City Cycling 8: Penn's Landing and Southwark Finale

   Last week I completed the last of my cycling-version of twelve walks discussed in the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Guide to Historic Philadelphia. As I have done a few times since I started these tours back in December, I combined a couple of the trips that were either connected by theme or geography. This particular journey involved the areas of Penn’s Landing and Southwark, and because the route included a side loop way out around Philadelphia International Airport to reach the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge and Fort Mifflin, I decided to start my ride closer to the city.

   From my many rides on the Schuylkill Trail over the years, I was very familiar with a large movie theater parking lot just outside of Manayunk, not far from the entrance to the Wissahickon Trail on Ridge Avenue. Because I was starting around noon on a weekday, I knew the lot would be practically empty except for a handful of vehicles for employees and shoppers at the adjacent stores, so there would be no trouble finding a space in which to leave my car for a couple of hours.

   I headed down Ridge and made a right turn onto the Schuylkill Trail along Kelly Drive. Past the art museum, I left the trail for the Ben Franklin Parkway, then turned right down 21st Street. I made a left on Chestnut Street and followed that across the city to Penn’s Landing. 

   Although the water traffic is quite different from the city’s beginnings in the early 1700s, when the riverfront bustled with hundreds of sailing ships carrying passengers and cargo, there is still a significant amount of commercial traffic. During the warmer months, the Delaware River comes alive with pleasure craft in and out of the marina. A paddlewheel riverboat and cruise vessels glide through the water, while the Riverbus Ferry takes visitors across to Camden to see a Riversharks baseball game, explore the Adventure Aquarium, tour the Battleship New Jersey or attend an event at the BB&T Pavilion.

   Decades ago, Penn’s Landing underwent a huge renovation around the Great Plaza and the Independence Seaport Museum. Concerts, festivals and fireworks seem to take place year-round, but there is still a bit of isolation to this area because of the I-95 corridor. Plans are in place for a solution, in the form of a park that will cap over the highway between Chestnut and Walnut Streets, making access to the waterfront much easier. In fact, there are crazy number of projects in the works all along the Delaware River, but we’ll see how that goes!

   I made my way down the ramps that curve around the right side of the plaza amphitheater to reach the lower walkway at the waterfront. I passed the Blue Cross RiverRink (a much busier place in the winter!) on my left to arrive at the current docking spot for the Gazela. This 177-foot square-rigged tall ship is not always in port, but when it is, volunteers working aboard will sometimes give impromptu tours.

   Built in 1883, the Gazela was the last of a Portuguese fleet of fishing vessels. It now serves as an ambassador for Philadelphia, sailing up and down the Atlantic coast for festivals and celebrations.

   I did a U-turn and pedaled back around the plaza to the Independence Seaport Museum, where models and artifacts offer a glimpse of Philadelphia’s maritime past. Interactive exhibits are fun and educational - one can use a tiny crane to unload cargo from a container ship, rivet and weld a ship’s hull or climb into crude wooden bunks in a recreation of a ship’s steerage section.

   I continued down the long, colorfully-tiled pier that fronts the marina, and passed the Jupiter tugboat to reach a pleasant, double-decked concrete lookout structure at the endpoint. To my left, across the river lay the USS New Jersey, America’s most decorated battleship, which was christened at her launching on December 7, 1942, by Carolyn Edison, wife of Garden State governor Charles Edison, son of the great inventor Thomas.

   I’ll leave you to read up on the extensive history of the battleship, but significant action included shelling targets in Guam and Okinawa, as well as screening air craft carriers conducting raids in the Marshall Islands during World War II. The USS New Jersey was also the only battleship providing gunfire support during the Vietnam War.

   On my right was the Moshulu, a four-masted steel barque that now serves as a floating restaurant. The Moshulu is known as the world’s oldest original windjammer, an iron-hulled vessel representing the final evolution of sailing ships, built during the 19th and early-20th centuries to carry bulk cargo long distances. 

   I backtracked down the pier and headed left along the other side of the marina, where I encountered the USS Becuna and USS Olympia, docked side-by-side. The Becuna is a 318-foot guppy-class submarine that was used during WWII to conduct search and destroy missions in the South Pacific. Tourists can scramble up and down ladders and along narrow walkways to examine the claustrophobic quarters, look at the instruments and listen to guides describe life aboard the sub.

   The Olympia was the flagship from the Battle of Manila Bay during the Spanish-American War, and is the last remaining vessel from that war. From its bridge, Commodore George Dewey said the famous words, “You may fire when you are ready, Gridley” when the Olympia led five other warships into Manila Bay. Ten Spanish cruisers and gunboats were destroyed in a few hours, without loss of a single American life!

   Although I could have continued about a mile or so along the Delaware River Trail, at this moment during its development, cyclists are unceremoniously dumped at the back of the Columbus Crossing Shopping Center. There is a nice park built on the abandoned Pier 68 but really not too much else to see out there, so at the intersection with Spruce Street, I crossed over to head south on Christopher Columbus Boulevard (former Delaware Avenue).

   One of the oldest sections of Philadelphia, Southwark was once known as Wicaco, a name meaning “a peaceful place”, borrowed from Native Americans by Swedish settlers who arrived in the mid-1600s. After Penn’s arrival in 1682, the area populated with only a few hundred quickly became a few thousand, as the English bought land along the riverfront below South Street for stores and warehouses. By the middle of the 18th century, the area became known as Southwark, an allusion to the London borough south of the Thames.

   Southwark became a bustling center of shipbuilding that made Philadelphia the largest port of the colonies in the new United States. Like its namesake in London, residents were merchants, shipwrights, pilots, riggers and sailors that lived in simple wood-framed houses, many which still stand today, although with additions altering their original appearance.

   The first United States Naval Yard was just a few blocks south of Gloria Dei, known as Old Swedes’ Church, at the southwest corner of Christopher Columbus Boulevard and Christian Street.

   Built in 1700, the brick structure was originally close to the Delaware River, but the land has since been filled in, and traffic now flows where sailing vessels once docked. The church houses a 1608 bible once owned by Swedish Queen Christina, as well as lectern and balcony carvings retrieved from the first church when it had been destroyed by fire. Hanging from the ceiling are two models of the ships that carried Swedish settlers here.

   I continued west on Christina, crossing Front Street and did a counterclockwise loop back, using 2nd and Carpenter Streets, in order to view the famous Shot Tower. Built in 1807, the 142-foot brick structure was the first of its kind in the country, and was used for 100 years. Shot poured into molds cooled as it was dropped the full height of the tower into water. The area surrounding the tower is now a playground and sports fields. 

   Now pedaling north on Front Street, I didn’t feel the need to go all the way to South Street, since I have been there many times, but I highly recommend the visit. Lining both sides of the street are scores of restaurants, theaters, night clubs, art galleries and shops, both elegant and funky! If nothing else, grab some coffee or ice cream, sit on a bench and people-watch.

   Over the years I recall eating steak sandwiches and looking at the celebrity photos/testimonials on the walls at Jim’s Steaks (400 South), checking out the trinkets and quirky t-shirts at Zipperheads punk-rock shop (now closed, but I understand former employees opened a similar shop called Crash Bang Boom, just around the corner at 528 S. 4th), seeing a Cheap Trick concert at the T.L.A. (Theater of the Living Arts – 334) and stuffing myself during a brother-in-law bachelor party/dinner at Percy Street BBQ, which boasts the country’s largest selection of canned craft beer (900). 

   Between Fitzwater and Pemberton Streets, I passed a development known as Workman Place. Built in 1812, the attractive cluster of brick homes surrounding a pretty courtyard is maintained by the Octavia Hill Foundation as low-cost housing. Just around the corner on Pemberton are a couple of houses once belonging to George Mifflin, grandfather of Thomas, the Revolutionary War general who built Fort Mifflin and served as first governor of Pennsylvania, 1790-99. In the brickwork, one can see George’s initials and the build date 1748, though the “G” is hard to make out because of weathering and brick repairs over the years. 

   At the time I was planning these City Cycling tours, I happened to read an article in the Inquirer about the Fleisher Art Memorial and the birth of the Graphic Sketch Club in 1898, and I added the 719 Catherine Street site to my Southwark route. I’ll leave you to read about its history and explore the website of this fantastic program. 

   I zigzagged a couple blocks southwest to the section of 9th Street between Christian and Wharton Streets to the Italian Market, a spot immortalized in Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky training run. Established by immigrant families in the late 19th century, the open-air marketplace is crowded with sidewalk vendors selling their food and goods. Visitors can browse the selection of pasta, fruit, vegetables and imported items found nowhere else. While there are several tempting Italian restaurants nearby, hungry sightseers can sample pastry, cheese and bread at one of the many stalls.

   I was now starting the airport loop portion of my day, the first 7.5-mile leg to the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge. I headed south on 10th Street and made a right on Snyder Avenue. Soon I veered left on Passyunk Ave and ducked under the Schuylkill Expressway and crossed over its namesake river on the Donatucci Bridge. I was a little surprised that nearly the whole route had a marked bike lane, and the fantastic weather made some of the seedier sections that I was riding through seem not so bad.

   Passyunk eventually becomes Essington Avenue, and a few miles later I made successive right turns onto Bartram Avenue and 84th Street. I made a left at Lindbergh Boulevard to reach the entrance to the refuge, which is a 1200-acre freshwater tidal marsh that is home to 280 species of birds, as well as a host of land animals like deer, raccoons, turtles, foxes and weasels.

   The marshlands here at the confluence of Darby Creek and the Schuylkill have seen quite a transformation in the last hundred years or so, from an industrial park to Army Corps of Engineers dredging dump and then a 1972 Congress environmental rescue project. Cleanup and maintenance, much done by volunteers, has worked wonders! I took a stroll out the boardwalk to the viewing platform then rode on the mostly very rough (I highly recommend a ‘cross or mountain bike), and occasionally mushy, trail surface, completing the four-mile ride out to Wanamaker Avenue at the west end of the refuge.

   I carefully turned left on the busy 4-lane street and crossed over I-95, then made a left turn on 2nd Street in the community of Essington in Tinicum Township. I made a sharp right onto Hogs Island/Fort Mifflin Road and enjoyed being buzzed by some landing jets before pedaling a little less than five miles to arrive at the fort itself.

   Fort Mifflin has an incredible history from the early colonial period of the 1600s through World War II, but it probably most famous as the site where just a few hundred patriots withstood the greatest naval bombardment of the Revolutionary War, holding off British forces for nearly two months while Washington’s army moved to Valley Forge. If interested, you can find an excellent, concise summary of the fort’s history at fortwiki.com and more involved information at fortmifflin.us.

   At the end of Fort Mifflin Road, I turned left onto Enterprise Avenue, which veers onto Island Avenue. After a lefthander at Lindbergh Avenue, it was simple connection back to the Greys Ferry Avenue/22nd Street route I used previously during my return from Bartram’s Garden back to the Schuylkill River Trail.

   I’ve enjoyed myself tremendously doing these rides and, if nothing else, I’ve proven to myself and readers that Philadelphia is quite a bicycle-friendly city! By the way, in case you missed any of the previous City Cycling stories, I added a link to them in the right-hand column of my blog page.