The last great headhouse on SEPTA’s Market-Frankford Line embodies lofty architectural ambitions
Apart from prisons, few Philadelphia buildings are more joyless than the headhouses found along the eastern section of SEPTA’s Market-Frankford Line. These small structures enclose the staircases that take you, in one straight, vertigo-inducing run, from street level to the train platforms. The dull metal panels and tiles used on the exteriors were clearly chosen for easy cleaning, and yet they always seem to be streaked with grime.
The architecture of the Market-Frankford El (as most Philadelphians call it) wasn’t always so utilitarian. When the elevated line was completed in the 1920s, the eastern segment was dotted with Gothic-style headhouses that would have looked at home on a leafy, early 20th century college campus. But when SEPTA began reconstructing the El’s steel viaduct in the 1990s, all the original Gothic headhouses were demolished.
Except for one.
Read more: The last great headhouse on SEPTA’s Market-Frankford Line embodies lofty architectural ambitions
