Whether you consider it a renaissance or rank gentrification, something to celebrate or to lament, or an uneasy, ambivalent mix of both, everyone in Philadelphia seems to have an opinion about the radical changes Northern Liberties has undergone in the last twenty ...]]> Neighborhood around Schmidt’s Brewery, 1963. Courtesy Temple University Urban Archives

Whether you consider it a renaissance or rank gentrification, something to celebrate or to lament, or an uneasy, ambivalent mix of both, everyone in Philadelphia seems to have an opinion about the radical changes Northern Liberties has undergone in the last twenty years.  PhilaPlace offers some personal perspectives on Northern Liberties, then and now.

Artist Jennifer Baker writes about documenting the transformation of Northern Liberties from post-industrial netherhood to Piazza-fied “hipster mecca.”  Baker started painting scenes of the neighborhood in 1978, when Schmidt’s still bottled beer and the hulking Burk Brothers tannery sat on what is now Liberty Lands Park.  She kept painting as buildings were burned, demolished, or redeveloped into high-end condos.  And Baker paints the stalwarts that remain, like Kaplan’s Bakery and St. Andrew’s Russian Orthodox Church (you know, the one with the blue domes).  Read her story and check out a gallery of her Northern Liberties paintings.

Of course, Northern Liberties’ post-industrial woes and post-millennial makeover is not the whole story.  For a first-hand account of the sights, sounds and smells of Northern Liberties in its industrial heyday, watch this interview with Agnes Hatcher.  Born in 1928, Hatcher grew up on the 900 block of North American Street back when the neighborhood was just called North Philly, and the industrial landscape was her playground. She affectionately recalls her “stinking” neighborhood: beer bubbles floating out of Ortlieb’s Brewery, the smell of freshly baked bread emanating from Kaplan’s, and the decidedly less pleasant smell of freshly-tanned hide wafting out of the American Street tannery.

The story of Garden Looms, a small women’s lingerie factory at 2nd & Fairmount,  embodies the transformation of Northern Liberties by following the arc of 20th-century industrial boom, decline, and transformation. You may know the building at 735-737 North 2nd as artist’s studios and apartments, but for much of the 20th century, Garden Looms was a family business that supplied large department stores like Wanamaker’s and Lit Brothers as well smaller-scale middlemen. Murray Rosenberg, grandson of the founders, generously shared his family’s photographs and history with PhilaPlace. Read the story of Garden Looms and see the inner workings of the lingerie factory.

And of course, you can put it all together and take the (relatively) long view — from the 18th century to the present — by taking PhilaPlace’s Northern Liberties tour.