This series of vaults, uncovered by the razing of buildings on Water st, above Race making way for the Philadelphia anchorage of the Delaware River Bridge, once were partly under the waters of the Delaware and are believed to have been used by housewives of a hundred years as family laundries. The water's edge then was at Water st. and what is now Delaware av. was part of the river bottom.
Wow. The address 909 though? Otherwise Water St. north of Race is the 200s and has seen more obliteration from the El (not steel there anymore), the Ben Bridge and then I-95. And underneath the vaults may still lie.
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