PA -- Philadelphia -- Fairmount Water Works:
- Bruce Guthrie Photos Home Page: [Click here] to go to Bruce Guthrie Photos home page.
- Recognize anyone? If you recognize specific folks (or other stuff) and I haven't labeled them, please identify them for the world. Click the little pencil icon
underneath the file name (just above the picture). Spammers need not apply.
- Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.
- Accessing as Spider: The system has identified your IP as being a spider.
IP Address: 3.138.118.250 -- Domain: Amazon Technologies
I love well-behaved spiders! They are, in fact, how most people find my site. Unfortunately, my network has a limited bandwidth and pictures take up bandwidth. Spiders ask for lots and lots of pages and chew up lots and lots of bandwidth which slows things down considerably for regular folk. To counter this, you'll see all the text on the page but the images are being suppressed. Also, some system options like merges are being blocked for you.
Note: Permission is NOT granted for spiders, robots, etc to use the site for AI-generation purposes. I'm sure you're thrilled by your ability to make revenue from my work but there's nothing in that for my human users or for me.
If you are in fact human, please email me at guthrie.bruce@gmail.com and I can check if your designation was made in error. Given your number of hits, that's unlikely but what the hell.
- Help? The Medium (Email) links are for screen viewing and emailing. You'll want bigger sizes for printing. [Click here for additional help]
- Wikipedia Description: Fairmount Water Works
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Fairmount Water Works in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was the first municipal waterworks in the United States. Designed in 1812 by Frederick Graff and built between 1819 and 1822 it operated until 1909, winning praise for its design and becoming a popular tourist attraction. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976 and is once again in the process of winning back visitors, having now opened an Interpretive Center to aid in understanding the waterworks' purpose and history.
History:
Following a series of yellow fever epidemics in the late 1700s (which was at the time thought to be caused by unclean water) city leaders appointed a "Watering Committee". The initial water system was designed by Benjamin Latrobe and accepted by the committee in 1799. His system utilized two steam engines to pump water from the Schuylkill River, into the city, then into two water tanks. From the water tanks, the water was gravity fed into a series of wooden water mains. The system was plagued with problems. If either of the steam engines failed, the water supply to the city was cut off.
The committee began searching for another solution and eventually picked John David and Frederick Graff to design a new waterworks, in order to meet the demand of the increasing numbers of city residents.
The waterworks were constructed between 1819 and 1822 on the banks of the Schuylkill River. The waterworks initially consisted of a 3 million gallon (11,350,000 lt) reservoir and a pump house using steam engines to pump water. In 1822, a 1,600-foot (487 mt) dam was built across the Schuylkill to direct water to three water wheels that replaced the steam engine. Later, Jonval turbines were used to lift the water.
The facility, the industrial nature of which was disguised by a Greek Revival exterior, became a tourist attraction for its beauty and its location on the riverside. Visitors included Charles Dickens, who praised it for its pleasant design and public usefulness.
The waterworks eventually closed in 1909, after years of service, when several newer and more technologically updated facilities were built.
Present day:
After the waterworks closed in 1909 the facility was used for several purposes, including the Philadelphia Aquarium (which closed in 1962) and an indoor swimming pool which closed in 1973. In more recent years attempts have been made to return the waterworks to its previous position as an engaging tourist attraction. Despite a severe fire which caused setbacks to the restoration, an interpretive center has now been added and tours are regularly given. Its position near Boathouse Row and the Philadelphia Museum of Art is hoped to aid in making it a regularly-visited tourist site once more.
In December of 2004, Michael Karloutsos won a 25 year, $120,000/year lease with the Fairmount Park Commission. After a highly publicized renovation, Karloutsos opened Water Works Restaurant and Lounge(Mediterranean/American/Mexican) within the Water Works on July 20, 2006.
- Bigger photos? To save server space, the full-sized versions of these images have either not been loaded to the server or have been removed from the server. (Only some pages are loaded with full-sized images and those usually get removed after three months.)
I still have them though. If you want me to email them to you, please send an email to guthrie.bruce@gmail.com
and I can email them to you, or, depending on the number of images, just repost the page again will the full-sized images.
- Connection Not Secure messages? Those warnings you get from your browser about this site not having secure connections worry some people. This means this site does not have SSL installed (the link is http:, not https:). That's bad if you're entering credit card numbers, passwords, or other personal information. But this site doesn't collect any personal information so SSL is not necessary. Life's good!
- Photo Contact: [Email Bruce Guthrie].