Historic photographs of Philadelphia’s buildings, streetscapes, parks, and waterways are now just a click away on a map-based website. The Philadelphia Department of Records has over 2 million photographs dating back to 1865. Among these photographs are stunning pictures of ships arriving at dock, horse-drawn carriages on cobble streets, and the decaying Eastern State Penitentiary, America’s most historic prison. Today, the public can search for over 30,000 of these photographs by location, view the photographs online, and purchase prints to be delivered to their home or office.
The Photo Archives Website is a web-based GIS application which allows the public to search for historic photographs based on location. Users can search for photographs within a certain neighborhood, within a radius of an address, near a particular intersection, or by a place name like City Hall. In addition users can search for photographs during certain years and they can search the descriptions of photographs by keyword. For example, a user might search for a picture of ‘gas lamps’ or they might search for photographs near their own home address. All search results are returned with a map showing building footprints, streets, and the location of photographs in the area.
You can visit the website at http://secure.phila.gov/photoarchive/.
