Budd, Edward G., Manufacturing Company

Built around the crossing of two railroad lines in northwest Philadelphia, this complex of brick and reinforced concrete industrial buildings grew from the first Budd structures erected in 1917. Its low and multi-story buildings, some up to six stories, were linked by enclosed conveyor bridges so that raw materials and finished products could move between units. The Edward G. Budd Manufacturing Company used the site to press and stamp sheet steel into automobile bodies, a method that replaced wooden bodies across much of the industry in the 1920s. The company later produced parts for the streamliner trains of the 1930s and the Conestoga military aircraft of World War II. Most of the buildings date from 1917 to 1945 and still appear largely as they did in that period, making the plant a clear record of early mass production in Philadelphia. The site was occupied by the company until its Philadelphia operations closed in 2003.