Historic Philadelphia

walkway, distressing contractors who weren’t
insured against citizens falling overboard. By
the end of 1972, officials announced that
they were looking for a developer. One was
chosen in 1973. In 1974, the developer had
trouble getting financing and couldn’t begin
anything because of work on the expressway,
which Philadelphians were now calling by
its prosaic interstate designation, I-95. By
the Bicentennial year, there was actually something
there: a sculpture garden, not yet
completed; a state Ports of History Museum,
unfinished and not open; Admiral Dewey’s
1898 flagship, U.S.S. Olympia, and a World
War II midget submarine, Becuna, both open
to visitors; two sailing ships, Moshulu and
Gazela Primeiro, and the riverside walkway
lined with poles of fluttering banners. In 1978
the state boarded up its never opened museum
and told the city it could have the building. As
the 1970s ended, Penn’s Landing hosted some
waterfront festivals, small boats started using
the marina, there were concerts in the
sculpture garden, and officials were looking
for a new developer.
City Stores Company closed Lit Brothers
department store in 1977, the same year the
building was put on the National Register of
Historic Places. City Stores declared bankruptcy
in 1979, and offered the building for
sale. Also in 1977, the first section of the
Gallery, a shopping mall in the heart of the
city, with department stores and the usual
mall shops and food court, opened on Market
Street virtually across the street from the
empty Lits store.
✧
Mayor Frank L. Rizzo welcomed Her
Majesty Queen Elizabeth II when she
arrived at Penn’s Landing on the royal
yacht during the 1976 Bicentennial
Celebration, the two-hundredth anniversary
of the Declaration of Independence that was
aimed at her great-great-great-great
grandfather. In the background,
Pennsylvania Governor Milton Shapp
greeted Prince Philip.
COURTESY OF THE PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS.
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