Brewerytown Historic District

Brewerytown is a district of brick brewery buildings, workers' rowhouses and brewers' mansions laid out along 31st Street between Girard and Glenwood Avenues in north Philadelphia. Its brewing industry grew after the Civil War, when German lager brewers moved to the Schuylkill palisades, where cool caves allowed beer to be stored. Ten breweries clustered within a few blocks, including Bergner and Engel, Arnholt and Schaefer, and Poth. Otto Wolf and William Decker designed most of the major buildings, using dark red brick, round-arched openings and corbeled cornices in a German style. The Poth complex, enlarged in 1904 from Wolf's plans, still stands. Brewers' houses on Girard Avenue and company housing on Baltz Street and Bergner and Engel rows show how owners controlled the workforce. Prohibition ended brewing, and the 1922 Acme Markets building replaced part of the Arnholt and Schaefer complex. The district is regarded as an unusually complete record of an industry that shaped Philadelphia's economy and architecture.