From the beginning this place was off the grid, a comical stepchild of colonial grandeur. In 1682 Billy Penn needed a gimmick to sell land in the newly
created city of Philadelphia. His solution: give away northerly estates to
large buyers. Thus was The Northern Liberties born—America's
first "yours free with minimum purchase" community.
It didn't take long for the "Liberties" to take on another meaning, as the
place quickly became freer, and more unruly, than the central city. Its land
got carved up into small plots for servants. By the 1830s its population had
swelled past 30,000, with laborers, artisans and lowlifes living on top of
each other. |
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On the neighborhood's dirt streets, Nathaniel Popkin writes, "voices of gypsies and hucksters competed with the sounds of sea gulls swirling above. Goats and chickens wandered between the buildings."* Over the next century the community—and its air, no doubt—was seasoned with breweries, tanneries, factories, warehouses, animal-processing operations, even a record making plant. In the 1990s, residents toiling to create what would become Liberty Lands, the city's only community owned public park,
Left: Ortleibs
Brewery and Bottling
Building, 800 Block
of American Street.
Above: An etching
from 1806 showing
2nd and Fairmount
Streets.
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