A little background for my question:
I recently had occasion to visit the Visitation BVM R.C. Church located at "B" Street and Lehigh Avenue. While there, the priest indicated that the stairs that had been installed on the front exterior of the church building were necessitated by a >10 foot reduction in the grade of Lehigh Avenue at this point. The priest claimed that construction of the Frankford Elevated structure required the street level to be lowered.
Something struck me as being incorrect about the assertion, given the "el" bridge span over Lehigh Avenue. I then consulted my copy of a commemorative book that was originally distributed at the opening ceremonies of the Frankford section of the "el" in 1922. A paragraph in the book specifically addresses construction of the span over Lehigh Avenue, and states:
"Where the structure crosses wide streets, such as Girard and Allegheny Avenues, columns were placed in the center of the cross street, but at Lehigh Avenue the are double (street)car tracks curving north from Lehigh Avenue into Kensington Avenue. This and the height of the structure of the structure at this point made it undesirable to place columns in the street, and the steel arches of 112 feet 6 inches span were designated to carry the structure. The arches were placed over the sidewalks of Kensington Avenue near the curb line with abutment piers of concrete carried down to rock. The tracks were spread at this point to bring loads out adjacent to the arch ribs and to the columns which support the span over the Richmond Branch of the Reading Railway, which adjoins the arch on the north."
The inference, due to the reference of the structure height and lack of reference to any changing of street grades, is that the street grade at the Intersection of Kensington and Lehigh Avenues was already low. After looking at Google maps streetview, it occurred to me that the act of creating a grade separation of the Richmond Branch over Kensington Avenue may very well have required that Kensington Avenue be lowered, and that the lowering of Kensington Avenue in turn required the lowering of the grade of Lehigh Avenue. Lehigh Avenue slopes uphill toward "B" Street west of Kensington Avenue.
So, after all of that, my question is:
Is it true that the grade reduction along Lehigh Avenue in the vicinity of Kensington Avenue resulted from the Richmond Branch?
If so, does anyone know what year the street was lowered, and if the work was performed by the Reading and/or associated contractors or by The City of Philadelphia?
I recently had occasion to visit the Visitation BVM R.C. Church located at "B" Street and Lehigh Avenue. While there, the priest indicated that the stairs that had been installed on the front exterior of the church building were necessitated by a >10 foot reduction in the grade of Lehigh Avenue at this point. The priest claimed that construction of the Frankford Elevated structure required the street level to be lowered.
Something struck me as being incorrect about the assertion, given the "el" bridge span over Lehigh Avenue. I then consulted my copy of a commemorative book that was originally distributed at the opening ceremonies of the Frankford section of the "el" in 1922. A paragraph in the book specifically addresses construction of the span over Lehigh Avenue, and states:
"Where the structure crosses wide streets, such as Girard and Allegheny Avenues, columns were placed in the center of the cross street, but at Lehigh Avenue the are double (street)car tracks curving north from Lehigh Avenue into Kensington Avenue. This and the height of the structure of the structure at this point made it undesirable to place columns in the street, and the steel arches of 112 feet 6 inches span were designated to carry the structure. The arches were placed over the sidewalks of Kensington Avenue near the curb line with abutment piers of concrete carried down to rock. The tracks were spread at this point to bring loads out adjacent to the arch ribs and to the columns which support the span over the Richmond Branch of the Reading Railway, which adjoins the arch on the north."
The inference, due to the reference of the structure height and lack of reference to any changing of street grades, is that the street grade at the Intersection of Kensington and Lehigh Avenues was already low. After looking at Google maps streetview, it occurred to me that the act of creating a grade separation of the Richmond Branch over Kensington Avenue may very well have required that Kensington Avenue be lowered, and that the lowering of Kensington Avenue in turn required the lowering of the grade of Lehigh Avenue. Lehigh Avenue slopes uphill toward "B" Street west of Kensington Avenue.
So, after all of that, my question is:
Is it true that the grade reduction along Lehigh Avenue in the vicinity of Kensington Avenue resulted from the Richmond Branch?
If so, does anyone know what year the street was lowered, and if the work was performed by the Reading and/or associated contractors or by The City of Philadelphia?