May 21, 2026
Jon Tuleya/PhillyVoice
The 100 Steps at Wissahickon Valley Park, shown above with a view of the creek at the base of the staircase, were originally built in 1901 using quarried granite. A wall along the steps was painted to cover up graffiti last week, leading to complaints. City officials say they were responsible and now plan to remove the paint.
The 100 Steps at Wissahickon Valley Park have been a local landmark and vista for more than a century, showcasing the natural beauty of the Wissahickon Creek and the steep terrain of Northwest Philly.
The zig-zagging staircase off Freeland Avenue was built in 1901 by prominent horticulturalist Charles Miller and was made with quarried granite from the schists surrounding the creek. Parts of the staircase deteriorated over the years, requiring the city to restore some sections with concrete in the 2000s, but the remaining original features of the 100 Steps are essential to their charm.
One day last week, a resident using the steps noticed part of an original stone wall had been entirely repainted in a monotone gray to cover up a few minor graffiti tags. Outraged by the new look, the resident left an anonymous note that was posted Tuesday on the Philadelphia subreddit. The message was typed in all caps.
Someone painted over the wall on the 100 Steps, Someone else posted a message in response
by u/Melcheroni in philadelphia
The note said, in part:
THIS WALL IS HISTORIC & BEAUTIFUL. WELL OVER A CENTURY OLD.
MADE WITH LOCAL STONE FOUND NOWHERE ELSE ON EARTH.
STONES THAT GLIMMER LIKE SILVER.
THE PRODUCT OF MILLIONS OF YEARS OF UNIQUE WISSAHICKON GEOLOGY.
AND IN 1 NIGHT YOU DECIDED TO SMOTHER IT WITH FLAT GRAY PAINT.
LIKE ANY OTHER BORING CORPORATE-FUNDED WALL IN THE CITY.
WITHOUT CONSULTING ANYONE, YOU MADE A DECISION FOR EVERYONE THAT NOW NO ONE GETS TO ENJOY THIS SPOT IN THE SAME WAY.
AND FOR WHAT? BECAUSE OF A LITTLE GRAFFITI IN A FEW SPOTS THAT COULD'VE JUST BEEN POWERWASHED OR TREATED? COME ON.
At the end of the note, the writer pleaded with the responsible party to ensure the wall is restored to its original condition.
More than 400 comments were left on the Reddit post, many lamenting the ugliness of the paint job and speculating about whether the city or a misguided vigilante was behind the wall's desecration. Some neighbors submitted tickets to 311, the city's contact center, while others debated how best to remove the paint while protecting the masonry.
"As a person who does masonry and a lot of stone work this is the most offensive thing I can imagine, they literally ruined the wall," one commenter said. "The paint is going to hold water and destroy the joints."
"It really would benefit from a building materials conservator," another commenter said. "There are many good ones in the city — different types of schist can handle different treatments mostly based on their grain structure."
City officials initially did not respond to questions about the wall earlier this week, but on Thursday morning a spokesperson for the city's Office of Clean and Green Initiatives confirmed the paint job was done by staff with the Community Life Improvement Program (CLIP). The department is responsible for neighborhood cleanups, graffiti removal, maintenance of vacant lots and other community service programs.
The city's original plan was to remove the graffiti with a power washer, but CLIP staff had trouble reaching the graffiti.
"Apparently, the hose on the power washer could not reach the tags to remove so the employee painted it," Clean and Green spokesperson Keisha McCarty said. "A CLIP representative will be returning today with more hoses on the washer to have it properly removed. We apologize for (the) incident and will work to remediate it as quickly as possible."
McCarty did not say whether the city has consulted an expert on how best to remove the paint to preserve the stone wall.
The 100 Steps — 103, to be exact — are part of a network of 1,304 stairs in Manayunk, Roxborough and Wissahickon that were built starting in the 19th century to connect neighborhood residents and improve access to the burgeoning commercial corridor on Main Street. More than a dozen staircases line the neighborhoods along a roughly 2-mile stretch of the Schuylkill River Trail, embedded in the social and economic history of Northwest Philly.
"The stairs symbolized just how joined these communities were," Georgie Gould, president and archivist at the Roxborough Manayunk Wissahickon Historical Society, said of the landscape in an interview last year. "I can look at any map and find the same surname on either side of a set of steps, and the only way to get to each other would have been either to go up the street in the mud, around the horses and carts and buggies, or take the steps. It was a footpath highway getting down the hill."
A view of the 100 Steps from the Wissahickon Creek is shown above in 1907 in a photograph taken by Frank Berry. A small waterfall is visible in the foreground and large houses along Freeland Avenue are perched on the hill overlooking the creek.
The 100 Steps have faced problems with vandalism, littering and loitering for decades. Neighbors have long worked to preserve the original features of the steps, including by collecting damaged capstones and vandalized railings prior to the restoration under former Mayor Michael Nutter. That project, which used the original specifications of the staircase, was completed in 2004 at a cost of $309,000 for design and construction.
"The fact the neighbors there saved the various pieces to be used again shows a real dedication and affection for those steps," Chip Roller, former president of the Wissahickon Interested Citizens Association, said last year.
