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Riding Dirty

Kayaking through the dead center of Philadelphia.


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Published: Apr 15, 2009

Michael M. Koehler

You're hoping to find a dead body, aren't you?" That's the first thing a friend said when I told him I wanted to kayak down the Schuylkill.

Not "hoping." But, I'd be OK with it.

The Schuylkill is a mysterious beast. It's a living thing that, for the most part, has remained shrouded from the very population it spawned and sustains. It cuts Philadelphia in half, more or less, yet once it reaches Center City, most of us never see more than a glimpse from a car window or bridge railing.

The plan was to paddle down the most obscured segment, the 7-mile stretch between the Walnut Street Bridge and the Delaware River, downstream from the pastoral beauty of the Falls Bridge, Kelly Drive and the waterfall behind the Art Museum. My friend Dominic Mercier — who once swam in the upper, friendlier Schuylkill as part of a triathlon — and I would go in kayaks; photographer Michael M. Koehler and his friend, filmmaker Elan Gepner, a canoe.

On a journalistic level, we wanted to see what Philadelphians are missing and take pictures of it. We also just wanted to see if we could do it.

In the past decade, the city has attempted to reconnect Philadelphians with "The Hidden River" with cleanup projects and well-manicured bike paths. Still, it remains the butt of jokes and the recipient of upstream pollution. It still looks, and feels, dirty.

As I drop my ass into the kayak and push off from the modern dock at Walnut Street, I wonder: Just what is in this river? Could there be dead bodies? Roving pirates in powerboats? Fourteen-foot sturgeon? Pet alligators that outgrew their aquariums?

From here, just a foot or so above the brownish water, the biggest monster is I-76. The Schuylkill Expressway doesn't really run alongside the river — it hangs over it. The western bank is a wall of concrete and rushing traffic. Between the 676 interchange and the South Street exit, a series of not-quite-parallel concrete pylons rise up out of the water like a set of bad teeth. Piles of rocks and collections of brambles and thickets, all bleached a ghostly gray, sprout at their feet.

Opposite, on the east bank, is what appears to be a tunnel you could paddle into with maybe a foot of clearance. Curiosity prompts a closer look. A placard reads "S18." Does the "S" stand for sewer? Have we gotten too close?

You learn quickly that everything looks different, and a little sinister, from the water: 30th Street Station, CHOP, even that ridiculous "Master P-Nut" Snickers billboard off 76.

The water is not exactly appetizing. Debris — from driftwood and leaves to snack wrappers, detergent bottles, traffic cones and condoms — can be seen a bit too readily from this vantage point.

This section of the river, everything south of the Boathouse Row waterfall, is tidal. It's not brackish, but it rises and falls with the ocean. We soon realize we'll have the tides working against us all day: rising as we head toward the Delaware, and falling as we'll paddle back. So it goes.

As we pass the under-construction moorings of what will be the new South Street Bridge, familiarity begins to slip away. Nine more bridges span the river and they serve as rough guideposts. There's a railroad bridge high over the PECO/Trigen plant at Christian Street. When a train crosses, you can feel the stomach-tumbling vibrations in the water. A few hundred feet down the river, I-76 crosses. The remains of an apparently long-abandoned construction project are scattered along the shore beneath the highway. Near a beat-up tar cooker, cables dangle from the underside of the overpass. For some reason Elan attempts to scale one of the cables and ends up with greasy black hands that the Schuylkill's murky water can't seem to cleanse.

It's so alluring, this sense of isolation, the feeling that it could have been days or decades since the last human saw what you just paddled past.

After the 34th Street Bridge, a drawbridge connecting Grays Ferry to University City — the one with the ornate copper doors on its massive concrete legs — is a long box of a building built right on the water.

It's an old Howard Johnson hotel, Joe Syrnick, president and CEO of the Schuylkill River Development Corp. (SRDC), will tell me. The Eagles allegedly stayed here before games at Franklin Field. Later, it was a methadone clinic. These days it's a halfway house. Large birds squawk, swooping and diving for food thrown from grated windows. As we pass, we elicit excited shouts, but we can't really make out any faces. "Hey!" "Hey you!" "What the fuck are you doing on the river?" We're probably the most interesting thing to float by here in a while. Some good-spirited banter transpires between us and the residents. We proceed, having agreed to return with "weed and bitches."

You don't notice it so much on the water, but the Schuylkill winds. Past the halfway house, around a big bend, is a fantastically green, lush, snaking stretch that might make you think you're in Montgomery County, or somewhere wilder. Jittery ducks fly off as we approach, hollering like car alarms, the tips of their wings skimming the river's surface. From the west the historic Woodlands Cemetery peers down; to the east is the DuPont Crescent, so named for the Dupont plant at 34th and Grays Ferry Avenue. This land was donated by the DuPont family. The SRDC has received $150,000 in grants — part of the Take Me to the River program — for trail expansion and a river-crossing feasibility study. The plan is for a trail to run along here and for the old, out-of-service railroad swing bridge just south of the Grays Ferry Avenue bridge to support a bike bridge. This would bring people one step closer to Bartram's Garden, the hidden bucolic jewel of Southwest Philadelphia. Bartram's, with its manicured foliage and sprawling meadow, is the country's oldest botanical garden with plant strains dating to pre-revolutionary America. It is an Edenic oasis in what's known as a rough neighborhood.

Judging by the number of people we see sitting with fishing poles, the fish enjoy Bartram's, as well. Off the pier of a former gypsum plant, three locals — Kenny Bennett, Kevin Smith and Jada Moye, all of nearby Bartram's Village — tell us they're casting for catfish. Over the course of the morning, the trio will pull five or six fat fish out of the water, with every intention of eating them.

Photo by Michael M. Koehler

Daybreak

Photo by Michael M. Koehler

Elan and the canoe

Photo by Michael M. Koehler

The author and the kayak

Photo by Michael M. Koehler

Howard (red kayak) and Mercier put in

Photo by Michael M. Koehler

Investigating ""S18

Photo by Michael M. Koehler

Heading down stream, the Schuylkill Expressway hangs over the river to the right.

Photo by Michael M. Koehler

The remains of the old South Street Bridge

Photo by Michael M. Koehler

Building the new South Street Bridge

Photo by Michael M. Koehler

Filmmaker/canoe navigator Elan Gepner takes a breather under I-76

Photo by Michael M. Koehler

Gepner relives a classic gym class moment beneath the I-76 overpass

Photo by Michael M. Koehler

The halfway house off University Avenue.

Photo by Michael M. Koehler

Barely visible from University Ave., this hotel-turned-halfway house has a fantastic view of Grays Ferry's DuPont Crescent

Photo by Michael M. Koehler

This out-of-service railroad swing bridge next to the Grays Ferry Avenue Bridge may be retrofitted to support a bike and pedestrian bridge.

Photo by Michael M. Koehler

Wildlife is surprisingly plentiful.

Photo by Michael M. Koehler

Docks with no apparent purpose line much of the lower river.

Photo by Michael M. Koehler

The author (red kayak) and Dominic Mercier paddle under the Passyunk Avenue bridge;

Photo by Michael M. Koehler

Fishing near Bartram's Garden.

Photo by Michael M. Koehler

Kenny Bennett (left), Kevin Smith (right) and Jada Moye (center) of Bartram's Village prepare to cast for catfish off the pier of an old gypsum plant just south of Bartram's Garden.