The Philadelphia International Airport and Vicinity

As part of June’s epic week of cycling, my riding buddy Zack and I took a lovely Wednesday afternoon to journey through southwest Philly, inside the wildlife refuge and loop around the backside of the airport. I had pretty much done a similar route a few years back with my friends Ben and Sarah, so I knew the lay of the land to a degree.  It is a good idea to know where you are going around the airport because while it can be fun there are some really tricky spots. No one wants to end up on the I-95 bridge or heading towards the terminals on a bike

http://www.dailymile.com/people/Jerome9883/entries/7774987 

Miles	Minutes	Speed	Calories Burned
32	160	12	1,927

I started this ride by heading over to Zack’s house in West Philly where together we carefully dodged the trolley tracks at 49^th and Woodland in order to head down Grays Ave./Lindbergh Blvd. Philly Weekly might have rated Girard Ave one of the worst streets to bike in Philly, but I’d say 49^th and Woodland is easily one of the worst intersections. Once finished dodging tracks going every which way we made it to Lindbergh Blvd. It is a strange road to bike down; the road starts out as fairly large arterial, however the further southwest we travelled the more the road turns into an actual boulevard.

As in many areas in the city typical Philadelphia rowhouses line the side streets of the boulevard.  What is fascinating is the highly customizable nature of the rowhouse. Lindbergh runs through Eastwick and as an area developed in the mid 20^th Century many of the houses take on architectural styles popular at the time. Just take a look at this late 1970s beauty; not only do you get a stone fenced parking spot and little yard, you get an entire house that is shingled.  For those who are enthusiastic about living inside a roof. 

Lindbergh essentially leads to the entrance the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge where we left the busy road for peaceful serenity.  Zack and I had visited the refuge on a ride before but only got as far as the visitors center.  This time we rode the entire trail!

The refuge was created as part of the early 1970s federal environmental push for protecting sensitive and important lands. Before rapid industrial urbanization during the early 20^th century the entire area, which is home to the PHL airport, Sunoco Refineries and Navy Yard, used to be tidal marsh lands. By 1970 most of the marshlands had been built upon under the auspicious of economic growth. The more than 1,000 acre Heinz site was one of the last natural areas left and was under development pressure from a sanitary landfill to the north and Interstate 95. John Heinz, a senator from Pennsylvania, was the champion of securing the national wildlife designation. The wildlife refuge was named for him shortly after his premature and uncanny death in 1991.  According to Wikipedia, John Heinz died in a plane/helicopter collision over a school in Lower Merion that killed all passengers on board AND two kids.  On a much cheerier note, the Heinz Wildlife Refuge has been deemed very successful and is now home to over 80 species of animals, including a nest of Bald Eagles.

The first part of the refuge trail is on a compacted gravel path, much like the Manayunk Towpath trail, and follows the banks of the Darby Creek.  Near the visitor’s center there is a boardwalk with observation areas over a large impoundment (which is the term for an area of water that is made by constructing dams or embankments, a.k.a a man-made pond).  The boardwalk provides stellar views of the expansive airport and long stretch of I-95, as well as the wildlife in the area. When Zack and I were there we saw several types of turtles; painted turtles, mud turtles, and my favorite name, stinkpot turtles.  Stinkpots are adorable, they’re so small!!

About a quarter mile down the trail is another observation area, this one being a “tower” (it’s really only two levels).  We took another break to explore.  However, this exploration was not as relaxing as the edges of the upper level were filled with mud dauber’s nests. They seemingly didn’t bother Zack. We still made it to the upper level which provided more expansive views. 

Shortly after the observation “tower” the trail gets a little bumpier until is eventually turns into a path of large gravel rocks. Loretta was not pleased as she (and I) were real worried about either skidding out or getting a flat tire.  However as the trail moves further from the impoundment it winds along other water channels and through some amazingly wooded areas.

 There were several birds that Zack and I heard/saw as we traveled.  However one of the coolest occurrences we had is when we were biking and around a corner and there was this deer chilling; completely unphased by us.

As we rode further both Zack and I were becoming a little over the inconsistent gravel road. The road eventually exited the woods and pretty much became dirt road next to i-95. Additionally, the further we toured the more the weeds there were growing into the road. Even though it was awesome to bike through a shaded natural habitat, the last half of the ride made it almost not worth it, for me at least.  I’m not a big fan of ticks; really bugs in general. 

The trail ends just north of the interchange of I-95 and State Route 420 in a gravel parking lot, not an ideal spot. Also not ideal is to get to the airport we had to bike over the cloverleaf interchange at I-95, which is probably one of the trickiest things to do on a bike. I know if I was driving I’d be cursing out whatever biker is trying to cross that as those loop ramps are ridiculous even in a car. On the other side of I-95 lies the heart of Tinicum Township; two little towns named Lester and Essington. Neither are recognized towns but both are fairly historic. Essington is the site of the first recorded European settlement in Pennsylvania. 40 years before William Penn, the Swedes settled in the upper Delaware Bay and established forts where present day Wilmington and New Castle, Delaware are. They expanded their reach up to Tinicum Island but only for a short 10 years, in 1655 the Dutch gained control of the region and in 1674 the English captured it. Through this entire turnover the Swedish settlers were mostly the only Europeans in the area. In fact, when Philadelphia was founded many of the original buildings were built in the Swedish log cabin manner as that was the only building technology here at the time. 

Today there are no indicators of this Swedish heritage in Essington. It looks like any coastal, Mid-Atlantic town, there are a few businesses along Wanamaker Ave and bunch Cape Cod inspired houses scattered among a small grid. The only remnant of the Swedish influence in the area is Governor Printz Park, sandwiched between a motel parking lot and a yacht club.  Governor Printz was one of the few governors of New Sweden while it was its own colony and built Printzhof, a two-story, log house on the site of the current day park. The park is essentially a deep grassy lot with dated interpretive signage and a walled river bank. Even though the river bank is walled, it is one of the only spots with public access to the Delaware River along Tinicum Island. Additionally, all of the signage (there’s a lot of it too) tells the story of the colony of New Sweden. Neither Zack nor I cared that much about it though and by that time it was getting late and we had to boogey if we were going to make it around the airport.

When we biked away from the park we entered more of the industrial section of Tinicum Township.  Along the north side of 2^nd Ave. sits the Airport Business Complex, 130+ acre industrial complex which claims to have the first “smart-grid business complex in the country”.  However I’m not putting much stock into that claim as looking at their website it seems like a fake company - most of the webpages are in gibberish.  After cycling along a long stretch of industry to the north and natural reeds to the south we turned onto Hog Island Road. Named for the island the PHL airport began on the road runs 5 miles around the southern perimeter of the airport.  The ride is fairly monotonous as the entire stretch contains a railroad track and line of trees along the riverbank to the right, and the airport’s open fields to the left.

Zack and I paused a couple of times along Hog Island Road.  First, we saw this brown shimmering fuselage in the distance and as we got closer it was easy to indicate it was some sort of burned up airplane.  Turns out it is the airports fire training center. Not pictured below, but an equally creepy part of this site is a very long metal tube that must be used for training people to climb through HVAC ducts.  It made no sense though. 

We used this stop to explore the river bank on the other side of the road from the fire training center.  Zack made a comment about how it’d be a great place to dump a body. I concurred seeing that there was no one for miles and a large refinery across the river. 

The rest of the ride was the same, periodic points of interest along the airport side (i.e. a field of UPS containers and an air traffic control tower) but nothing worth stopping for. One of the coolest parts of biking Hog Island Road though is the ability to stand under a plane as it lands seemingly on top of you.  I only got one picture of it on this trip because we running out of time. Along with the picture below is a video that my friend Sarah shot as we went on this ride a few years back.

It’s a little nerdy but it’s also a pretty surreal experience. When a jet lands overtop of you there is an awkward delay and then everything that lies in the approach path gets blown around as the jet engines have an immense amount of power. The video is of a prop plane, as Sarah points out, which do not have the same swoosh effect. 

The last stop that Zack and I made along our journey before we diligently biked home was at Fort Mifflin. Almost at the end of Hog Island Road this historical treasure is lost behind an ill-marked sign and a confusing entrance to an industrial complex.

The fort was built a few short years before the American Revolution in order to protect the booming city of Philadelphia from pirates. The City of Philadelphia was the largest colonial city to not have a defense system in place due to its Quaker roots. The fort briefly served as a battle ground in the revolution before the British destroyed it to gained control of Philadelphia in 1777. After the revolution John Adams commissioned Pierre L’Enfant to redesign the fort and renamed it for Thomas Mifflin, a merchant and major general in the revolution. Apparently it is a very interesting layout on the inside of it, and has some of the few examples of Greek revival architecture in military buildings. The fort was used mostly as a prison during the Civil War, housing Confederate soldiers and political prisoners.  Additionally a hospital was built on the outside of the fort’s walls to attend to the sick. Fort Mifflin saw very little action after the Civil War and was decommissioned in the 1960s where the City of Philadelphia gained control of it and the Old Fort Mifflin Historical Society was created to preserve and maintain the site.

Zack and I didn’t go into the fort due to time and the fact that neither of us had $6 at the moment. We biked along the parking lot and I took a picture of the outside and the hospital - that now serves as the offices for the historical society. 

From the fort we continued along Hog Island Road, under a runway and onto Island Avenue where there is another tricky interchange near the Sheraton, but not as death defying as a cloverleaf.  Once we crossed under I-95 it was smooth sailing from there, with the exception that I lost Zack right near his house and he somehow ended up at 54^th and Baltimore. Whoops.