brick factory

Naval Support Activity Philadelphia, Quarters A, THE KEYSTONE BRICK COMPANYPHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA

About This Book This book explains the history and significance of Quarters A, a two-story brick building that was constructed in 1925 as an office for the Keystone Brick Company, a small-scale brick manufacturer in Philadelphia during the early 1900s. In 1945, the Navy purchased the property and converted the building to housing (Quarters A) for the Navy supply officer in command at the Naval Aviation Supply Depot. In 1994, Quarters A was recommended as eligible for the National Register of Historic

Places as part of the proposed Aviation Supply Office Historic District. This building is now vacant and is scheduled to be demolished in 2009; it is situated close to the Navy’s property line, and is therefore a security concern. This book is part of the Navy’s documentation of the site before it is demolished. It presents the history of Quarters A and the Keystone Brick Company and describes the brick-making process in use in Philadelphia during the early twentieth century.

AcknowledgmentsCredits and Acknowledgments:Author: Maria A. Gissendanner, Hardlines Design Company (HDC)Design: Orbit Design, Inc.Printing: Russett-Lithokraft Printing

Submitted by:Hardlines Design Company4608 Indianola AvenueColumbus, Ohio 43214614.784.8733www.hardlinesdesign.com

Prepared for:Commander, Navy Region Mid-Atlantic1510 Gilbert StreetNorfolk, Virginia 23511-2737

Under Contract to:NAVFAC MIDLANT9742 Maryland AvenueNorfolk, Virginia 23511-3095May 1, 2009

Cover:Top: Brick factory grounds (National Archives)

Bottom: Quarters A, south wall, main facade (HDC 2008)

Side:Detail of brickwork on Quarters A (HDC 2008)

The authors would like to thank the following individuals and organizations for their help in completing this project: Thank you to Tom Pugh of NSA Philadelphia, who escorted us around the base and supplied us with resource materials from Navy records, and to Michael J. Nolan, also of NSA Philadelphia, who provided us with deed information. We’d also like to thank the Philadelphia Historical Society, the Philadelphia Free Library, the Temple

University Urban Archives, and the Philadelphia Archives, all of whom aided our research on the history of the Keystone Brick Company. Funding for this book was provided by Commander, Navy Region, Mid-Atlantic, as mitigation for the demolition of Quarters A. This document was prepared under contract to Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Mid-Atlantic; Pam Anderson was the project manager.

Keystone Brick Company, 1944, looking northeast (National Archives)

NAVAL SUPPORT ACTIVITY PHILADELPHIA, Quarters A, The Keystone Brick Company

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Quarters A is a unique building—made of a utilitarian brick that is usually reserved for unexposed walls or foundations, the structure is the product of a 1920s marketing strategy devised by the brick industry during hard times, which entailed creating elaborate, detailed displays of their brick to attract customers. In this case, the Keystone Brick Company chose to make the entire building their display. Constructed in the Georgian Revival style, a popular architectural style at that time, the exterior walls are in an English bond brick pattern with decorative herringbone brickwork around the large staircase window on the north wall. The building has a flat parapet roof with a Classical-style wood cornice. First-floor windows are arched with brick lintels and a keystone, while second-story windows are rectangular with plain brick lintels. The main entrance, the south facade fronting Godfrey Avenue, is recessed with double wood-panel doors and has a Classical frame with a pediment supported by Doric columns. Elegant and stately, the building would have appeared even more dramatic when surrounded by the more functional buildings of a brickyard.

Naval Support Activity Philadelphiaand the Aviation Supply Office Historic District Quarters A is located on property currently owned by Naval Support Activity (NSA) Philadelphia, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, northeast of the downtown Center City district. The activity sits on 134.2 acres of land and contains a series of warehouses and administra-tive buildings. It was established during World War II as Naval Aviation Supply Depot (NASD), an aviation supply office and warehouse facility. Planned and con-structed from 1942–1945 on land purchased from the Keystone Brick Company, it was used as a central depot

to procure, receive, store, and disperse aircraft parts and equipment. In the late 1940s, the original mission of NSA Philadelphia as a supply depot began to be phased out. In the face of increasing administrative needs, the Navy started converting storehouse space into offices, a trend that continued until current times; today, the majority of the warehouses at NSA Philadelphia are used as adminis-trative office space. In 1994, a consultant working for the Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC) Northern Division recommended the activity as eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, a list of historically significant sites that is kept by the United States Depart-ment of the Interior. The buildings were recommended together as a historic district called the Aviation SupplyOffice Historic District, under National Register criterion C, for its architectural significance as a highly intact example of a World War II storehouse complex. (Because Quarters A was the former office building for

the Keystone Brick Company, it was the only building included in the district that predated the establishment of NASD Philadelphia.) The architect of the NASD complex was A. E. Horst of the firm of Verus T. Ritter, which was succeeded in 1942 by the firm of Baader, Young, and Shultze.Construction began on July 21, 1942, and was completed July 17, 1943, at a total cost of 11 million dollars. When the complex was commissioned in 1943, it consisted of two administration buildings (Building 1 and Building 15), eight storehouses (Buildings 2 through 9), a powerhouse (Building 12), a fire station (Building 10), a public works shop (Building 24), and other miscellaneous buildings. The site plan was based on standardized plans for storage units used by the Navy’s Bureau of Yards and Docks. Supplies were shipped out of the complex through the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Oxford Road Branch Connection, which con-nected to the loading docks of the buildings.

Introducing Quarters A


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NSA Philadelphia is located in an area that was originally part of Oxford Township, known as Crescentville. Oxford Township was first settled during the middle of the seventeenth century by Swedish and English immigrants, with German immigrants arriving in the middle of the eighteenth century. The economy of the area was based on agriculture and related industry such as gristmills, sawmills, and tanneries. Oxford Township was incorporated into the city of Philadelphia in 1854. The area began to industrialize in the nineteenth century. Some of the early industrial sites included the Crescent Factory, which produced rope, the Whitaker Textile Mill, the Oxford Carpet Mill, and the Disston Saw Works. In addition, the area’s rich clay deposits made it a natural home for many brick factories, one of which was the Keystone Brick Company. Other nearby brick manufacturers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries included the Tansey Brick Company, the Crescentville Brick and Stone Company, and the Bannon Brick Company.

Previous Owners of the Property The three founders of the Keystone Brick Company—Robert D. Hamilton, Frank Kelley, and Edward Kelley—were the sole owners of the property from the early 1900s up until 1942, when the Navy purchased the land. According to Philadelphia deed records, the Keystone Brick Company occupied several plots of land, which they bought at various times. In general, the land was used for agriculture before the brickworks was established there. The first known owner of the land north of the main brick factory was George McDorrance. Deed records show that on January 5, 1894, McDorrance sold the land to the Manor Real Estate and Trust Company for $26,887.62; this land included 18 tracts located in the 22nd and 35th wards. In 1911, Edward Kelley purchased this land for $28,500 for the Keystone Brick Company. In 1914, the brickworks purchased two tracts of land (36 acres and 10 acres), located at the corner of Comley Street

The History of the Area

2001 USGS map detailing the location of Quarters A and showing the Aviation Supply Office property (United States Geological Society,arrow and circle added by HDC)

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and Second Street Pike, from George T. Sale for $1,500 an acre. These tracts of land fronted the Pennsylvania Railroad, which was a major benefit for a company that needed to transport raw materials and finished products. The tract of land where the main brick manufacturing took place was originally owned in the early nineteenth century by Jacob Shallcross (or Thallcross), who in 1834 sold the property to Thomas Kelly (no apparent relation to Edward and Frank Kelley). The property was then passed down through the Kelly family. According to the will of William B. Kelly (Thomas’s son), the small Kelly estate included one heifer, one horse, a wagon, a buggy, a cart, pigs, a pig pen, and an estate house, all of which he left in 1884 to his sister, Hester Kelly. In 1899, Hester Kelly sold the property to Job Tansey and his son Thomas Tansey, but the deed for the property now stipulated that “no bone boiling establishment, soap, glue, candle or varnish factory, slaughter house or blacksmith shop or any other building for an offensive occupation or business [shall] ever [be] erected on any part of the lot or ground nor shall any dwelling be erected on ground which shall cost less than $2,000.” According to the deed record, the property stayed in the Tansey family for two more decades, until 1920, when Thomas and Indiana Tansey sold it to “Frank Kelley et al.” (the owners of the Keystone Brick Company), who were expanding their company. This time, the deed did not contain the clause excluding “offensive occupations.”

The Keystone Brick Company was started some-time between 1911 and 1914 by Robert D. Hamilton, Frank Kelley, and Edward Kelley, whose corporation name was “Hamilton and Kelley, Inc.” Although the company

was run by all three men, Edward Kelley appeared to be the public face of the company, as his name appeared most often in magazines and papers when the company was mentioned. In 1914, the prominent trade magazine Brick and Clay Record reported that “Edward Kelley, proprietor of the brick company at Godfrey and East Second Street Pike in Philadelphia, is making alterations to his plant and reports business as moving satisfactorily, turning out daily 40,000 common bricks.” This news report is the earliest one found for the company and indicates that the 1914

improvements were an expansion to an existing company, not the beginnings of a new company. The Keystone Brick Company does not appear in the Philadelphia city directories until 1914, but it is possible that they were established as early as 1911, when the original property purchase was made, and that they were operating under a different name or were not listed in the city directories. Early on, the Keystone Brick Company became involved in national and local brick organizations such as the Common Brick Association of Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania Brick Manufacturers, and the Common Brick Manufacturers Association. All of these groups aimed to promote brick as a building material, holding local and national meetings and

touring brick factories to further their knowledge. They also provided a way for different companies to band together to help each other out when needed. Edward Kelley became involved in the Common Brick Association of Philadelphia, serving as treasurer in 1914. In the late 1910s and early 1920s, a downswing occurred in the U.S. economy, and likewise in the brick industry. In 1917, the Brick and Clay Record reported that common brick production was down to five billion, from seven billion in 1914. In 1921, Robert Hamilton appeared

before the Proceedings of the Philadelphia and National Conferences on the Construction Industries, where he was asked to speak on the high cost of common brick. Hamilton stated that the increase was due in part to various factors such as the tripling of labor costs from 1914 to 1921, the nearly tripling of fuel prices, and the huge increase in all con-struction materials during this period, up over 100 percent. Hamilton testified that 75 percent of Philadelphia brick plants closed in 1921 because of these increased costs, which also accounts for the increase in brick price at that time. He also mentioned that the laborers working at the Keystone Brick Company were not unionized but received higher pay than union workers.

The Keystone Brick Company Early Beginnings


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During this period of slow growth, the Brick and Clay Record called for brick manufacturers to use the time to put together campaigns to promote their brick and explain the advantages of brick over other building materials. In response, the Keystone Brick Company joined with three other Philadelphia-area brick companies, H. M. and C. B. Siner, John H. Early, and F. Seitter’s Sons, to start a local newspaper ad campaign promoting brick. At the time, strikes had brought the building industry to a standstill, and the companies decided in collaboration that they would use the lull in business to their advantage, reasoning that if contractors were not out building, they would likely be reading about materials, preparing them-selves for when business picked up again. Their plan was to educate people about the usefulness and economy of

brick. By teaming with three other companies, the cost to each company was minimal, allowing them to advertise more than they could have afforded individually. The ad campaign by the four companies caught national recogni-tion when some of their ads were reprinted in publications like the Brick and Clay Record and the Printers’ Ink, a communications trade journal. In addition to recommending ad campaigns, the Brick and Clay Record also suggested that manufacturers improve the appearance of their brickyards. In 1925, according to articles in the Brick and Clay Record, a popular trend for brick companies was to construct elaborate displays out of their brick to attract potential buyers. These displays ranged from a room that was constructed using different kinds of brick and brick

patterns, to model homes. The target audi-ence for these displays was mainly women, as illustrated by one article that counseled brickmakers on how to design them: “there ought to be nothing stiff and formal about it, but it should be the type of place which a woman would be glad to come and rest after a tiring shopping tour. Little things make a big impression on the aver-age woman and when it comes to buying face brick for the home, she’s the real customer.”

Getting Creative During Hard Times

Ad from Printers’ Ink where Keystone teamed with three other Philadelphia brick companies to promote brick (1921)

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In 1925, the same year that the Brick and Clay Record advocated brick displays, the Keystone Brick Company constructed a new brick office building. The building featured elaborate brickwork on the exterior, including an English bond pattern on the majority of the walls, arched brick lintels on the first floor, and a herringbone pattern on the north elevation around a grand window looking onto the staircase. It is likely that the interior in the office building’s main foyer also displayed exposed brick walls in elaborate patterns, including fireplace surrounds (framework) and molding details around the windows and doors. Pictures of other displays from the time period have interior structural brick displays, so Keystone would prob-ably have also followed this trend. The bricks used to construct the building were most likely the bricks the company manufactured on-site for commercial use.

Example of a brick showroom interior from an unnamed brick company during the 1920s. Picture originally appeared in the Brick and Clay Record.

Keystone Brick Company Office as it stood in 1945 (National Archives)

Detail of brickwork on the north wall of Quarters A. Notice the herringbone pattern above the window

and the English bond on the main walls. (HDC 2008)

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The earliest maps found of the buildings of the Keystone Brick Company come from the 1921 Bromley Atlas of the City of Philadelphia. This map shows the company as having a small operation with a single shed, a small frame office, an outbuilding, and a row of about six rectangular kilns next to a large struc-ture that is labeled on later maps as the drying tunnel. By 1927, the operation had grown, and the small office was replaced by the brick office that still stands today as Quarters A. Several more sheds and outbuildings had been added. The 1927 Sanborn Fire Insurance Company map shows an even bigger plant than that in the Bromley atlas. According to the Sanborn map, the company had a

main office building, three storage sheds on the perimeter of the brick manufacturing area, a low coal pile (their fuel source) located behind the sheds, two large free-standing kilns (rectangular in plan), and a row of seven or eight smaller attached kilns. The kilns were centered around a large drying tunnel, and a stone crusher was placed behind the tunnel. The property also included several small shop buildings and a garage. An aerial photograph from 1930 and the Franklin survey map of 1938 tell roughly the same story as the Sanborn map. The 1930 aerial clearly shows that the clay was mined in an open area northeast of the office and main operations buildings. The Franklin survey map also shows a power plant on the side of the drying tunnel.

The Map Record of the Keystone Brick Company

1921 Bromley atlas mapdetailing theKeystone Brick Company. A small frame office is noted near the location of the present-day Quarters A. (Philadelphia Free Library, arrow and circle added by HDC)

1927 Sanborn Fire Insurance map, detail of the Keystone Brick Company property. Notice Quarters A at the (top left) corner and all the outbuildings, including kilns and drying tunnel. (Philadelphia Free Library, arrow added by HDC)

1938 Franklin Survey map showing the Keystone Brick property (Philadelphia Free Library, arrow added by HDC)


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A 1944 aerial photograph shows that by then most of the outbuildings had been removed, but their outlines are still visible. One outbuilding that remained was located directly behind the ell of the offices; it was large with a gabled roof. The area where the clay was mined is shown as developed with warehouses for the Naval Aviation Supply Depot.

1930 aerial view of Philadelphia, by Dallin Aerial Survey, showing the Keystone Brick Company property. Notice the clay excavation area to the northeast of the production buildings. (Philadelphia Free Library, arrow added by HDC)

1944 aerial view, by Aero Service, showing the location of Quarters A. Notice the development of the Naval Supply Depot in the area where the clay was once mined and the absence of outbuildings associated with the property. (Philadelphia Free Library, arrow and circle added by HDC)


Brick-Making in the U.S. The brick industry has been an important part of the construction business in the U.S. ever since the first colonists arrived here from England. The first brick kilns in the U.S. were recorded in 1611 in Jamestown, Virginia, and the earliest record of brick manufacturing in Pennsyl-vania was in 1683. The first bricks were made by hand and burned in crude kilns; they were then dried outside, which meant that the factory did not operate during the winter months. The consolidation of small brick yards into larger brick factories began during the industrial revolution in the late nineteenth century and continued into the early twentieth century. During this time, the first brick-manu-facturing machinery was developed to form the bricks. Automation for the brick industry developed slowly, and the same technology was used for long periods of time.

Common Brick In 1900, Philadelphia was the third largest U.S. brick manufacturer of “common brick,” a versatile type of brick and the kind manufactured by the Keystone Brick Company. Common brick, also called hard brick or kiln-run brick, was made from clay found close to the surface. Known as “pit-run clay,” this clay was usually full of impurities and a high level of sand, and so common brick was often discolored and streaky, without a uniform color. No color was added to common brick, and it received no special treatment such as glazing or enamel. Although it can be used on main facades, common brick was most often used behind “face brick” (high-quality, attractive brick exposed to view), stone work, or terra cotta, and it was used in foundations. There are numerous types of common brick, named for the color or traits the bricks acquire from their location in the kiln, such as salmon, light red, medium red, dark red, hard red, straight hard, and rough hard.

Documentary evidence suggests that the Keystone Brick Company produced “straight-hard, stiff-mud, wire-cut” common brick: this type of brick is what the company used during a demonstration sponsored by the American Ceramic Society in 1932. In this demonstration, recorded by the American Ceramic Society Journal, several brick manufacturers built ten reinforced masonry structures and tested their structural integrity. The Keystone Brick Company, under the direction of Edward Kelley and Robert Hamilton, used the type of brick quoted above, the characteristics of which are explained below. Straight-hard bricks had perfect shape, were strong, and were usually used for sidewalks, sewers, bridge piers, and other places that had excessive load or wear. These bricks were streaked and lacked uniform color, so they were not the preferred brick

for building exteriors. Stiff-mud bricks were always made by machine and were also known as wire-cut brick. The manufacturing process for these bricks added only enough water to the clay to make it moldable. The bricks were then forced by machinery through a die and cut to size, either on the end or the side (hence the terms “end-cut” and “side-cut”). The cut surface had a rough texture, while the other surfaces were smooth.


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The Brick Industry and Brick-Making

Detail of Quarters A, window arches (2008)

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Step 2: Tempering the clay After the clay was mined and gathered, it was left in a large pile to “mellow” over winter. The frost broke up large clumps in the clay, and the rain washed away some of the impurities. After the clay sat for a period, it was “tempered”: water and other additives were mixed consistently into the clay to give it the correct color and make it burn properly. Water was the only truly necessary addition, but other common additives included sand,which reduced shrinking and cracking during the drying stage; coal dust, which reduced the amount of fuel needed during the firing process; chalk, which prevented shrinkage and was sometimes used as a coloring agent; and grog or pre-fired clay, which was an inexpensive option to prevent shrinkage. A common feature in the tempering process was the soak pit. A soak pit was a rectangular wooden trough approximately 4 feet by 6 feet. The clay was shoveled into the soak pit, and then the water was added and left to soak overnight. The next day additives such as sand and coal dust were mixed in. Once the mixture was consistent, it was removed from the soak pit to be formed.

Step 3: Forming the bricks After the tempering process, the bricks were formed. Three methods were used in the U.S.: soft-mud, stiff-mud, and dry-pressed. Documentary evidence suggests that the Keystone Brick Company used the stiff-mud process and produced machine-molded bricks. During the stiff-mud process, clay was forced through a die and became a column that was then passed to a cutting table, where the column was wire-cut by machine into a series of bricks. By the early twentieth century, most brick companies had industrialized and begun using machines to mold their bricks. The development of brick-making machines was one of the most important advances in brick-making during the nineteenth century. Before machines, all bricks were hand-made, a very time consuming process—a good brick molder could make about 3,000 to 4,000 bricks by hand per day, while a good brick molding machine in the early twentieth century could easily produce about 2,500 to 5,000 bricks an hour.

The Brick-Making ProcessStep 1: Mining the clay For common bricks, brickmakers used open pit or surface mining to retrieve the clay. In this type of mining, the topsoil was removed, and the clay deposits near the surface were used. This type of clay had a high sand content and was full of impurities, which was not a problem for common bricks. Higher-quality clay, found deeper under the surface, was used to produce face bricks and pressed bricks. In earlier times, the clay was excavated by hand with picks, shovels, and chisel-ended irons, but by the early twentieth century, most brick companies used heavy machinery. 1944 view of the Keystone Brick Company’s property, looking south from the Naval Supply Station, Philadelphia (National Archives)

The clay banks at Bordentown, Pennsylvania, from Brick and Clay Record, 1920


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Step 4: Drying the bricks After the bricks were molded or pressed, they went through the drying process. For much of the nine-teenth century, this process entailed using large sheds constructed to hold the bricks while they dried. The sides of these sheds were left open to catch the wind, and the tops were hinged so they could be opened on clear days. Brick-drying machines emerged in the late nineteenth century and consisted of drying tunnels heated either by waste or steam heat, or by fires. To conduct the heat, drying tunnels heated by waste heat or steam heat used pipes laid along the bottom and sides of the dryer. Drying tunnels using fire for heat built the fires at the end of the tunnel and then conducted the heat by flues running the length of the shed. The tunnels usually had conveyers that ran the

bricks through the tunnel at a slow speed. According to the Franklin survey map of 1938, a power plant was located next to the drying tunnel at the Keystone Brick Company, which suggests that they used the steam heat method of drying. Drying tunnels allowed the bricks to dry faster and made the process less dependent on the weather. The typical drying tunnel was a long, narrow, one-story building with a gabled roof constructed of either wood frame or brick. One end of the building had a large three-story chimney and the other end had a wall that

extended slightly above the roofline. The lower portion of the chimney was braced by trusswork. We can see from early maps that the drying tunnel at Keystone was a large frame structure.

Step 5: Firing the bricks The last step was the firing process. During, the bricks were moved from the drying tunnel to the kiln (or furnace), which was an insulated chamber operated, at a high temperature, where the brick was baked or burned. The bricks were stacked in the kiln to allow for air flow so heat was distributed evenly and so that they dried at a consistent rate. Two main types of kilns were used in the brick-making process at that time: updraft and downdraft. In an updraft kiln, which was more primitively constructed, heat passed from the fire boxes directly into the bricks and escaped from the top through a hole or a chimney stack. The floor in the updraft kiln was solid, built over a prepared earthen fill. In a downdraft kiln, the heat from the fireboxes was led through flues to the top of the kiln and then downward, to be carried off from underneath. The floor in the downdraft kiln was perforated, laid over an air-circulation space. Downdraft kilns were the more sophisticated and preferred kiln because they gave the brickmakers more control over the heat, to produce uniform burning and better-quality brick. Downdraft kilns also used less fuel and were more economical. However, it appears from archival photos that the Keystone Brick Company used the more primitive up-draft kilns for their operation. Uniform color and firing was not necessary when producing com-mon brick, and up-draft kilns were easier to build, so we can speculate that the Keystone Brick Company most likely used up-draft kilns.

Demolition of what was the drying tunnel at the Keystone Brick Company (1945) (National Archives) Ruins of the kilns at the Keystone Brick Company (1945) (National Archives)


Quarters A: 1944 to the Present The Keystone Brick Company operated at the NSA Philadelphia site until about 1943. The reasons for its closing are not known. In 1942, the company sold part of their property to the Navy for the development of a supply depot. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported in 1944 that the main machine shop and general plant at the Keystone Brick Company were destroyed by fire. The article notes that these buildings had not been in use by the company for almost a year, and that some of the buildings were leased to the Heintz Manufacturing Company for storage space for “Naval Stores.” The Heintz Manufacturing Company was a private company with military contracts, headquartered in Philadelphia and notable for developing and manufacturing a new mount for the .50 caliber anti-aircraft machine gun in 1943. They had 14 subsidiary plants throughout the city as well as storage at the old Keystone Brick Company. It is not known what the company stored in the Keystone buildings. The Keystone Brick Company sold the remainder of their property to the Navy in 1945. When the Navy took ownership, all remaining buildings except the brick office building were torn down. That same year, the office building was converted into the main quarters for the supply officer in charge at what was then NASD Philadelphia. The first officer to live there was Vice Admiral E. Dorsey Foster, who moved into the dwelling in 1945. The renovations to convert the building from an office to a residence were made by the Navy Department of Public Works with assistance from Mrs. Foster, the wife of Vice Admiral Foster. The initial remodeling was in keeping with the Georgian Revival character of the building. Quarters A served as a Flag Quarters for the Commanding Officer, Naval Inventory Control Point, which is the successor organization of the former NASD Philadelphia. It is currently vacant and the Navy plans to demolish the facility in 2009. Ruins of the kilns at the Keystone Brick Company (1945) (National Archives)

1944 survey of the property owned by Hamilton and Kelley, completed for the Navy purchase (National Archives)

Left: 1945 view of the brickyards; outbuildings are in the process of being demolished (National Archives)

Below: 1945 view of Keystone property while being used as a lumber yard (National Archives)

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SUMMARY: The Importance of Quarters A Quarters A was determined eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places in 1994 as a contributing structure to the Aviation Supply Office Historic District. Built in 1925 as the office for the Keystone Brick Company, Quarters A is the only structure at NSA Philadelphia to date from before Navy ownership. The building is historically significant as the residence for the supply officer in command at the naval facility, its function since the time when it was purchased in 1945 and converted from an office into a dwelling. The Keystone Brick Company existed during a period in the 1920s of economic hardships for the construction industries, and it managed to survive while other companies did not. Their office building signifies a national movement by the brick industry at the time to devise campaigns to advertise and promote their products, one of which was to build promotional displays out of their brick. Quarters A is an extreme example of this trend—while most companies built public displays or show rooms, Keystone Brick Company built an entire building in the then-popular Georgian Revival Style. Quarters A is also exceptional in that it was constructed out of common brick. Most of the manufacturers who created displays were selling more polished face brick and pressed brick, but the Keystone Brick Company took the most modest of bricks and built an architecturally distinctive building that showed there was indeed nothing common about common brick. The Keystone Brick Company also teamed with other brick manufacturers to advertise in a local newspaper campaign. Their campaign caught national attention in the brick industry and must have been successful, as they continued to operate for another eighteen years. Keystone closed for unknown reasons around 1943. They sold the first parts of their property to the Navy in 1942 and then the rest in 1945. Quarters A was the only building to survive from the former brick factory.

Front (south) wall of Quarters A (HDC 2008)

1945 streetscape of Tabor Road, looking northeast. Keystone Brick Company Office building (Quarters A) is on the right. (National Archives)

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Books and ReportsBenson, Henry K.1919 Industrial History. The Macmillan Company, New York.

Gurcke, Karl1987 Bricks and Brickmaking. University of Idaho Press, Moscow, Idaho.

Hool, George A., and Nathan C. Johnson, editors1920 Handbook of Building Construction, Volume II. McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., New York.

Jackson, John Price, G. W. B. Hicks, and John A. Clarkson, editors1921 Proceedings of the Philadelphia and National Conferences on the Construction Industries. Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, Philadelphia.

Louis Berger Associates1994 Cultural Resource Assessment, Relocation of Defense Personnel Support Center to Aviation Supply Office. Louis Berger Associates, East Orange, New Jersey.

Naval Facilities Engineering Command1996 Flag and General Offices Quarters Facilities Maintenance Management Plan. Northern Division, Aviation Supply Office, Philadelphia.

Rachleff, Allison1999 Historic American Buildings Survey: Naval Aviation Supply Depot Quarters A. TAMS Consultants, Inc., New York.

Ries, Henrich, and Henry Leighton1909 The History of the Clay Working Industry in the United States. John Wiley and Sons, New York.

Wheeler, H. A.1896 Clay Deposits, Volume XI. Tribune Printing Co., Jefferson City, Missouri.

Magazines, Journals, and NewspapersBrick and Clay Record1913 “In the Wake of the News,” vol. XLIII, no. 1.1914 “In the Wake of the News,” vol. 45.1920 “Common Brick Is Common Sense,” vol. 57, July-Dec.1925 “Drawn from the Kiln,” vol. 56.1925 “Let’s Think About Merchandising,” vol. 57.

Decker Communications, Inc.1921 “Competing Brick Manufacturers Unite in Newspaper Campaign” in Printers’ Ink, vol. 116, July-Sept. New York. Digitized by GoogleBooks.

Krauss, Edward E., and Judson Vogdes1932 “Results of Test on Ten Demonstrations of Reinforced Brick Structures with Summary Covering Tests on Thirteen Structures.” In Journal of the American Ceramic Society, vol. 15, issue 5, Westerville, Ohio.

Pursell, C.1968 “Parallelograms of Perfect Form: Some Early American Brick Making Machines,” Smithsonian Journal, vol. 3, issue 1, Washington D.C.

Temple University Urban Archives clipping files for the Keystone Brick Company Philadelphia Records Polk, R. L. 1910-1936 Polk’s City Directory. Philadelphia.

Philadelphia County Recorder Philadelphia Will Books, Philadelphia Court House 1863 Book 199, Thomas Kelley. 1876 Book 370, Mary Kelley. 1884 Book 664, William Kelley.

Real Estate Deed Books, Philadelphia County Archives 1894, Book TG; 1899, Book JV; 1910, Book WSV; 1911, Book WSV; 1920, Book JMH; 1923, Book JMH; 1942, December Book.

Maps, Atlases, and PhotographsAero Service, Philadelphia: 1944 Aerial Survey of Philadelphia.

Atlas of the 23rd, 35th, and 41st Wards of the City of Philadelphia, 1910, Plate 11.

Bromley, G. W. and Co., (Philadelphia): 1894, 1901, 1910, 1921, 1927 Atlas of the City of Philadelphia, 23rd and 25th Wards, Plat 19.

Dallin Aerial Survey of Philadelphia: 1930.

Frank H. M. Klinge (Philadelphia): 1927 Philadelphia Atlas of the 35th Ward.

Franklin Survey Company (Philadelphia): 1939 and 1954 Atlas of Greater Northeast Philadelphia, 23rd, 35th, and 41st Wards, Plate 4.

Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps: 1927 and 1958 Philadelphia, Plat 2572.

Sources of Information

Pennsylvania Tourism Office400 North StreetHarrisburg, PA 17120-02251-800-Visit-PAwww.visitpa.com

Keystone Brick Company, 1944, looking northeast (National Archives)

brick factory

Documents