Pier 35 South, 759 South Delaware Avenue, Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, PA

Significance: Pier 35 South is a rare extant example of timber crib pier construction along the Philadelphia waterfront. Crib construction, in which a series of timber boxes are filled with rubble and sunk, forming the pier structure, constituted one of the most common methods of building piers and wharfs in the eighteenth century. By the first decades of the nineteenth century this method had given way to pile construction, which required substantially less timber. The earliest extant portions of Pier 35 South date from the 1830s, well after pile construction became common. The survival of crib construction into the middle decades of the nineteenth century indicates the presence of a substantial degree of continuity in pier construction techniques and suggests that new building technologies did not totally eliminate earlier, more traditional technologies.
Survey number: HAER PA-174