30th Street Station
30th Street Station is an intermodal transit station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is Philadelphia's main railroad station, is a major stop on Amtrak's Northeast and Keystone corridors, it doubles as a major commuter rail station. It is served by several SEPTA city and suburban buses, as well as buses operated by NJ Transit and intercity operators, it is the tenth-busiest train station in the United States. The station is located at 2955 Market Street, it is located in Philadelphia's University City neighborhood, just across the Schuylkill River from Center City. The building, which first opened in 1933, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Amtrak's code for the station is PHL, its IATA Airport Code is ZFV on United because Amtrak's service to Newark Liberty International Airport is codeshared with United Airlines. 30th Street Station is Amtrak's third-busiest station, by far the busiest of the 24 stations served in Pennsylvania, serving 4,411,662 passengers in fiscal year 2017.
On an average day in fiscal 2013, about 12,000 people boarded or left trains in Philadelphia, nearly twice as many as in the rest of the Pennsylvania stations combined. The Pennsylvania Railroad, headquartered in Philadelphia, acquired tunnel rights from the Schuylkill River to 15th Street from the city of Philadelphia in return for land that the city needed to construct the Benjamin Franklin Parkway; this allowed the company to build both Suburban Station and the 30th Street Station, which replaced Broad Street station as the latter was too small. Broad Street Station was a stub-end terminal in Center City and through trains had to back in and out, the company wanted a location which would accommodate trains between New York City and Washington. D. C. Broad St. station handled a large commuter operation, which the new underground Suburban Station was built to handle. The Chicago architectural firm of Graham, Anderson and White, the successor to D. H. Burnham & Company, designed the structure known as Pennsylvania Station–30th Street in accord with the naming style of other Pennsylvania Stations.
Its design was influenced by the Northeast Corridor electrification that allowed trains to pass beneath the station without exposing passengers to soot as steam engines of earlier times had. The station had a number of innovative features, including a pneumatic tube system, an electronic intercom, a reinforced roof with space for small aircraft to land, contained a mortuary, a chapel and more than 3,000 square feet of hospital space. Construction began in 1927 and the station opened in 1933, starting with two platform tracks; the vast waiting room is faced with travertine and the coffered ceiling is painted gold and cream. The building's exterior has columned porte-cocheres on the west and east facade, shows a balance between classical and modern architectural styles.30th Street Station had a Solari board dating back to the 1970s that displayed train departure times, the last such board at an Amtrak station as all the others had been replaced with digital boards. On November 30, 2018, Amtrak announced that the Solari board at 30th Street Station will be replaced with a digital board in January 2019.
Upon retirement, the Solari board will be relocated to the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg. However, on December 11, 2018, Amtrak announced it will reconsider its decision to replace the Solari board after Congressman Brendan Boyle contacted Amtrak CEO Richard H. Anderson and urged for the Solari board to remain at the station. Amtrak says; the sign will be temporarily housed at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania until the 30th Street Station renovations are complete. Amtrak removed the Solari board from 30th Street Station on January 26, 2019. On February 28, 2019, the new digital board at 30th Street Station began operation. In 2005, Philadelphia-based Pew Charitable Trust asked Amtrak to change the name of 30th Street Station to "Ben Franklin Station" as part of the celebration of Ben Franklin's 300th birthday in January 2006; the cost of replacing signs at the station was estimated at $3 million. In January, Philadelphia Mayor John Street threw his support behind the name change, but others had mixed reactions to the proposal.
Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, a former mayor of Philadelphia, was lukewarm, while Amtrak officials worried that a "Ben" station could be confused with its other three "Penn" stations. On January 25, 2006, Pew abandoned the campaign. In August 2014, a federal law was passed that will change the name of the station to William H. Gray III 30th Street Station in honor of the late congressman. At the time, the change was scheduled to occur "in the next few months"; the building is owned by Amtrak and houses many Amtrak corporate offices, although Amtrak is headquartered at Union Station in Washington, D. C; the 562,000 ft² facility features a cavernous main passenger concourse with ornate Art Deco decor. Prominently displayed is the Pennsylvania Railroad World War II Memorial, which honors Pennsylvania Railroad employees killed in World War II, it consists of a bronze statue of the archangel Michael lifting the body of a dead soldier out of the flames of war, was sculpted by Walker Hancock in 1950.
On the four sides of the base of that sculpture are the 1,307 names of those employees in alphabetical order. The building was restored in 1991 by Dan Peter Kopple & Associates; when the station was renovated, updated retail amen
Whitemarsh Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania
Whitemarsh Township is a Home Rule Municipality in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, USA. However, it maintains its former classification of "Township" in its official name; the population was 17,349 at the 2010 census. Whitemarsh was inhabited by the Lenni Lenape tribe of Native Americans, it was first settled by European colonists in 1683, as part of a tract of land purchased from William Penn by Major Jasper Farmar. Though Farmar died before making the voyage to his new land, his widow and family sailed, with servants, to Philadelphia in 1685, they established their homestead in Fort Washington. After the Widow Farmar died sometime in the 1690s, her son Edward began to sell 100 to 200 acre pieces of the township to Quakers and German immigrants. In 1686, the discovery of limestone in Oreland in nearby Springfield and Upper Dublin townships, subsequent discoveries of limestone in the township itself, drew settlers to Whitemarsh Whitemarsh Township was incorporated in 1704 as part of Philadelphia County and was one of the 28 original communities that comprised Montgomery County when it was created in 1784.
The area in the 1600s and 1700s consisted of large English estates and its famous limestone quarries. During the American Revolutionary War, both the Battle of White Marsh and the Battle of Barren Hill took place within the township. Cold Point Historic District Alan West Corson Homestead County Bridge No. 54 Farmar Mill The Highlands Hope Lodge Hovenden House and Abolition Hall Lee Tire and Rubber Company Miller's House at Spring Mill Mount Joy Plymouth Meeting Historic District Union School According to the United States Census Bureau, the township has a total area of 14.7 square miles, of which, 14.6 square miles of it is land and 0.1 square miles of it is water. Adjacent to the Andorra section of Philadelphia, Whitemarsh is bordered in Montgomery County by Springfield, Upper Dublin and Plymouth Townships and Conshohocken Borough, it is bordered by the Schuylkill River, which separates it from Lower Merion Township. Communities within or within Whitemarsh include Barren Hill, Lafayette Hill and Spring Mill.
Census designated places include Plymouth Meeting, Fort Washington. As of the 2010 census, Whitemarsh Township was 90.7% White, 3.5% Black or African American, 0.1% Native American, 4.2% Asian, 1.2% were two or more races. 1.7% of the population were of Hispanic or Latino ancestry. As of the census of 2000, there were 16,702 people, 6,179 households, 4,597 families residing in the township; the population density was 1,143.5 people per square mile. There were 6,372 housing units at an average density of 436.3 per square mile. The racial makeup of the township was 93.29% White, 2.21% African American, 0.02% Native American, 3.70% Asian, 0.14% from other races, 0.63% from two or more races. Hispanics or Latinos of any race were 0.99% of the population. There were 6,179 households, out of which 34.4% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 64.4% were married couples living together, 7.1% had a female householder with no husband present, 25.6% were non-families. 20.8% of all households were made up of individuals, 7.3% had someone living alone, 65 years of age or older.
The average household size was 2.62 and the average family size was 3.06. The age distribution was 24.3% under the age of 18, 5.0% from 18 to 24, 29.8% from 25 to 44, 25.1% from 45 to 64, 15.7% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 40 years. For every 100 females there were 93.7 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 89.6 males. The median income for a household in the township was $78,630, the median income for a family was $91,731. Males had a median income of $58,774 versus $41,977 for females; the per capita income for the township was $39,785. About 1.6% of families and 2.9% of the population were below the poverty line, including 1.8% of those under age 18 and 3.1% of those age 65 or over. Whitemarsh Township is governed by a five-member Board of Supervisors elected to four-year terms; as of 2019 the Board consists of the Chair, Melissa Sterling, the Vice-Chair, Amy Grossman with the other three members being Michael Drossner, Laura Boyle Nester and Fran McCusker.
The Fort Washington State Park is a 483-acre site located in the middle of the township, along the Wissahickon Creek. Miles Park Which is located on Germantown Pike at the intersection of Joshua Road includes basketball courts, baseball fields and a walking track, it has a snack bar and has vending machines. Several country clubs have grounds within the town; the Philadelphia Cricket Club has two golf courses and the Whitemarsh Valley Country Club, the ACE Club and the Green Valley Club each with one golf course. The Colonial School District provides public education to the children of Whitemarsh Township; the east-west Pennsylvania Turnpike and the north-south Fort Washington Expressway run through the township. Although neither have an interchange in Whitemarsh, the turnpike has an interchange in nearby Plymouth Township, the Route 309 expressway has an interchange in Fort Washington which connects with the turnpike. Arterial roads in the township include Ridge Pike, Germantown Pike, Butler Pike, Skippack Pike, Bethlehem Pike, Stenton Avenve, Pennsylvania Avenue, Joshua Road, Morris Road.
SEPTA Regional Rail serves the township along the Lansdale/Doylestown and Manayunk/Norristown rail lines. The Lansdale/Doylestown Line, which connects Bucks and Philadelphia Counties has a station in Fort Washin
SEPTA Suburban Division bus routes
The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority operates or contracts operations of these routes serving points in Bucks, Chester and Montgomery counties, with a few routes operating into the city of Philadelphia. The Suburban Transit Division is broken down into three districts: Victory and Contract Operations; these routes are operated from the Victory District, located at the 69th Street Transportation Center in Upper Darby Township, Delaware County. This includes Norristown High Speed Line, 101 Media, 102 Sharon Hill rail operations; these routes were once operated by the Philadelphia Suburban Transportation Company, better known by its nickname "Red Arrow Lines". Routes in the Chester area of Delaware County as well as Chester Pike operations were once operated by Southern Penn Bus Lines, which the Red Arrow took control of on June 30, 1960. Today, Routes 114, 117, 118 are leftovers of the old Southern Penn system; the Philadelphia Transportation Company's "PTC" Folsom Division bus routes were taken over by Red Arrow Lines on January 20, 1961.
Since that time the Ex-PTC routes have been eliminated or consolidated into the current route system. SEPTA took over Red Arrow Lines on January 29, 1970; this was one of the last owned transit operations left in the United States. Today some longtime residents, transit historians, the local news media still refer to this operation as SEPTA's Red Arrow Division. In 2011 SEPTA renamed 69th Street Terminal the 69th Street Transportation Center; these routes are operated from the Frontier garage in Montgomery County. This district of SEPTA was created through a combination of former Schuylkill Valley Line services in the Norristown area and Trenton Philadelphia Coach Line services in the Lower Bucks County area. Routes 96 to 99 which helped form the original five SEPTA Frontier District Routes were once part of the old "Schuylkill Valley Lines" that SEPTA acquired on March 1, 1976; the old Schuylkill Valley Lines routes were restructured into five routes on March 7, 1977 with Route 95 being a new route.
Routes 127 to 129 were once part of the old Trenton Philadelphia Coach Lines "TPC" which became a subsidiary of the Philadelphia Transportation Company "PTC" on January 24, 1963. When SEPTA took over PTC, Trenton Philadelphia Coach became a subsidiary of SEPTA; these routes were assigned Routes 150 to 153 in 1980. These routes continued to operate under SEPTA/TPC until November 14, 1983 when SEPTA Frontier District took over the operations of these routes and rebranded them Routes 127, 128, 129. All other routes have been added onto the system since then. Trenton-Philadelphia Coach Lines was brought back to life by SEPTA as a contract operation for its Routes 310, 311 and LUCY operations. Trenton-Philadelphia Coach operated the Cornwells Heights Parking Shuttle Service on these lines are operated by Krapf Transit under contract to SEPTA; these routes are operated from Krapf's own garage, located in Pennsylvania. Krapf has operated other bus routes for SEPTA in the past: Routes 202, Route 207, Route 208, Route 306 and Route 314.
SEPTA has had contract bus operations before in Chester County. SEPTA and Reeder's Inc. joined forces in 1977 to operate three bus routes out of West Chester. These routes were the Route 120, Route 121, Route 122. Reeder's operated their own bus route from West Chester to Concord and Tri-State Malls via US 202 and Delaware Route 92. Transit operations in Chester County has been around for decades operating under different companies over those years. West Chester Transportation Company, People's Transportation Company, Chester Valley Lines and The Short Line of Pennsylvania have operated bus routes in Chester County. Bus service between West Chester and Coatesville was a replacement for the previous trolley service operated by West Chester Traction. Reeder's got these routes. To keep transit service operating in Chester County these routes were funded by SEPTA and operated by Reeder's Inc. beginning November 7, 1977. SEPTA did replace two of the routes with their own bus service. Route 122 service was replaced by SEPTA's Route 91 on July 1982 after only one year of service.
Route 121 was replaced by SEPTA's Route 92 on October 11, 1982. Since ridership on the Route 120 was strong it continued to operate under the operations of Reeder's Inc. after SEPTA pulled the funding source. Reeder's Inc bus service to Concord and Tri-State Malls was discontinued in the late 1970s. Krapf purchased the Reeder's operation in 1992 and designated the remaining bus route as Krapf's Transit "Route A". Krapf's along with SEPTA and the Independence Visitor Center work together to operate the PHLASH bus service; the PHLASH bus service is geared toward tourists visiting the City of Philadelphia but locals use it too since the one way fare is cheaper than SEPTA bus fare, The PHLASH operates April to May on Fridays and weekends operates seven days a week from Memorial Day through Labor Day. After Labor Day service goes back to Friday and weekend until Thanksgiving back to seven days a week until the end of the year. After that PHLASH service is suspended for the winter until April. SEPTA City Transit Division surface routes SEP
New York City
The City of New York called either New York City or New York, is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2017 population of 8,622,698 distributed over a land area of about 302.6 square miles, New York is the most densely populated major city in the United States. Located at the southern tip of the state of New York, the city is the center of the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban landmass and one of the world's most populous megacities, with an estimated 20,320,876 people in its 2017 Metropolitan Statistical Area and 23,876,155 residents in its Combined Statistical Area. A global power city, New York City has been described as the cultural and media capital of the world, exerts a significant impact upon commerce, research, education, tourism, art and sports; the city's fast pace has inspired the term New York minute. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy.
Situated on one of the world's largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, each of, a separate county of the State of New York. The five boroughs – Brooklyn, Manhattan, The Bronx, Staten Island – were consolidated into a single city in 1898; the city and its metropolitan area constitute the premier gateway for legal immigration to the United States. As many as 800 languages are spoken in New York, making it the most linguistically diverse city in the world. New York City is home to more than 3.2 million residents born outside the United States, the largest foreign-born population of any city in the world. In 2017, the New York metropolitan area produced a gross metropolitan product of US$1.73 trillion. If greater New York City were a sovereign state, it would have the 12th highest GDP in the world. New York is home to the highest number of billionaires of any city in the world. New York City traces its origins to a trading post founded by colonists from the Dutch Republic in 1624 on Lower Manhattan.
The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, the Duke of York. New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790, it has been the country's largest city since 1790. The Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the U. S. by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is an international symbol of the U. S. and its ideals of liberty and peace. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a global node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance, environmental sustainability, as a symbol of freedom and cultural diversity. Many districts and landmarks in New York City are well known, with the city having three of the world's ten most visited tourist attractions in 2013 and receiving a record 62.8 million tourists in 2017. Several sources have ranked New York the most photographed city in the world. Times Square, iconic as the world's "heart" and its "Crossroads", is the brightly illuminated hub of the Broadway Theater District, one of the world's busiest pedestrian intersections, a major center of the world's entertainment industry.
The names of many of the city's landmarks and parks are known around the world. Manhattan's real estate market is among the most expensive in the world. New York is home to the largest ethnic Chinese population outside of Asia, with multiple signature Chinatowns developing across the city. Providing continuous 24/7 service, the New York City Subway is the largest single-operator rapid transit system worldwide, with 472 rail stations. Over 120 colleges and universities are located in New York City, including Columbia University, New York University, Rockefeller University, which have been ranked among the top universities in the world. Anchored by Wall Street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, New York has been called both the most economically powerful city and the leading financial center of the world, the city is home to the world's two largest stock exchanges by total market capitalization, the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ. In 1664, the city was named in honor of the Duke of York.
James's older brother, King Charles II, had appointed the Duke proprietor of the former territory of New Netherland, including the city of New Amsterdam, which England had seized from the Dutch. During the Wisconsinan glaciation, 75,000 to 11,000 years ago, the New York City region was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet over 1,000 feet in depth; the erosive forward movement of the ice contributed to the separation of what is now Long Island and Staten Island. That action left bedrock at a shallow depth, providing a solid foundation for most of Manhattan's skyscrapers. In the precolonial era, the area of present-day New York City was inhabited by Algonquian Native Americans, including the Lenape, whose homeland, known as Lenapehoking, included Staten Island; the first documented visit into New York Harbor by a European was in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine explorer in the service of the French crown. He named it Nouvelle Angoulême. A Spanish expedition led by captain Estêvão Gomes, a Portuguese sailing for Emperor Charles V, arrived in New York Harbor in January 1525 and charted the mouth of the Hudson River, which he named Río de San Antonio.
The Padrón Rea
Reading Company
The Reading Company was a company, involved in the railroad industry in southeast Pennsylvania and neighboring states from 1924 until 1976. Called the Reading Railroad and logotyped as Reading Lines, the Reading Company was a railroad holding company for the majority of its existence and was a railroad during its years, it was a successor to the Philadelphia and Reading Railway Company founded in 1833. Until the decline in anthracite loadings in the Coal Region after World War II, it was one of the most prosperous corporations in the United States. Competition with the modern trucking industry that used the Interstate highway system for short distance transportation of goods known as short hauls, compounded the company's problems, forcing it into bankruptcy in the 1970s, its railroad operations were merged into Conrail in 1976, but the corporation lasted into 2000, disposing of valuable real estate holdings. The Philadelphia and Reading Railroad was one of the first railroads in the United States.
Along with the Little Schuylkill, a horse-drawn railroad in the Schuylkill River Valley, it formed the earliest components of what became the Reading Company. The P&R was constructed to haul anthracite coal from the mines in northeastern Pennsylvania's Coal Region to Philadelphia; the original P&R mainline extended south from the mining town of Pottsville to Reading and onward to Philadelphia, following the graded banks of the Schuylkill River for nearly all of the 93-mile journey. The line contained double track upon its completion in 1843; the P&R became profitable immediately. Energy-dense coal had been replacing scarce wood as fuel in businesses and homes since the 1810s, P&R-delivered coal was one of the first alternatives to the near-monopoly held by Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company since the 1820s. Soon the P&R bought or leased many of the railroads in the Schuylkill River Valley and extended westward and north along the Susquehanna into the southern end of the Coal Region. In Philadelphia, the Reading built Port Richmond, the self-proclaimed "Largest owned railroad tidewater terminal in the world", which burnished the P&R's bottom lines by allowing coal to be loaded onto ships and barges for export.
In 1871, the Reading established a subsidiary called the Philadelphia and Reading Coal and Iron Company, which set about buying anthracite coal mines in the Coal Region. This vertical expansion gave the P&R full control of coal from mining through to market, allowing it to compete with like-organized competitors such as Lehigh Coal & Navigation and the Delaware & Hudson Canal Company; the heavy investment in coal paid off quickly. By 1871, the Reading was the largest company in the world, with $170,000,000 in gross value, may have been the first conglomerate in the world. In 1879, the Reading gained control of the North Pennsylvania Railroad and gained access to the burgeoning steel industry in the Lehigh Valley; the Reading further expanded its coal empire by reaching New York City by gaining control of the Delaware and Bound Brook Railroad in 1879, building the Port Reading Railroad in 1892 with a line from Port Reading Junction to the Port Reading on the Arthur Kill. This allowed direct delivery of coal to industries in the Port of New York and New Jersey in northeastern New Jersey and New York City by rail and barge instead of the longer trip by ships from Port Richmond around Cape May.
Instead of broadening its rail network, the Reading invested its vast wealth in anthracite and its transport in the mid-19th century. This led to financial trouble in the 1870s. In 1890, Reading president Archibald A. McLeod saw that more riches could be earned by expanding its rail network and becoming a trunk railroad. McLeod went about trying to control neighboring railroads in 1891, he was able to gain control of the Lehigh Valley Railroad, Central Railroad of New Jersey, the Boston and Maine Railroad. The Reading achieved its goal of becoming a trunk road, but the deal was scuttled by J. P. Morgan and other rail barons, who did not want more competition in the northeastern railroad business; the Reading was relegated to a regional railroad for the rest of its history. The Philadelphia and Reading Rail Road was chartered April 4, 1833, to build a line between Philadelphia and Reading, along the Schuylkill River; the portion from Reading to Norristown opened July 16, 1838, the full line December 9, 1839.
Its Philadelphia terminus was at the state-owned Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad on the west side of the Schuylkill River, from which it ran east on the P&C over the Columbia Bridge and onto the city-owned City Railroad to a depot at the southeast corner of Broad and Cherry Streets. An extension northwest from Reading to Mount Carbon on the Schuylkill River, opened on January 13, 1842, allowing the railroad to compete with the Schuylkill Canal. At Mount Carbon, it connected with the earlier Mount Carbon Railroad, continuing through Pottsville to several mines, would be extended to Williamsport. On May 17, 1842, a freight branch from West Falls to Port Richmond on the Delaware River north of downtown Philadelphia opened. Port Richmond became a large coal terminal. On January 1, 1851, the Belmont Plane on the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad, just west of the Reading's connection, was abandoned in favor of a new bypass, the portion of the line east of it was sold to the Reading, the only company that continued using the old route.
The Lebanon Valley Railroad was chartered in 1836 to build from Reading west to Harrisburg. Reading financed the construction of the Rutherford Yard to compete with the PRR's nearby Enola Yard; the Reading took it over and began construction in 1854, opening the line in 1856. This
North Wales, Pennsylvania
North Wales is a borough in Montgomery County, United States. It is a suburb of Philadelphia, is one of the three historic population centers that make up the North Penn Valley, centered around the borough of Lansdale; the population was 3,229 at the 2010 census. Like many small boroughs in Pennsylvania, North Wales is at "build out", meaning that its boundaries have not kept up with population growth. Summarily, many businesses and residences with North Wales addresses are located in outlying townships that were never annexed by the borough, such as the Montgomery Mall in Montgomery Township. North Wales is in the North Penn School District. North Wales is located at 40°12′39″N 75°16′30″W. According to the United States Census Bureau, the borough has a total area of 0.6 square miles, all of it land. As its name suggests, North Wales was settled by Welsh immigrants who named it after North Wales in Wales. Part of a 1702 William Penn land grant, this rich farming country was given the name "Gwynedd" for the homeland of the earliest settlers and it began as a pastoral village in agricultural Gwynedd Township.
Before 1850, a number of farms, plus a 1776 church, shared by the Lutheran and Reformed congregations, dotted the present borough's landscape. What is now Main Street was an old Indian trail, was laid out as the Great Road in 1728. By 1828, it had become today's Sumneytown Pike, was a toll road until 1914, it had always been an important route to Philadelphia, continues to serve as a connection to Routes 202 and 309 to the east and the Northeastern Extension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike to the west. Its rural character was abruptly disrupted by the building of the North Pennsylvania Railroad starting in 1852. Service from Bethlehem to Philadelphia through North Wales began in 1857; the town grew around the railroad station, with hotels and restaurants lining Walnut Street and Main Street within walking distance. North Wales is the oldest of the North Penn boroughs, incorporated in 1869, by taking land from today's Upper Gwynedd Township the northern portion of Gwynedd Township; some of the large homes at the start of the 20th century were opened to summer guests from the city.
"Idlewilde", still present on Main Street, hosted the Emperor of Brazil, Dom Pedro II, when he was visiting Philadelphia to open the 1876 U. S. Centennial Exhibition with President Ulysses S. Grant. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, much of North Wales borough's housing was built. Most houses along South Main Street between Montgomery and Prospects Streets remain much as they were when built and are lovingly maintained; the borough features a variety of single family homes, as well as twins, rowhomes. Between 1900 and 1926, Lehigh Valley Transit Company operated its Chestnut Hill Branch trolley line, which connected North Wales to surrounding towns through service to either Philadelphia or Allentown; the trolley ran down Main Street through the borough, but detoured onto Pennsylvania Avenue for two blocks to enable it to cross the North Penn Railroad on a bridge. The bridge was required because the railroad, citing safety concerns, refused to allow the trolleys to cross at the Main Street grade crossing.
Lehigh Valley Transit Company's combined passenger/freight station was located on the north side of Pennsylvania Avenue between Shearer Street and Montgomery Avenue. After Main Street trolley service ended in 1926, Lehigh Valley Transit high-speed trolleys continued to serve the Wales Junction station, located on Sumneytown Pike three-quarters of a mile west of town. High-speed trolley serviced ended in September 1951. In 2000, the North Wales Historic Preservation District was established by Borough Council and the Pennsylvania Historic and Museum Commission to protect the architecture, a visual reminder of the borough's past, it is the first Historic District in the North Penn boroughs. North Wales' Main and Walnut Streets have been home to many businesses over the town's history and these two thoroughfares still serve the community today by providing a number of services such as a variety of hair salons and beauty parlors, a pharmacy, doctors' offices, a dry cleaner, a running and walking shoe specialty store, a yoga studio, two auto repair facilities, two auto body shops, two laundromats, a post office, convenience store, a recording studio, among many others.
Eateries and bars include two pizza parlors, a Tex-Mex restaurant, two cafes, two bakeries, a juice bar and a vegan restaurant. The borough houses the headquarters for the Montgomery County Association for the Blind, as well as the non-profit organization The Lamb Foundation, which provides housing and life skills support to the area's mentally-challenged residents; the Lamb Foundation runs a consignment/secondhand shop, Sweet Repeats, located on South 5th St. near the North Wales train station. The borough is home to the Boy Scouts of America Pack/Troop 84, whose meeting place is located at Second and Church Streets. North Wales Elementary School is part of the North Penn School District; the building was North Wales High School from 1927 until North Penn High School was built in the 1950s. The original elementary school from the 1900s was located at the current site of Borough Hall. St. Rose of Lima Catholic School of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia. In January 2012, the archdiocese announced that St. Rose of Lima would merge with St. Stanislaus Parish School in Lansdale, with students attending classes in Lansdale.
North Wales Elementary School housed the North Wales Memorial Free Library from 1927 to 2009. Due to the growing number of students at school, as we
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, sometimes known colloquially as Philly, is the largest city in the U. S. state and Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-most populous U. S. city, with a 2017 census-estimated population of 1,580,863. Since 1854, the city has been coterminous with Philadelphia County, the most populous county in Pennsylvania and the urban core of the eighth-largest U. S. metropolitan statistical area, with over 6 million residents as of 2017. Philadelphia is the economic and cultural anchor of the greater Delaware Valley, located along the lower Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers, within the Northeast megalopolis; the Delaware Valley's population of 7.2 million ranks it as the eighth-largest combined statistical area in the United States. William Penn, an English Quaker, founded the city in 1682 to serve as capital of the Pennsylvania Colony. Philadelphia played an instrumental role in the American Revolution as a meeting place for the Founding Fathers of the United States, who signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776 at the Second Continental Congress, the Constitution at the Philadelphia Convention of 1787.
Several other key events occurred in Philadelphia during the Revolutionary War including the First Continental Congress, the preservation of the Liberty Bell, the Battle of Germantown, the Siege of Fort Mifflin. Philadelphia was one of the nation's capitals during the revolution, served as temporary U. S. capital while Washington, D. C. was under construction. In the 19th century, Philadelphia became a railroad hub; the city grew from an influx of European immigrants, most of whom came from Ireland and Germany—the three largest reported ancestry groups in the city as of 2015. In the early 20th century, Philadelphia became a prime destination for African Americans during the Great Migration after the Civil War, as well as Puerto Ricans; the city's population doubled from one million to two million people between 1890 and 1950. The Philadelphia area's many universities and colleges make it a top study destination, as the city has evolved into an educational and economic hub. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Philadelphia area had a gross domestic product of US$445 billion in 2017, the eighth-largest metropolitan economy in the United States.
Philadelphia is the center of economic activity in Pennsylvania and is home to five Fortune 1000 companies. The Philadelphia skyline is expanding, with a market of 81,900 commercial properties in 2016, including several nationally prominent skyscrapers. Philadelphia has more outdoor murals than any other American city. Fairmount Park, when combined with the adjacent Wissahickon Valley Park in the same watershed, is one of the largest contiguous urban park areas in the United States; the city is known for its arts, culture and colonial history, attracting 42 million domestic tourists in 2016 who spent US$6.8 billion, generating an estimated $11 billion in total economic impact in the city and surrounding four counties of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia has emerged as a biotechnology hub. Philadelphia is the birthplace of the United States Marine Corps, is the home of many U. S. firsts, including the first library, medical school, national capital, stock exchange and business school. Philadelphia contains 67 National Historic Landmarks and the World Heritage Site of Independence Hall.
The city became a member of the Organization of World Heritage Cities in 2015, as the first World Heritage City in the United States. Although Philadelphia is undergoing gentrification, the city maintains mitigation strategies to minimize displacement of homeowners in gentrifying neighborhoods. Before Europeans arrived, the Philadelphia area was home to the Lenape Indians in the village of Shackamaxon; the Lenape are a Native American tribe and First Nations band government. They are called Delaware Indians, their historical territory was along the Delaware River watershed, western Long Island, the Lower Hudson Valley. Most Lenape were pushed out of their Delaware homeland during the 18th century by expanding European colonies, exacerbated by losses from intertribal conflicts. Lenape communities were weakened by newly introduced diseases smallpox, violent conflict with Europeans. Iroquois people fought the Lenape. Surviving Lenape moved west into the upper Ohio River basin; the American Revolutionary War and United States' independence pushed them further west.
In the 1860s, the United States government sent most Lenape remaining in the eastern United States to the Indian Territory under the Indian removal policy. In the 21st century, most Lenape reside in Oklahoma, with some communities living in Wisconsin, in their traditional homelands. Europeans came to the Delaware Valley in the early 17th century, with the first settlements founded by the Dutch, who in 1623 built Fort Nassau on the Delaware River opposite the Schuylkill River in what is now Brooklawn, New Jersey; the Dutch considered the entire Delaware River valley to be part of their New Netherland colony. In 1638, Swedish settlers led by renegade Dutch established the colony of New Sweden at Fort Christina and spread out in the valley. In 1644, New Sweden supported the Susquehannocks in their military defeat of the English colony of Maryland. In 1648, the Dutch built Fort Beversreede on the west bank of the Delaware, south of the Schuylkill near the present-day Eastwick neighborhood, to reassert their dominion over the area.
The Swedes responded by building Fort Nya Korsholm, or New Korsholm, named after a town in Finland with a Swedish majority. In 1655, a
SEPTA Suburban Bus: 94, 95, 201
Media related to Fort Washington (SEPTA station) at Wikimedia Commons
