(Nothing But) Flowers

Our site visit assignment was the perfect excuse for me to get to Bartram’s Garden, one of my favorite historic sites in the Philadelphia region.

The Bartram family ran their business and lived on the site, passing it down from its founding in 1728 to 1851. At that time, railroad industrialist, Andrew Eastwick bought the property as a private park and estate, but with preservation of the site in mind. Upon Eastwick’s death, the caretaker of the property, Thomas Meehan led a successful effort to have the City of Philadelphia take over the management of the site, later to be joined by the John Bartram Association in 1893. The two entities maintain the site to this day.

Bartram's Garden circa 1928, Urban Archives

Given its surroundings, the fact that the pre-revolutionary botanic garden has endured is pretty remarkable. Aside from the estate and gardens themselves, one of the more interesting features of Bartram’s Garden for me personally is the space around it. Situated on the Schuylkill River in Southwest Philadelphia, the 102 acres of the original estate has shrunk to its current 45 acres, but has held its ground. Driving to Bartram’s Garden can be notoriously confusing for first-time visitors. You have to navigate through or around the post-industrial infrastructure along Lindbergh Boulevard, passing by an abandoned municipal incinerator, oil drums and any number of repurposed industrial sites. The signs for Bartram’s Garden can easily be missed the first time you go by, with the neighboring ‘Bartram’s Village’ housing project sometimes being the only clue that you’re on the right track.

Bartram’s Garden is hemmed in by CSX and SEPTA railroad tracks and is across the river from some of what I think is part of the Sunoco factory. For decades its two immediate neighbors on either given side were a cement factory and gypsum factory. Fortunately, Bartram’s Garden watched both come and go. Ironically in the 1990’s, the land that the cement factory was on was reclaimed by Bartram’s Garden and restored as a meadow that offers one of the most unique views of the Philadelphia skyline and a trail that leads down to the Schuylkill River. The ghostly, towering structures of the gypsum factory, a favorite of local urban explorers was knocked down within the last two years although I have yet to find anyone who knows what the plans are for the space. It will be interesting to see if that ever will become part of Bartram’s Garden or repurposed as a green space again.

Although Bartram’s Garden suffers a bit from its geographical isolation from Philadelphia’s downtown cultural institutions, the incongruity of the surrounding environment only accentuates the uniqueness and exoticness of Bartram’s Garden. The rich gardens and 18th century barns juxtaposition with the scarred post-industrial landscape around it offer a chance to reflect on everything that has occupied the space around it along with the future those spaces hold.

Although I didn’t get to formally explore it much in my review, it’s an interest piqued from my visit and one I’ll probably explore further.

Gypsum Factory in 2006