Walnut Street

Walnut Street. William Sansom. , About , At the beginning of the 19th century, Quaker philanthropist William Sansom changed the face of Philadelphia when he bought the 700 blocks of Walnut and Sansom Streets and started construction of Sansom's Row , the first row of houses in the city to be planned and built at the same time. Benjamin Latrobe designed the 22 brick homes that lined the north side of Walnut Street. Thomas Carstairs created a similar design for the contiguous London-style homes that rose along the south side of Sansom Street. Although several of the buildings in the original Sansom's Row remain, only 707 Walnut is intact., [Caption:] , Engraving of William Sansom, from a collection of silhouettes of 'Remarkable People' (c. 1790). One of few extant images of the man. Sansom, like many devout Quakers of his day avoided reproduction of his likeness for reasons of modesty.