The Forgotten Bottom

Grays Ferry sits along the Schuylkill River in South Philadelphia. The low-lying section near the water has been called "The Forgotten Bottom" for generations — a name that captures both its geography and how the city has treated it.

It is a predominantly Black, working-class neighborhood. Families have lived here for generations. They raised children here, built community here, buried their dead here. They also got sick here — at rates that should have triggered intervention decades ago.

The Refinery: 1870 – 2019

In 1870 — five years after the Emancipation Proclamation — the Atlantic Refining Company began operations on a tract of land adjacent to Grays Ferry. The facility was larger than Central Park. It became the largest refinery on the East Coast, processing one-third of all U.S. petroleum exports at its peak.

For 152 years, the refinery operated next to people's homes, schools, and playgrounds. It changed hands over the decades — Atlantic Refining, then Arco, then Sunoco, then Philadelphia Energy Solutions (PES) — but it never stopped polluting.

According to city data, the refinery was Philadelphia's single largest stationary source of particulate pollution. Particulate matter — the tiny particles that damage lungs and cause respiratory disease — drifted over the neighborhood every single day.

The Explosion

On June 21, 2019, the PES refinery exploded. The blast released 5,000 pounds of hydrofluoric acid into the air — one of the most lethal industrial chemicals in existence. After 152 years, the refinery finally shut down.

But the damage was already done. And it didn't stop with the closure.

The Environmental Integrity Project tested benzene levels at the site more than a year after it closed. They found 28.1 micrograms per cubic meter — more than three times the federal safety threshold of 9 micrograms per cubic meter.

For context: exposure to just 3 micrograms per cubic meter over nine years can compromise the immune system. A single microgram of lifetime exposure could cause eight additional cancer deaths per million people.

The Health Data

The numbers tell a story that residents have lived for decades:

Dr. Michelle Rose, a CHOP pediatrician, acknowledged the community has "so much burden from the past 100 plus years" and warned the 1,005-vehicle garage would "trigger more asthma."

A CHOP pediatrician warned that CHOP's own project would make children sicker.

Environmental Racism by the Numbers

Black Americans are 75% more likely than other Americans to live in fenceline neighborhoods — communities directly adjacent to industrial pollution sources. This is not an accident of geography. It is a pattern of policy.

Source: NAACP and Clean Air Task Force, 2017

The EPA reported in 2018 that Black people are subjected to higher levels of pollution than white people regardless of income level. Wealth does not protect you when the zoning does not.

For the better part of the 20th century, Grays Ferry was doubly harmed by:

  1. The draining of city resources away from the neighborhood
  2. The siting of toxic industrial uses that exacerbated health disparities — heightened rates of asthma, cancer, and high blood lead levels in children

The Residents

Sylvia Bennett, 78, has watched her neighbors die. She pointed at houses on her block and said: "They're dead, they're dead, they're dead."

Debbie Robinson, 58, developed restrictive lung disease, kidney disease, and asthma. She now requires an oxygen tank to breathe. She attributes her conditions to living near the refinery.

The Russell family — grandmother, mother, and granddaughter — all suffer from the same form of asthma. The mother died of cancer in 2019.

Valerie Carr, 77, a lifelong resident, said simply: "It's a health hazard. We don't need it."

The Last Green Space

Before CHOP purchased it, the 3.2-acre lot at 3000 Grays Ferry Avenue was one of the neighborhood's last patches of open green space. In a community hemmed in by highways, industrial remnants, and dense rowhouses, this lot was where families went.

Residents walked their dogs there. Children played there. People could see the sunset from their windows. One resident described its "intangible value beyond the $24.05 million CHOP paid for it." Another could see the sunset from her daughter's bedroom — a view that would be replaced by a seven-story concrete wall.

During the protests, community members held signs reading "Parks not Parking" and "Choose Health Over Profit." They proposed alternatives: a community garden, a dog park, an inexpensive grocery store, a restaurant with outdoor seating. Anything but a parking garage.

Directly next door, at 2900 Grays Ferry Avenue, sits the PAWS Grays Ferry clinic — a low-cost spay, neuter, and wellness facility that the community depends on. The Finnegan Recreation Center playground sits across the street, where children play basketball and swing on the swings.

On the night of April 8, after the garage collapsed, the PAWS clinic was ordered to evacuate. Staff, volunteers, and firefighters worked through the night to transport dozens of dogs and cats to safety. The clinic — the neighborhood's access to affordable veterinary care — is shut down indefinitely until the area is declared safe.

The collapse didn't just kill three workers. It took away the community's last green space, shut down their animal clinic, and closed the streets around their playground.

And Then Came CHOP

Into this neighborhood — one poisoned by industry for over a century, where children have asthma at four times the national rate, where residents watch each other die of cancers they believe were preventable — the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia decided to build a 1,005-car parking garage.

Not a clinic. Not a community health center. Not the pediatric services that residents asked for. A seven-story, $100 million parking structure for hospital employees who would be shuttled in from a mile away.

A children's hospital chose to increase car traffic and exhaust in a neighborhood where children can't breathe.

"CHOP is an illustrious institution that brings in millions of dollars of economic activity for the City of Philadelphia, but that doesn't give it the right to push around a neighborhood."

— Kamau Louis, Graduate Student in City Planning, University of Pennsylvania