America's Oldest Street Celebrates Christmas

Christmas is alive and well amidst the homes of Elfreth's Alley, America's oldest continuously occupied residential street in Philadelphia's Olde City just a few of blocks from Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell.
Elfreth's Alley (a narrow cobblestone street) is still very much the same as it was at the time of our nation's founding.
And last night the residents opened their homes for their annual Christmas tour.
These homes are rarely opened to the public so this was a very special treat.
Each homes featured distinctive decorations and all of them exuded the warm hospitality of the holiday. Carolers strolled through the street and fires burned brightly through the evening.
Elfreth's Alley dates back to the first days of the eighteenth century. Twenty years after William Penn founded Pennsylvania and established Philadelphia as its capital, the town had grown into a thriving, prosperous mercantile center on the banks of the Delaware River. Philadelphians had abandoned Penn’s plan for a "greene countrie towne" and instead created a cityscape similar to what they remembered in England. Shops, taverns, and homes crowded the area along the river. Philadelphians made and sold items essential to life in the New World and to the trade that was a part of their daily lives.
Two of these colonial craftsmen, blacksmiths John Gilbert and Arthur Wells, owned the land where Elfreth’s Alley now sits. In 1702, each man gave up a portion of his land to create an alleyway along their property line that connected their smithies near the river with Second Street, one block away. By that date, Second was a major north-south road, connecting Philadelphia with towns north and west of the city and the frontier beyond.
In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, numerous artisans and craftsmen resided on Elfreth’s Alley, often living and working in the same building. Even at that early date, Elfreth’s Alley had a diverse population. English colonists who worshipped at nearby Chris Church lived next door to Moses Mordecai, a Jewish merchant who was a leader of Mikveh Israel Synagogue. Cophie Douglass, a former slave, began his life as a free man in post-revolutionary Philadelphia while living on Elfreth’s Alley. During the Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century, the Alley became a neighborhood of immigrants from Germany, Ireland, and other parts of Europe who sought new opportunities in America.
By the early twentieth century, the Alley had become a run-down, impoverished area and faced numerous demolition threats. In 1934, Alley resident Dorothy Ottey organized a group of men and women to save several colonial houses from demolition by absentee landlords. They called themselves the Elfreth's Alley Association and helped to rescue the street from additional threats, including construction of I-95 in the late 1950s.
Today, Elfreth's Alley is a certified National Historic Site and a major tourist attraction. But above all, it still remains a genuine residential street where people actually live.
Photos copyright 2010 by Dan Cirucci.