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. The name 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.

An East View of Gray's Ferry, on the River Schuylkill
An East View of Gray's Ferry, on the River Schuylkill, drawn decades before the Atlantic Refining Company arrived and operated next to people's homes for over 150 years. By C.W. Peale. Library of Congress, public domain.

The Refinery: 1866 – 2019

In 1866, the Atlantic Petroleum Storage Company was founded. It incorporated in 1870 as the Atlantic Refining Company and began refining petroleum on a tract of land adjacent to Grays Ferry. The facility eventually grew to approximately 1,300 acres, larger than all of Center City Philadelphia. It became the largest refinery on the East Coast. By 1891, 35 percent of all U.S. petroleum exports and 50 percent of the world's lighting fuel came out of the Point Breeze complex.

For over 150 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 over 5,200 pounds of hydrofluoric acid into the air. Hydrofluoric acid is one of the most lethal industrial chemicals in existence. The explosions were caused by a corroded pipe elbow that had not been replaced. After more than a century of operation, 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 refinery's fenceline in 2020, more than a year after closure. They found annual concentrations averaging 28.1 micrograms per cubic meter. The EPA action level is 9 micrograms per cubic meter. The PES site was more than three times over that threshold.

In 2019, the year of the explosion, benzene levels at the fenceline had averaged 49.1 micrograms per cubic meter, more than five times the federal action level. The Environmental Integrity Project ranked the site as the second-worst in the nation for benzene emissions.

The Health Data

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

Dr. Michelle Rose, a CHOP pediatrician and neighborhood resident, was among 120 hospital employees who signed a petition opposing the garage and submitted it to CHOP administrators. At a September 2025 rally, she said: "We find it abhorrent that a children's hospital wants to build a giant garage that will bring 1,000 cars to the area that wouldn't even serve the community, that's just gonna make all that pollution even worse, trigger more asthma and create worse health outcomes for all the residents that live in the community."

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.

Source: NAACP and Clean Air Task Force, "Fumes Across the Fence-Line," 2017

An EPA study found that people of color are exposed to higher levels of fine particulate pollution regardless of income level. Race, independently of income, drives air pollution exposure disparities in the United States.

For the better part of the 20th century, Grays Ferry was doubly harmed: by the draining of city resources away from the neighborhood, and by the siting of toxic industrial uses that drove up rates of asthma, cancer, and elevated 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. People died around here from this." Two of her three daughters had breast cancer. For one, chemotherapy caused nerve damage so severe she could no longer walk.

Debbie Robinson, a Grays Ferry resident of 22 years, developed restrictive lung disease, kidney disease, and asthma. She now requires an oxygen tank to breathe. She attributes her conditions to living barely a mile from the refinery.

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

Community mural in Grays Ferry depicting the Schuylkill River landscape
A community mural in Grays Ferry, part of the city's Mural Arts program, depicting the Schuylkill River landscape the neighborhood grew up around. Library of Congress, public domain.

The Last Green Space

Before CHOP purchased it, the 3.4-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 $24.75 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 city's Office of Emergency Management advised PAWS to evacuate due to increasing structural instability. Staff, volunteers, and firefighters worked through the night to transport dozens of dogs and cats to safety. All staff, volunteers, and animals were confirmed safe. The clinic is shut down indefinitely until the area is declared structurally sound. PAWS began offering pay-what-you-can adoptions at its Old City location to reduce overcrowding from the transferred animals.

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 rates far exceeding the national average, 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.

They didn't build a clinic, a community health center, or the pediatric services that residents asked for. They built a seven-story 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