Philadelphia's Forgotten Ghost Town

Philadelphia is a very dense city… in fact, among American cities with a population over 1,000,000 it ranks behind just New York and Chicago in density. So why, then is there a huge, completely vacant area of roughly 2 dozen city blocks, just 5 miles from center city? This particular area of north Philly was outside of the downtown area back when Philly was much smaller so for the second half of the 1800s and early 1900s, it was used as a dumping ground for coal ash. Over the years the ash piled up so that throughout much of this area it was 30-60 feet deep. Then as the population continued to boom, builders began to look for sites further and further out from the city center, until they finally reached the Logan triangle area. Being the early 1900s, there wasn’t much concern for things like soil toxicity, or the inevitable shifting and settling that would occur in loosely packed piles of coal ash … so builders began to build homes here. Before long, the area was a densely packed thriving neighborhood. The first major sign of trouble was a gas explosion that rocked the neighborhood in 1959. The unstable and constantly settling soil had led to a ruptured gas main which subsequently caused the explosion. Repairs were made, but at the time nothing was done to address the underlying issue. It’s likely that the extent of the issue wasn’t really known at the the time. A second explosion decades later in the 1980s was when people really began to wake up about the issues that the neighborhood. The Army Corps of Engineers was called in to assess the situation … and their assessment was bleak. Over 1000 homes were considered unstable with nearly 2 dozen at imminent threat of collapse. Stabilizing the area would likely cost $50 million or more. Chapters 0:00 - Intro 0:21 - Quick history of Logan Triangle 1:10 - Explosive signs of trouble 2:56 - Timeline of demolitions 4:02 - Driving tour of Logan Triangle 5:36 - My immediate reaction while on site 6:32 - What to do with the site? 7:17 - The only reasonable answer for Logan Triangle 9:28 - Recreational Destination or Dumping Ground… Changing the Narrative 10:31 - Opportunity cost (and actualy costs) of leaving a site in limbo