Milking It

BOTTLE ROCKET: Joel Spivak wants to preserve the former Harbisons Dairies water tower.
Photo By: Michael T. Regan

Is the old Harbisons Dairies milk bottle a piece of "commercial archaeology," or just a sky-high lump of rust?

by Kate Salute

Before 24-hour minimarts and flashy fluorescent signs, there were milkmen and Harbisons' Dairies' milk-bottle-shaped water tower. The company's logo was designed to remind El riders how thirsty they were for a tall glass of ice-cold milk.

South Philly architect Joel Spivak calls the bottle "commercial archaeology" and wants to restore the bottle if not to its original milk-white glory, then at least to something better than the rusted eyesore it has become. Spivak, who is also the webmaster of "Our Architectural Heritage: As Seen from the Frankford El," jumped at the chance to bring the milk bottle to the attention of the Preservation Alliance and try to rally support to save the landmark.

Harbisons Dairies built the water tower around 1914. There were two other bottles at the intersections of Kensington and Erie avenues and another at York Road and Ontario Street in Kensington. "It was a water tank for the sprinkler systems. It brought the cost of fire insurance down for the plant," explains Bob Harbison, former president of Harbisons Dairies. "Technically, the Harbisons should be plural possessive, but our advertising agency suggested we eliminate the apostrophe."

But it wasn't the advertising agency that designed, or even suggested the design of, the water tower to take the form of a milk bottle. "An architect from Drexel designed the plant and told us that we could change the shape of the water tower from the conventional shape to a milk bottle with minimal cost," says Harbison.

Over time, the milk bottles became trademarks for the company. When the original milk bottle and the plant that it was attached to were sold to the Novick Brothers food company (for a mere $40,000 in 1951), an agreement was drawn up: The water tower was to remain and if the shape was not changed, the plant's new owners were allowed to paint it any color but white. It took a while, but eventually the agreement was honored and the bottle was painted gray and black, Harbison recalls.

Today, Harbisons Dairies are no longer in business (the company was sold in 1966), and all that remains is the original bottle, rusted and in danger of meeting the same fate as the other two. The bottle, nominated to the Preservation Alliance's Endangered Properties List in both 2003 and 2004 is said in the alliance's newsletter to be "not as significant as many other sites."

Spivak begs to differ.

"I've gotten some phone calls and thought, "Well, maybe there could be some interest in saving this,'" Spivak said. "There are a million opportunities in Philly to restore and refurbish neglected landmarks, but there is a lot of responsibility and bureaucracies between the owners, zoning, building code issues," which makes such a big job hard to pull off without support.

Spivak is sitting in his recently remodeled kitchen made of old doors from his dumpster-diving days, and he provides pictures and a copy of the journal of the Society for Commercial Archaeology. He speaks of various water towers inspired by Harbisons example, including milk bottles throughout the country, a preserved Campbell's Soup can-shaped water tower in Camden, N.J., and a Vicks VapoRub jar-shaped water tower that still looms above Route 1's Germantown exit.

Spivak pauses and chuckles, "I have about 50 fantasies of landmarks in Philly I would like to save."

Spivak mentions one of his favorites: a restoration of the Levis hot dog sign (the company Spivak claims was the birthplace of hot dogs in the 1890s) above North Star Bar. He fondly recalls the relighting ceremony attended by the mayor many years ago. He says he hopes that if the milk bottle is restored, a similar celebration, perhaps an annual one, would accompany its completion.

Some possible sponsors for the milk bottle include the dairy industry's "Got milk?" campaign, "though technically anything with lettering is considered a billboard, which again brings up issues of zoning," said Spivak. The other idea was for the bottle to become a project for the Mural Arts Program.

"I fully expect to be driving down Diamond Street one day and look up and see that the milk bottle is not there," says Spivak. "Why would the owner go through and pay for all of that construction, or even to have it torn down? But maybe with some support, we can do it."

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