Nov 22, 2021
Philadelphia engineer and architect Frederick Graff worked with architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe to design the city’s water works at Centre Square and became their superintendent in 1805. This plan with its many notations made over the span of more than two decades shows how the water works became integrated into the fabric of the lives of the city’s residents.
Unsurprisingly, Graff included information about the length, width, and circumference of various walkways in the square, but we also learn through these additions of the presence of a gambling house and the discovery of a murder victim’s body.
Frederick Graff, [Plan of Centre Square], ca. 1800-1827.
