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The 100 Steps, nestled on the edge of Philly’s Wissahickon neighborhood, is a sort of bridge to our own local Terabithia. What starts on an ordinary city street quickly descends into the wooded expanse of Wissahickon Valley Park, where miles of trails and bike paths wind alongside the creek.
When it’s sunny, neighbors walk down the staircase, open a book and take a seat. Runners use the space to exercise, doing laps up and down. Locals pop in headphones and listen to music, or pop a squat to eat their lunch.
Marquise Fields comes to the steps regularly. When we visited, he was sitting on the stairs, smoking in the shade and chatting on the phone with a friend.
“Bro, you got to come here,” Fields told his friend. “Come into the steps and just sit down after a long walk, or just chill on a Saturday afternoon. Come here, sit down, listen to music, maybe a friend’s here, have fun.”
The 100 steps are over 100 years old, and actually 103 steps long. They are one of many staircases embedded into Philly’s Roxborough, Manayunk and Wissahickon neighborhoods.
The staircase’s wall is made from local Wissahickon schist stone, and the community has served as its fierce protector throughout the years. While often subject to vandalism and deterioration, locals have made repeated attempts to clean them and keep them safe.
This May, after city officials painted the step’s wall completely gray, an anonymous neighbor left a very angry and very hilarious all-caps note — which sparked an online rallying cry.
“When I posted the letter, it was kind of the idea of like you just put your feelings on the paper, put it out there, and that’s it,” the anonymous writer told Billy Penn. “Three or four days passed, I didn’t really see any action online, no one was really mentioning anything, so I was really resigned… And then the Thursday after it, I became aware of the Reddit post, and that was the first time I saw it. It had, like, 4,000 upvotes and all these comments.”
A few days later, city employees came back to restore the stone.
The anonymous writer now goes by the pen-name the Wissahickon Schistposter. He has continuously taped up his musings to the wall — part of an ongoing summer project.
The Schistposter’s father specialized in stonework and masonry, so he’s always felt a connection to the area.
“I remember handling that schist rock when I was a kid, and being in awe,” he said. “How it was just sparkling, and how it was, like, made of silver, and I was like, ‘Isn’t this like valuable? Isn’t this made of some kind of silver or gems?’ And I was so shocked at how normalized it was.”
To him, the stairs are a not-so-hidden paradise in the middle of the city.
“I’m one of those people that grew up in South Jersey, but very, very close,” the Schistposter said. “It’s so amazing to me that we could drive into the city and go into the Vine Street Expressway — you’re in the belly of the beast and all the skyscrapers and concrete jungle are there — and then you just drive a little further, you go down 76 take an exit, and then you’re in the middle of the forest.”
“It may be a little corny,” he added, “but I do remember walking by there and looking at the wall and looking at the way the sun was streaming through, and the water is right there, and just feeling like it was in this oasis, and that it had so much to offer.”
Fields is appreciative to have the steps as a community space. He lives in Manayunk and regularly comes to the area to sit. And these aren’t the only steps he enjoys hanging out on and exploring.
“It’s history. These have been here over 100 years,” Fields said. “There’s different steps within the Manayunk location. There’s some on Gay Street, Silverwood, and then there’s one off of Umbria that leads to the towpath, so it’s all different types of steps, all different sizes, lengths.”
