Upcoming Program At Wagner Free Institute Of Science Looks Back At Pivotal Year: 1865
By Molly Daly
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) --- The Wagner Free Institute of Science celebrates the 150th anniversary of its North Philadelphia home with a free program Wednesday evening that explores how the major events of 1865 -- the end of the Civil War, and Lincoln's assassination -- played out in Philadelphia, and influenced its future.
Athenaeum of Philadelphia Architecture Curator Bruce Laverty will deliver the talk, called Philadelphia 1865: A City on the Edge.
"It's comparable to 1945, where America celebrated a victory, but from that time on, nothing was ever really the same," Laverty says.
Among the many changes to be discussed -- the expansion, integration, and consolidation of the streetcar services, which until 1883 were privately owned by men who saw them as a means to a profitable end.
"They would buy up real estate, then put their trolley car lines through there, and immediately increase the value of the land, and then would develop the land as residential property," Laverty says.
Some of it is in the area around the Wagner Free Institute, at 17th and Montgomery. The free lecture starts at 6; the reception that follows it is free for members, $10 for non-members.