Table Of ContentPalazzos of Power
Palazzos of Power
Aaron V. Wunsch Joseph E. B. Elliott Foreword by David E. Nye
Central Stations of the
Philadelphia Electric Company
1900–1930
Princeton Architectural Press
New York
Contents 7 Acknowledgments
9 Foreword by David E. Nye
13 Palazzos of Power by Aaron V. Wunsch
67 Artist’s Statement by Joseph E. B. Elliott
71 Plates
156 Appendix
Acknowledgments The two of us have had a longstanding interest in machine-age indus-
tr ial architecture and have been lucky to meet others who share it. By
the late 1990s, we were recording sites, including two of the power sta-
tions featured in this book, for the Historic American Buildings Survey
(habs) and its sister organization, the Historic American Engineering
Record (haer). We thank our colleagues at these agencies for their sup-
port, particularly Catherine Lavoie, chief of habs, and Eric DeLony,
former chief of haer. In 2002 the photographer Christopher Payne,
a former colleague from habs, published New York’s Forgotten Sub-
stations with Princeton Architectural Press. That project inspired Joe
to continue his utility-related work in Philadelphia. That same year, he
received a grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies
in the Fine Arts to support the photographic documentation present-
ed here. In consultation with Aaron, who agreed to provide scholarly
analysis for the work despite pedantic misgivings about the suitability
of the term palazzos to all of the central stations in question, he titled
his proposal Palazzos of Power.
The buildings featured in this book were erected by the Philadel-
phia Electric Company, predecessor of today’s peco. The latter is now a
subsidiary of the Chicago-based Exelon Corporation. Both companies
allowed us to explore their historic buildings and archives on a regular
and welcoming basis. When peco had a library, we were well served
by the librarians Christian Braig and Sabina Tannenbaum, along with
the law library coordinator Marilyn Roth. Later, as the peco Library
became the peco Archives, we received further assistance from Cece-
lia Crommarty, Larry McCarthy, Jeff Angle, and others. But out of all
peco’s staff, Walt Masny deserves our deepest thanks; even when some
of our requests and interests baffled him, he tirelessly offered guid-
ance and support during two decades that passed at lightning speed.
The book itself originated out of preparations for an exhibition at
the Athenaeum of Philadelphia in early 2008. Roger Moss and Bruce
Laverty provided support for the first project on industrial architec-
ture to be exhibited at the Athenaeum. That event gave us a chance to
display many of the photographs reproduced here and, on its opening
night, an opportunity to discuss some of the historical issues surround-
ing the subject. habs and the Athenaeum initiated the show, and we
thank them for its success.
Key editorial advice came from Sandy Isenstadt, Carla Yanni,
Jeffrey Cohen, David E. Nye, Daves Rossell, Daniel Barber, Domenic
Vitiello, and especially David Brownlee. Conversations with Daniel
Bluestone, Michael J. Lewis, Dell Upton, David Wunsch, Michael
Osman, Kate Holliday, and James H. Hill were also helpful. David
Kazen faithfully tracked down hard-to-find articles from long-defunct
journals in Charlottesville and Princeton.
For the beautiful object this book has become, we thank our de-
signer, Michael Dyer, and our editors, Barbara Darko and Rob Shaeffer,
at Princeton Architectural Press.
We also wish to thank the following for their generous assistance
in the production and publication of this book: the Humanities + Ur-
banism + Design Initiative at the University of Pennsylvania, which
generously defrayed publication costs while Aaron was one of its fel-
lows; Gerry Weinstein, president of General Tools in New York, who
has been a lifelong supporter of all forms of work in industrial history
and industrial archaeology, including Joe’s previous book, The Steel;
Muhlenberg College, which once again provided support for Joe’s work
through the Daniel J. and Carol Shiner Wilson Award for the Comple-
tion of Scholarly Projects; and the Athenaeum of Philadelphia, which
provided support for the publication we began work on long ago, to
coincide with the original exhibit.
For the luxury of time and support offered to us as academics, we
thank our employers, the University of Pennsylvania and Muhlenberg
College.
Finally, we would like to thank Betsy Elliott and Jillian Galle, for
their support of this and many other projects.
7
Foreword David E. Nye
Central power stations once held great prestige, for they symbolized
the shift from muscle power to machine power, from small-scale to
industrial production, and from the dimly lighted artisanal world to
the flashing signs and vibrant nightlife of the skyscraper city. The first
electric dynamos were by necessity located in city centers, and by 1881
had already been installed in San Francisco, Cleveland, New York,
Chicago, London, and Philadelphia.1 These power plants were small
compared to those erected two decades later, yet they aroused consid-
erable public interest. Power systems, especially railways and station-
ary steam engines, had long fascinated Americans, who celebrated
railway systems—with their massive stations, impressive bridges, and
mountain-scaling tracks—such as the Pennsylvania Railroad’s famous
“Horseshoe Curve,” which is now a historic site. A landmark event in
the celebration of steam power was the Philadelphia Centennial Ex-
position of 1876, where the most famous attraction was an enormous
Corliss steam engine, the largest in the world at the time. Its fifty-six-
ton flywheel revolved soundlessly at 36 rpm, slow enough that the eye
could follow its endless revolutions. It towered over the machinery in
the central hall and drove it steadily through eight lines of shafting.2
Philadelphia had thrived on the coal trade; based on steam power, it
had become a leading manufacturer, and by the time electrical systems
were introduced, it prided itself on being “the workshop of the world.”
Perhaps it is little wonder that the city’s electric utility also built im-
pressive generating stations.
After 1880 steam was rapidly adapted to the production of elec-
tricity, which eliminated the need for most driveshafts and gears. They
were replaced by flexible wires that transmitted energy much farther
than any mechanical system could. Even so, the first electric central
stations were located in city centers, relatively close to customers. It
was too expensive to transmit direct current over long distances, and
in the business district utilities learned early the art of disguising the
latest technology in familiar architectural garb. Like the Statue of
Liberty, whose interior skeleton was designed by Gustave Eiffel and
resembles his famous steel tower in Paris but whose exterior harks back
to classical sculpture, the early central station typically had a classical
form draped over the modern technology inside.
This volume is primarily concerned with the second generation of
power plants, built after 1900. By then, alternating current was com-
mercially viable and could be economically transmitted longer dis-
tances than direct current. Utilities quickly realized that it would be
efficient to consolidate production into a few large power plants lo-
cated on waterfronts or in factory districts and away from expensive
downtown real estate. The power stations designed for these more pe-
ripheral locations were by no means mere exercises in functionalism,
nor were they modeled on surrounding factories. Rather, as in much
of the rest of the country, Philadelphia’s utility made recourse to aca-
demic neoclassicism. As at the world’s fairs in Chicago (1893), Buffalo
(1901), and San Francisco (1915), industrial leaders housed the newest
electrical technologies in historicist “European” enclosures. Many of
the same impulses were at work in high-end domestic interiors. Louis
Comfort Tiffany’s signature lamps put electric lighting behind stained
glass, and many homeowners bought “electroliers” whose design and
small bulbs mimicked candle chandeliers. Both at the macro level of
power plant or exposition and at the micro level of home furnishings,
Americans typically swathed new electrical technologies in the reas-
suring garb of tradition.
Yet, as Aaron Wunsch makes clear, there was more at stake for
corporate leaders than making the public comfortable with a new
technology. In these years Americans actively debated whether elec-
tric utilities ought to be run by the cities themselves (as in Detroit and
Cleveland) or by private corporations (as in Boston, New York, and
Chicago). The Philadelphia Electric Company felt itself under attack
9
