadelphia, in October 1857. Image courtesy of the Library Company of Philadelphia, Frederick De Bourg Richards Photograph Collection.

The scene in 2019:

The first photo was taken by photographer Frederick De Bourg Richards, as part of an effort to document Philadelphia’s historic 18th and early 19th century buildings. Unlike many of Richards’s other subjects, such as the Free Quaker Meeting House across the street from here, this three-story commercial building does not appear to have been a major historic landmark. In the original caption of the photo, the building is described simply as “a primitive house,” with no further information as to its history or date of construction. However, it was likely built sometime in the 1700s, and it may have once served as a single-family home before being converted into commercial use.

By the time the first photo was taken, the building was occupied by the publishing and bookselling firm of C. G. Henderson & Co. The company had been established in 1851, and was originally located in a building at the corner of Seventh and Chestnut Streets. However, that building burned later in the year, and by 1852 C. G. Henderson was located here at the corner of Fifth and Arch. As shown in the first photo, the building featured a number of exterior advertisements, including a particularly large sign on the roof, proclaiming it to be “The Cheap Book Store.”

The bookstore seems to have closed within a year or two after the first photo was taken, but the fate of the building itself is somewhat less clear. It may have been demolished at some point in the late 19th century, but it was definitely gone by the mid-20th century, when this entire block, along with several others, was leveled to create the Independence Mall. Today, there are no surviving remnants from the first photo in this scene. Instead, the foreground here is open parkland, and further in the distance is the National Constitution, which occupies much of this block.