Tookany Creek Park Trail, 2020

In celebration of Earth Day, 2020, I wanted to document a unique natural place on Route 1. An urban waterway tells the history of the impact of our industrial development on nature best. Tookany Creek was an oasis when the Lenai Lenapi Indians named their hunting grounds. “Tookany” means wild forest in their language. Philadelphians have settled upon “Tacony” as their preferred spelling. The creek is a tributary of the Delaware River, with an outlet just south of the Betsy Ross Bridge and the Tacony section of Philadelphia.

In the 1820’s, eight water-powered textile mills had opened along the creek, which is now called “Frankford Creek” below Roosevelt Boulevard (Route 1). The city’s population and industrial base began to put pressure on the natural resources of the creek. Raw sewage and industrial wastes were dumped directly into the creek along the “wild forest”.

One of the most notable of the mills was the Whitaker Mill, that opened in 1813 using a water wheel for power. It remained in operation at Tabor Street and Tacony Creek until 1970. The building was lost to arson in 1975, but some of the residences from the Cedar Grove settlement near the mill still remain along Tabor Street. Bed ticking and chenille were patented products of the Whitaker Mill, which also produced wool blankets and canvases during the Civil War.

By the early 1900’s, Philadelphia’s Sanitary Commission had planned to enclose most of the tributary creeks, including the Wingohocking Creek, which begins in the Mt. Airy section of Northwest Philadelphia. The enclosure measures 21’ high and 24’ wide. By enclosing the creek, land that had been subject to floods was opened for housing and commercial development. One of those areas was a neighborhood in Logan that was filled with up to 60’ of fly ash in the 1920’s. Fly ash and cinders proved to be an inexpensive but unsuitable material. In February, 1986, a gas main leaked in Logan, causing an explosion along a residential street. During the 25 year period that followed, the City purchased almost 1000 properties from their owners in a 35 acre area of Logan. The once-elegant stone and brick homes had begun to sink, settle unevenly, and collapse. www.instagram.com/p/49aGgNxH2R/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet Today, the Wingohocking Creek still dumps raw sewage into the Frankford Creek during storm surges.

In addition to two centuries of degraded water quality, the Tookany/Tacony-Frankford Creek has many other problems of a typical urban watershed. Illegal dumping and litter is rampant, despite the efforts of local organizations like the Tacony Park Creek Keepers tcpkeepers.org/ who organize regular cleanups and try to raise awareness among park users. Dirtbikes and all-terrain vehicles carve paths and destroy vegetation. There seems to be a sense of resignation by law enforcement in trying to apprehend, contain, or punish illegal motorized recreation along the creek. Few recreational alternatives are available for neighborhood residents. And I’m not sure I’ve ever seen so much graffiti on trees before!

The 3.2 mile Tacony Creek Park Trail was completed in early 2018, when an underpass for Roosevelt Boulevard (Route 1) linked the northern and southern sections of the trail. Some of the trail had been in place around the time of the first Earth Day in 1970s, but in 2013, things got serious, and the trail was repaved and signed, and access points were improved. The trail is a wonderful way to connect with nature, if one is willing to look past dumped construction debris, tires, abandoned shopping carts, and thousands of plastic shopping bags and bottles along the stream banks. There are many native shrubs and trees, songbirds, herons, beaver, deer, kingfishers, and birds of prey along the narrow band of green that winds through dense neighborhoods and commercial areas. The trail is a real lifeline of hope and a source of inspiration for an area with with its share of city problems.

Under Philadelphia’s “Green City, Clean Waters Plan”, the Tookany-Tacony/Frankford Creek may be clean enough to fish in and swim in by 2040. The first part of the Wingohocking Creek to see daylight was uncovered in Awbury Arboretum in Germantown recently. In 2018, Friends Hospital opened 49 acres of adjacent land to the community as a recreational easement. The Tacony Park Trail has been added to the Philadelphia Circuit Trails, one of the largest trail networks in the US. Signs of hope are beginning to appear like spring flowers!