The 39th Ward

I went to the Free Library yesterday and visited the kind gentlemen in the map section. I wanted to see if I could glean anything about the neighborhood's earlier history from the insurance maps which sometimes list businesses, and other information, most often indications that would be pertinent to fire risk.

The maps confirmed that most of the extant structures in the neighborhood are likely original and are of typical design--narrow row houses having smaller extensions on the back that face onto a common air space. Row homes stood where the Stiffel Center is now. I could find only one row-house shul, where it indicated people also dwelt (2455 S. American St.) , but it's likely too many could have been "off the radar." I was surprised to see how large the synagogue at 8th and Porter had been. I need to take a look at what is currently on these lots. 728 Moyamensing was also indicated as a "Hebrew Church."

A lot of the businesses were unmarked, just "store/dwelling." The concentration of these along Seventh Street was largely at the corners or interspersed as you get down towards Porter St. Approaching Wolf and Rittner, it's almost 100% "store and dwelling" --very dense. In 1916 there were still stables and a rag, rubber and junk yard in the area. Only one drinking establishment is noted, I believe on 5th near Moyamensing. I saw the usual gamut of what I would call "portable trades"--tailor, barber, shoemaker, but also a large number of bakeries and one surprise, a number of businesses marked as "Chinese Laundry" (613 Porter). The laundries, like the bakeries are notated because they were a fire risk, most likely employing large, gas, or even coal-fired boilers. How items were dried is an interesting question.

At 2nd St. and then further up Porter there were a number of these laundries. Were the operators from China? Why, in what by all indications was a poor neighborhood, would people send out all or part of their washing? Perhaps this was the one chore households were willing to scrounge a few coins for, even occasionally. In an age pre-dating the electric washing machine, where water was often boiled on the stove and laundry done in tubs with a washboard and ironing accomplished using sad irons heated over a coal brazier, the amount of labor needed to keep a large family in clean clothes and linens could be overwhelming. There is the question too of how many single men and perhaps women, most likely boarders, new immigrants without family, were in the area at that time, thus the need.

Only one pool hall was indicated, this was further up Porter past seventh St. In the neighborhood there was also a candy-making kitchen and a bicycle shop.

Call # 912.7481 Er659i v. 32, 1897-1919, Wards 23 to 39.