The Chester Waterside Station is
a monument to the production and marketing of electricity in early
twentieth century America. Wartime demand for light and power led
Philadelphia Electric Company to commission the plant for the company’s
Chester, Pennsylvania subsidiary in 1916. Conceived by architect John
T. Windrim and engineer William C.L. Eglin, the design featured recent
advances in electricity generation and industrial construction. A
work of City Beautiful classicism, it also reflected the sponsor’s
desire to express stability, permanence and civic responsibility at
a time when electric utilities faced considerable public scrutiny.
In later years, Eglin and Windrim were to collaborate on similar projects,
adorning the banks of the Delaware River with some of the grandest
power plants ever erected in the United States.
Photographing places like this old power plant give me a great perspective
on the history of this country and of technology as well. I can’t
help but think of the people that worked in this plant, and how excited
they must have been, on their first day, to be working in such a monument
to technical achievement. It sat empty since about 1980. All of the
equipment seen in these photos has since been removed.
These photographs were born out of a desire of the demolition contractor
to document the building prior to removal of the generation equipment.
The building is being re-used as an office building. To date there
are 70 total views of this project all in 4x5 format. I began photographing
this building in March 2002 and will continue as long as I have access. |
