Mt. Airy Station - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
N 40° 03.912 W 075° 11.472
18T E 483695 N 4435011
This station was designed in 1883 by Frank Furness during his appointment to the Reading Railroad.
Waymark Code: WMFMH7
Location: Pennsylvania, United States
Date Posted: 11/03/2012
Views: 3
The station currently serves SEPTA commuter trains running on an electric railway. It also serves as a used book store -
Walk a Crooked Mile Books. Additional information about the station is available
here.
Frank Furness, America's first celebrity architect, designed many railroad stations, but is best known for the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and the University of Pennsylvania Library. For more on Frank, see the book
"Frank Furness - Architecture and the Violent Mind" by Michael J. Lewis. In this book, Mr. Lewis describes the Mount Airy Station as being "even more frenetic than Graver's Lane...". This is also the station that was used by the President of the Reading Railroad, Frank Gowen, who lived in the area. Fortunately, Frank Gowen liked Frank Furness, and "...patronized Furness regularly, commissioning a series of speculative houses around his estate in Mt. Airy...".