SOCIETY HILL AND OLD CITY with Robert Morris Skaler

Society Hill and Old City

SOCIETY HILL AND OLD CITY

By Robert Morris Skaler

Mr. Skaler will present a PowerPoint slide presentation featuring images from his book Society Hill and Old City starting from the 18th century when Society Hill was home to wealthy merchants and many members of the new federal government and artisans and workman who lived and worked in small row houses like those on Elfreth’s Alley to the rebirth of these neighborhoods in the 20th century. Almost forgotten by 1900, Society Hill had become home to poor immigrants and its once gracious homes had become run-down tenements, shops, and warehouses. Yet, at the same time, Society Hill remained Philadelphia’s banking and insurance center.

Beginning in the 1960’s, under the direction of city planner Edmund Bacon and the National Park Service, this neglected neighborhood was restored becoming one of Philadelphia’s most viable and expensive neighborhoods. This miraculous transformation is visually documented in Mr. Skaler’s lecture and book. 

Robert M. Skaler is a forensic architect and graduate of the University of Pennsylvania School of Architecture. He is a Past President of the Philadelphia Chapter of the Victorian Society, board member of the Old York Road Historical Society member of the Union League of Philadelphia, and is an adviser to several Historic Societies. For more than 45 years, he has been collecting Philadelphia postcards from the early 1900s that document Victorian Philadelphia, which he uses to author pictorial histories of Philadelphia as it looked in vintage postcards and archival views. 

Register now online, in the Library Office, Abington Free Library, 1030 Old York Road, Abington, Pennsylvania 19001, call 215-885-5180, ext. 15, or email kburnham@mclinc.org