Plan Philly: Engaging in Urban Dialogue

This site has been vacant so long it resembles natural grassland, and in fact provides quite a beautiful stroll in autumn. And it will remain vacant for a time, with the recent rejection of Pinnacle Entertainment Inc.’s proposal to build a $800 million casino on part of the site. But long ago, these silent acres were the buzzing nexus of William Cramp & Sons, the greatest of Philadelphia’s 19th century shipyards and a major pillar of Kensington’s economy. Through the centuries, the Delaware was so great a center of shipbuilding that the river was dubbed “The American Clyde,” after a famous shipbuilding region in Scotland. Even before the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, it is estimated that Philadelphia shipyards turned out around 850 vessels. In the First and Second World Wars, massive shipbuilding facilities like Hogg Island and the League Island Navy Yard churned out battleships and cruisers with unprecedented speed.

William Cramp & Sons (1830-1927) peaked at a critical time in shipbuilding technology, and is credited with innovations that would carry the industry from sails and wood to steam and iron – and finally to steel.

According to Nathaniel Burt and Wallace E. Davies’ chapter in Philadelphia: A 300-Year History, three generations of the Cramp family led the production of great transatlantic steamers such as the St. Louis and St. Paul, warships like the battleship USS Maine, and fine yachts such as J.P. Morgan’s Corsair.  Cramp ships fought the Spanish-American War, and served in Russian, Turkish and Japanese navies.

A lithograph of the works from 1892 shows a vast complex of thirty or more buildings extending back into Kensington and out onto piers in the river. They were wood shops and brass foundries, paint shops and offices. Corralled in a system of docks are a dozen steamships and sailing vessels. By 1902, the works spread over 50 acres.

Cramps closed its doors in 1927, the victim of a declining demand for ships, starting Kensington’s economy on its very long downhill slide.

The yard briefly reopened in 1941 for emergency war production of submarines, cruisers and other vessels, employing 10,000 men until war’s end.