place

Passyunk Township, Pennsylvania

1854 disestablishments in PennsylvaniaMunicipalities in Philadelphia County prior to the Act of Consolidation, 1854
PassyunkTwp1854
PassyunkTwp1854

Passyunk Township (Lenape Pahsayunk 'in the valley' from pahsaek 'valley') is a defunct township that was located in Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, United States.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Passyunk Township, Pennsylvania (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Passyunk Township, Pennsylvania
Penrose Avenue, Philadelphia South Philadelphia

Geographical coordinates (GPS) Address Nearby Places
placeShow on map

Wikipedia: Passyunk Township, PennsylvaniaContinue reading on Wikipedia

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 39.898055555556 ° E -75.211666666667 °
placeShow on map

Address

George C. Platt Bridge

Penrose Avenue
19153 Philadelphia, South Philadelphia
Pennsylvania, United States
mapOpen on Google Maps

PassyunkTwp1854
PassyunkTwp1854
Share experience

Nearby Places

George C. Platt Bridge
George C. Platt Bridge

The George C. Platt Memorial Bridge is a through truss bridge that carries PA 291 (Penrose Avenue) over the Schuylkill River in Southwest Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was opened to traffic in 1951, replacing a swing bridge to the south which carried Penrose Ferry Road across the river. Originally called the Penrose Avenue Bridge, it was renamed in 1979 to honor Civil War hero George Crawford Platt (1842–1912). Today, the Platt Bridge is a key arterial route which carries an average of 56,000 vehicles daily. In 1967, a steel dividing wall was installed to separate eastbound from westbound traffic lanes. The lack of a barrier led to more than 30 head-on collisions on the bridge between 1964 and 1967. The coming wall was announced by the State Highway Department on November 15, 1967. The bridge passes over an oil refinery (originally owned by Gulf Oil, then by Sun Oil, now by Philadelphia Energy Solutions). Fires at the refinery have several times imperiled the bridge and even closed it for several hours during the 1975 Philadelphia Gulf refinery fire. On August 17, a fire began in a tank to the northeast of the bridge that was being filled with Venezuelan crude oil. As the fire enveloped much of the refinery, several explosions put a large crack in a smokestack next to the bridge. Officials closed the bridge for several hours, fearing that the stack might collapse or the fire might damage the bridge. Eight firefighters died fighting the fire. In 1986, two bronze bas-reliefs of Platt's visage were mounted on poles at each end of the bridge. The works were commissioned by Platt's great-great-grandson, Lawrence Griffin Platt, who raised $10,000 with the help of a former Gulf Oil executive, and were sculpted by Philadelphia artist Reginald E. Beauchamp. Both were later stolen, the first in 1987, and the second some time later. A $500 reward offered by the Philadelphia Daily News in 2002 was unsuccessful in securing their return.In June 2011, PennDOT began a three-year, $42.8 million rehabilitation project to repair and maintain the bridge, enabling it to continue to safely carry vehicular and pedestrian traffic for decades to come. Crews painted the bridge's steel truss and structural steel underneath the spans to protect them from the elements. They also rehabilitated and resurfaced the center truss spans; resurfaced concrete approach spans; repair structural steel; replaced or improved expansion joints; repaired concrete piers; repaired and replaced guide rail; and replaced damaged pedestrian railings. During construction, the bridge's four lanes were reduced to two; one in each direction. From May 7, 2012, until the completion of construction in June 2014, trucks and buses weighing more than seven tons or carrying hazardous material were banned from using the bridge to minimize the risk of accidents on one-lane sections.By 2018, the new paint started to peel away from areas of the superstructure above the deck, and the exposed metal began to rust.

Schuylkill River
Schuylkill River

The Schuylkill River ( SKOOL-kil, locally SKOO-kəl) is a river running northwest to southeast in eastern Pennsylvania, which was improved by navigations into the Schuylkill Canal. Several of its tributaries drain major parts of the center-southern and easternmost Coal Regions in the state. It flows for 135 miles (217 km) from Pottsville to Philadelphia, where it joins the Delaware River as one of its largest tributaries. In 1682 William Penn chose the left bank of the confluence upon which he founded the planned city of Philadelphia on lands purchased from the native Delaware nation. It is a designated Pennsylvania Scenic River, and its whole length was once part of the Delaware people's southern territories. The river's watershed of about 2,000 sq mi (5,180 km2) lies entirely within the state of Pennsylvania, the upper portions in the Ridge-and-valley Appalachian Mountains where the folding of the mountain ridges metamorphically modified bituminous into widespread anthracite deposits located north of the Blue Mountain barrier ridge. Millions of tons of coal from Pennsylvania's Anthracite Coal Region flowed by waterway and rail into Philadelphia to feed the iron and steel industry. The source of the Schuylkill's eastern branch is in heavily mined land, one ridgeline south of Tuscarora Lake along a drainage divide with the Little Schuylkill River, about a mile east of the village of Tuscarora and about a mile west of Tamaqua, at Tuscarora Springs in Schuylkill County. Tuscarora Lake is one source of the Little Schuylkill. The West Branch starts near Minersville and joins the eastern branch at the town of Schuylkill Haven. It then combines with the Little Schuylkill River downstream in the town of Port Clinton. The Tulpehocken Creek joins it at the western edge of Reading. Wissahickon Creek joins it in northwest Philadelphia. Other major tributaries include: Maiden Creek, Manatawny Creek, French Creek, and Perkiomen Creek. The Schuylkill joins the Delaware at the site of the former Philadelphia Navy Yard, now the Philadelphia Naval Business Center, just northeast of Philadelphia International Airport.

Siege of Fort Mifflin
Siege of Fort Mifflin

The siege of Fort Mifflin or siege of Mud Island Fort from September 26 to November 16, 1777 saw British land batteries commanded by Captain John Montresor and a British naval squadron under Vice Admiral Lord Richard Howe attempt to capture an American fort in the Delaware River commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Smith. The operation finally succeeded when the wounded Smith's successor, Major Simeon Thayer, evacuated the fort on the night of November 15 and the British occupied the place the following morning. Owing to a shift of the river, Fort Mifflin is currently located on the north bank of the Delaware adjacent to Philadelphia International Airport. After General Sir William Howe's British-Hessian army occupied Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on September 26, 1777, it became necessary to supply his troops. Fort Mifflin on Mud Island in the middle of the Delaware and Fort Mercer at Red Bank, New Jersey, together with river obstructions and a small flotilla under Commodore John Hazelwood prevented the Royal Navy from shipping provisions into the city. With Philadelphia effectively blockaded by the Americans, the Howe brothers were forced to lay siege to Fort Mifflin in order to clear the river. A Hessian attempt to storm Fort Mercer failed with heavy losses on October 22 in the Battle of Red Bank. Two British warships which had run aground near Mud Island were destroyed the next day. General George Washington reinforced Fort Mifflin throughout the siege, but the garrison never numbered more than 500 men. After a few setbacks, the British finally assembled enough artillery and warships to bring Fort Mifflin under an intense bombardment beginning on November 10. No longer able to reply to the British bombardment, Thayer ordered the survivors to row across to New Jersey in the night and left the flag flying. Fort Mercer was abandoned soon afterward, opening the Delaware and permitting the British to hold Philadelphia until June 1778.