LOOKING UP BROAD STREET FROM SPRUCE STREET

OUR PHILADELPHIA

DESCRIBED BY ELIZABETH ROBINS PENNELL
ILLUSTRATED WITH ONE HUNDRED & FIVE
LITHOGRAPHS BY JOSEPH PENNELL

PHILADELPHIA AND LONDON
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
MCMXIV

COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY

PUBLISHED OCTOBER, 1914

PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
AT THE WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS
PHILADELPHIA, U. S. A.

PREFACE

To-day, when it is the American born in the Ghetto,or Syria, or some other remote part of the earth, whoserecollections are prized, it may seem as if the followingpages called for an apology. I have none to make. Theywere written simply for the pleasure of gathering togethermy old memories of a town that, as my native place,is dear to me and my new impressions of it after an absenceof a quarter of a century. But now I have finished I addto this pleasure in my book the pleasant belief that it willhave its value for others, if only for two reasons. Inthe first place, J.'s drawings which illustrate it are hisrecord of the old Philadelphia that has passed and thenew Philadelphia that is passing—a record that in a fewyears it will be impossible for anybody to make, so continuallyis Philadelphia changing. In the second, mystory of Philadelphia, perfect or imperfect, may in asshort a time be equally impossible for anybody to repeat,since I am one of those old-fashioned Americans, Americanby birth with many generations of Americanfore-fathers,who are rapidly becoming rare creatures amongthe hordes of new-fashioned Americans who were anythingand everything else no longer than a year or a weekor an hour ago.

Elizabeth Robins Pennell

3 Adelphi Terrace House, London
May, 1914

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