Antique Philadelphia Print - The Delaware River Pavilion Pier, proposed 1899 - CHESTNUT STREET

Tap ZOOM above to see it larger! Please note the 2nd and 3rd image showing great details of this print...

Treasures from THE PHILADELPHIA / DELAWARE VALLEY COLLECTION at The Willing Mind. By exclusive arrangement with The Grand Review.

Print size 24 x 14.  

Penn's Landing, Philadelphia's historic waterfront, was cut off from the city by Interstate 95 back in the 1970s, and is only now starting to find its sea legs again.

For 150 years, Philadelphia had the largest and most prosperous waterfront in the Western Hemisphere, eventually being overshadowed by New York City and New Jersey side of the Hudson. Still, the shipping industry remains huge in Philly, but most of the folks in the Delaware Valley region have lost that personal connection to the river.

This print is a delightful look at the pier system along the Delaware River in 1899. The proposed Pavilion Pier was built, though only a shortened version remains. I open this description up to those experts who'd like to set me straight on all the facts. Please don't be shy.

I bought the raw version of this wonderful image some years back. Large, and neatly torn down the middle, the two halves were very rough but patience, a huge bowl of fresh popcorn made by my younger son and some driving music carried us through the restoration!

When the beautiful, rethought and rebuilt Race Street Pier opened just a few years ago, me and my friend Dave Amodei set up our big xenon 16mm projector and showed the original Invasion Of The Body Snatchers to a small but enthusiastic crowd. Hey, it was damned near Halloween, and it was cold out there!

Rediscover the Delaware River, and bring one of these prints into your world... enjoy!

• Handmade item
• Materials: Art stock enhanced matte paper, archival ink
• Made to order
• Only ships within United States.

SHIPPING

All prints are shipped in a sturdy mailing tube for $8, which covers postage, tube and S & H.

BUYING MORE THAN ONE PRINT? Add a second print or any number thereafter of this or any other prints in our catalog and shipping is still just $8, total!!!

International shipping is available and reasonable. Please contact us for details.

A NOTE ON OUR PROCESS, OUR CHOICES AND THE QUALITY OF THE GRAPHIC CRAFTSMANSHIP THAT GOES INTO OUR PRINTS.

Every print we deem exciting enough to present to the public via our Etsy store or available here at our studio has gone through a number of steps. The first of those is always discovering and falling in love with an obscure image, always an original that we can hold in our hands. That image is speaking to us, sometime screaming “Don’t leave me here. See what I am, what I was, what I can be, what I SHOULD be!”

There is a real sense of excitement involved, and a great many smiles and knowing grins when we make that deal and bring that ancient print, that battered photo, that scrap of ephemera that contains some scrap of genius from an unknown commercial artist home with us, knowing already how we mean to approach its restoration.

There is the heady promise of a further hunt just as real as what drags a weekend fisherman out of bed at 3AM to work a favorite brook as we start our research, looking for that great backstory, and both ready and willing to tumble down as many rabbit holes as are revealed to us to get that story.

Then there is a meticulous digital restoration that is as often as much fun as riding a vintage Moto Guzzi on a winding coastal road. I don’t care if that sounds crazy, it really is like jumping in the saddle! So many choices, so many chances to take to subtly or spectacularly give new life to otherwise permanently obscure images.

This dedication and the ongoing rush of joy in the accomplishment of it, and the opportunity to share the results in our studio and here on Etsy, is the fire of passion that keeps these engines roaring. We make every effort to ensure our customers are not just satisfied but thrilled, and we happily stand 100% behind our work.