36th–Sansom station
SEPTA station
36th–Sansom station is a SEPTA Metro trolley station in Philadelphia. It is located at the intersection of Sansom and 36th streets, and serves Routes T2, T3, T4, and T5 of the T. Trolleys serving this station go eastbound to Center City Philadelphia and westbound to the neighborhoods of Eastwick and Angora, as well as the Delaware County suburbs of Yeadon and Darby.
The station is located adjacent to the Institute of Contemporary Art and is two blocks away from the 36th Street Portal station, which serves the T1 trolley.
History
The station was opened in November 1955 by the Philadelphia Transportation Company (PTC) as part of a larger project to move portions of the elevated Market Street Line and surface trolleys underground. The original project to bury the elevated tracks between 23rd to 46th streets was announced by the PTC's predecessor, the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company (PRT), in the 1920s, but was delayed due to the Great Depression and World War II. The PTC's revised project also included a new tunnel for trolleys underneath the campus of the University of Pennsylvania, continuing from the original western portal at 23rd and Market streets to new portals at 36th and Ludlow streets and 40th Street and Baltimore Avenue.
Station layout
The station has two low-level side platforms, each capable of platforming two trolleys at a time. Fares are collected on board the trolley cars.
The public source identifies “36th–Sansom station” as sEPTA station. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around 36th, Sansom and station.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “36th–Sansom station”, the useful work is to connect “sEPTA station” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4635786. Authority coordinates are 39.954, -75.195. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1955.
Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “36th–Sansom station” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.