American Railway Express Company Garage

The story

Written by AI from this property's National Register nomination and the record above; every sentence is checked against its sources before it appears here. Corrections: privacy@treealive.com

The American Railway Express Company Garage is a two-story reinforced concrete building at 3002-3028 Cecil B. Moore Ave. in Philadelphia, built in 1922 in the Commercial Style. It was designed by Harris & Richards and built by the Robert E. Lamb Company.

Why it's listed

It was listed under criterion C, with local-level significance in architecture. The nomination gives its period of significance as 1922 to 1931, reflecting the building's construction that year.

Physical character

The brick-walled building rests on a brick foundation, trimmed with buff brick belt courses and accents, steel industrial windows, and garage door openings set into its trapezoidal footprint. A stepped, low parapet with terra cotta coping tops the walls, and concrete columns and girders support its fire-proof frame. In 1927 three stories were added, and the original wood-beamed roof was removed in 2004 for safety reasons.

Historical context

The American Railway Express Company formed in 1918, and the government returned railroads to private operation in 1920; it used the building as a garage for its electric delivery truck fleet from 1922 to 1931. It reorganized as the Railway Express Agency in 1929, and by 1940 the building was known as the Sylvania Garage. It was vacant at the time of its listing.