REPOST University of Pennsylvania 1891 photograph showing first group of campus buildings in West Philadelphia: Medical and Dental Laboratory Building, later Hare Hall, far left; temporary, one-and-one-half story, frame Dining Hall, left center foreground; College Hall in center; Medical Hall, now Logan Hall, behind Di ning and College Halls; University Library, now Fisher Fine Arts Library, on right Background When the Trustees moved Penn to a new campus at 34th Street and Woodland Avenue in West Philadelphia, they were implementing a partnership with the City of Philadelphia which had been nearly a decade in the making. The Citys ownership of the West Philadelphia campus dated to 1829, when the Guardians for the Relief and Employment of the Poor purchased 187 acres of Woodlands, the Hamilton family estate on the west bank of the Schuylkill River. For sixty years the City had maintained an alms house on Spruce Street, between 10th and 11th Streets, but it had become dangerously overcrowded and the Blockley Township site was both conveniently nearby and many time times more spacious. Over the next few years the City spent nearly $1 million to construct four huge buildings - a mens housing unit, a womens housing unit, a hospital, and a house of employment -- with a total capacity of 4,000 residents. In 1834 all housing and health care operations moved from their city location to the new, rural Philadelphia Almshouse and Hospital, later known as Philadelphia General Hospital. In 1854, however, the City and County of Philadelphia consolidated into a single governmental unit and almost immediately the number of poor people needing housing and health care overwhelmed the Philadelphia Almshouse facilities. In May 1862, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania adopted legislation which granted the City the right to sell portions of its 187-acre alms house grounds in order to fund the construction of additional housing and health care facilities for the sick and poor.
Posted on: Thu, 24 Jul 2014 21:59:27 +0000
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