Bucks
Yankees Phillies Erie Canal
Dear Friends,
Good morning. The Philadelphia Phillies versus the New York Yankees series has been a one sided affair for decades. “It took you [Phillies] a hundred years to win your first World Series,” a Yankees fan told the Inquirer (Oct. 27). “We only have 26!”
Is it true that the Yankees have been in the World Series 40 times?
New York is the city that Philadelphia sports fans hate. But, New Yorkers don’t feel the same way about Philadelphia. They look upon Philadelphia as their smaller, less important neighbor.
Why do New Yorkers feel so superior? Is it arrogance?
Why do Philadelphians have such an inferiority complex? Is it because the nation’s first capitol left Philadelphia for New York, and then Washington? Is it because Philadelphia lost its state capitol status, first to Lancaster and finally to Harrisburg? Is it because of the Quaker influence, meaning that Quakers were more interested in business, banking, and industry rather than governing?
Why did the financial capital of America abandon Philadelphia’s Chestnut Street for New York City’s Wall Street? Why did Philadelphia’s seaport fall second to New York City? Why did New York City eclipse Philadelphia?
Friends, it was the opening of the Erie Canal.
That’s the real answer according to me…more on it later. But first, examine these thoughts from the same Inquirer edition.
“New York [city] has the bigger media market,” the Inquirer continued. “They have the new billion dollar stadium. They have the stars in the stands. We’re [Philadelphia] literally and figuratively in their shadow…
“This year, the Yankees’ payroll stood at $201 million. The Mets had the second highest. The Phillies ranked seventh, about $87 million less than the Yankees…
“To people in New York, Philadelphia is a city with one-third the economic power, one-sixth the population, and none of the cachet. Theirs is the city that people come from around the world to see…
“They’re the Yankees, the best team, the winning team,” a New Yorker argued.
That’s part of what infuriates Philadelphians…New York’s assumption of primacy. “You can trace the animosity for 200 years to the shifting fates of both cities and an era that saw Philadelphia surrender its role as the country’s most important town,” the Inquirer wrote.
“In the 1820’s Philadelphia was vibrant and prosperous, host to a spectrum of industries. The city produced fully 25 percent of the nation’s steel. Manayunk was known as the Lowell of Pennsylvania because it made so much cotton and wool,” the Inquirer continued.
But in 1825, the Erie Canal opened the country west of the Appalachian Mountains to settlers and offered a cheap and safe way to carry product to market. Before the Erie Canal, goods moved overland slowly…from the mid west to Philadelphia, the nation’s busiest seaport.
Alas, in 1817, New York Governor Dewitt Clinton broke ground for the Erie Canal. Known as “Clinton’s Big Ditch,” the canal opened nine years later. My Google search revealed that the Erie Canal included 18 aqueducts to carry the canal over ravines and rivers, and 83 locks, with a rise of 568 feet from the Hudson River at Albany to Buffalo the entrance to lake Erie.
The Erie Canal was four feet deep and 40 feet wide. Most important, it floated boats each carrying 30 tons of freight. By 1862, the second year of the Civil War, the Erie Canal was enlarged to 70 feet wide and seven feet deep. It could handle boats carrying 240 tons, each.
You can see what happened to commerce. It became cheaper and faster to move goods via the Great Lakes to the Erie Canal and the Hudson River ending at the port of New York City. Philadelphia’s influence fell to a distant second.
I think that we’ve never gotten over it.
Someday, I’ll follow up on the rivalry between Boston and Philadelphia and the differences that my sociology professor at Penn wrote about in “Quaker Philadelphia and Puritan Boston.” It’s fascinating. E. Digby Baltzell, the author of the term WASP, gave a compelling contrast of the two cities. He argued that the Puritans were centralists with strong rules about worship and governance. On the other hand, Philadelphia was the land of the Quakers who were the exact opposite.
But that’s a story for a very rainy day. In the meantime, Go Phillies.
Sincerely,
Charles Meredith
PS. In early October, I wrote about the “Keep the Fleece Project” which raised money for Heifer International. Heifer International sends livestock to third world countries so farmers can become self-sufficient.
The “Keep the Fleece” project attracted knitters from around the world to knit scarves and contribute $1 per knitted row. After the Rhinebeck, New York sheep and wool festival on October 17 and 18, the scarves were disassembled and distributed to families in need.
Barbara Stabile of Tangled Yarns reported that her knitters did very well. They created six scarves, each nine inches by 60 inches for the sheep and wool festival. At $1 per knitted row, Tangle Yarns volunteers raised $1,785 for the Heifer International project.
Barbara Stabile gave special thanks to Cita Jacobs of Doylestown who sent a very generous donation and a scarf section.