Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Furnished Room Problem in Philadelphia
To trace the evolution of the district it would be necessary to include the whole history of the city of Philadelphia. This is impossible. Watson, in his annals of Philadelphia, and other writers as well, have given us a mass of material dealing with the social condition of the city in early times. Phila delphia has always been famed for its comfortable homes. The lower part of the district, which forms the basis of our study in earlier years, contained the homes of the gentry of Philadelphia. Up to 1800 all of the best and richest merchants of Philadelphia dwelt under the same roofs with their stores on North Front street. After the merchants began to change their homes from Front street and the shores of the Delaware to the western outskirts of the city, the improvement of Philadelphia became rapid and great. It may mark the character of the change to state, that when Mr. Markhoe built the large double house out High street, between Ninth and Tenth streets, in the front centre of a fenced meadow, it was so remote from all city intercourse, that it used to be a jest among his friends to say, He lived out High street, next house but one to the Schuylkill ferry. (watson's Annals of Philadelphia, Vol. I, p. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
