Drawing Dock Creek: Winifred Lutz
Independence National Historical Park
From Walnut to Chestnut between Third & Fifth Streets (on view 24/7)
Through 27 September 2008
FIND the “underground” in Independence National Historical Park. Follow the path of a creek buried long ago under the streets of colonial Philadelphia. Discover the good, the bad, and the dangerous in Dock Creek’s evolution from pristine creek to polluted sewer.
Philadelphia developed around Dock Creek, a vital artery in the heart of the colonial city that ran west from the Delaware River. Yet the now-buried stream has vanished both from the city’s ecological history and from its sense of place. A pristine waterway when William Penn founded Philadelphia, the creek broke the carefully laid-out grid of the city’s streets. It soon became polluted by tanneries, breweries, and slaughterhouses, eventually turning into a sewer and then a subsurface waterway, now long forgotten.
Lutz’s project brings the once beautiful tidal stream to life again. Tinted whitewash and lime “flow” over grass, brick, cobble, and concrete, marking the creek’s path from the juncture of Dock Street and Third Street to where it splits into two branches. The installation then follows the north branch to Chestnut Street, and the other branch, which heads south and west, to Walnut Street. Look for white wavy lines and tall grasses.
In September 2008, the artist will animate the whitewash and lime markings with 48,000 feet (9 miles) of vibrant blue elastic bands stretched across the swale of the dry creek bed, visible in Independence Park between Third and Fourth streets.
Dock Creek, THEN...
Images: (left) The first bridge built across Dock Creek in Colonial Philadelphia; (right) Detail of Dock Creek from Philadelphie, par Eas[t]burn, B. Eastburn, cartographer, ca. 1777.
...and NOW
Images: White lines showing the former path of Dock Creek through what is now Independence National Historical Park. In the center is Carpenters' Hall, built in 1774 near what had been a confluence of Dock Creek. Left Photo: Lisa Godfrey; Middle and Right Photos: Frank Margeson
