A SEPTA trolley slammed into a historic Philly home, the fifth crash in a week: ‘Everything was just devastated’

There was screeching, then a bang, and then the whole house shook violently when the runaway trolley crashed into Delia King’s living room Thursday night.

“I thought the house was going to collapse right then and there,” said King, an artist who was lying in bed on the second floor of her 1766 home on the quiet, muggy Philadelphia evening, willing herself to head downstairs to work on a painting moments before the collision. “I could hear the wall just crumbling, and I could feel it in the house.”

Bolting downstairs, she processed the scene through her shock: “There was a trolley in my living room, and everything was just devastated.”

SEPTA has said it is investigating the incident, the fifth crash to involve one of its vehicles in a week.

The force of the out-of-service SEPTA trolley tearing through the historic Blue Bell Inn’s front wall — the exact spot where King said she stands to paint — propelled the structure’s large, heavy stone bricks to the back of the pre-Revolutionary War house in Southwest Philadelphia, where King is a tenant and caretaker.

“If I had even been downstairs, like even at the back of the room, I probably would either be very gravely injured or dead because it just shot that front wall, it just imploded into my house,” a shaken King, 49, said Friday morning. “I’m just glad to be alive, to be honest.”

The trolley rolled about a half-mile from SEPTA’s Elmwood Depot before careening into King’s living room at the intersection of Woodland Avenue and Cobbs Creek Parkway near Darby around 10:30 p.m. Thursday, the agency said. No one was driving the trolley, but a mechanic onboard was taken to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center with non-life-threatening injuries. Two people inside an SUV the trolley struck first were also injured, according to SEPTA. Their conditions have not been released.

The string of SEPTA crashes began July 21, when one bus rear-ended another on Roosevelt Boulevard, killing one passenger and injuring 14 others. That same weekend, four people were injured when a SEPTA bus hit an electrical pole in Fishtown.

» READ MORE: Two SEPTA buses crash on Roosevelt Boulevard, killing one passenger

On Monday, two trolleys collided in Upper Darby, hospitalizing five passengers with non-life-threatening injuries. The next day, a Route 31 bus with no passengers jumped the curb at 15th and Walnut Streets in Center City, crashing into a glass storefront.

In a statement, SEPTA’s board wrote that it is “extremely concerned and troubled by the series of recent accidents involving SEPTA buses and trolleys.”

“We know that incidents like these shake the public’s confidence in SEPTA,” the board wrote. “We have stressed to executive staff that they need to be transparent with the public about the findings of these investigations.”

» READ MORE: SEPTA bus crashes into storefront in Center City, driver has minor injury

King — an award-winning artist formerly with Mural Arts Philadelphia and a 2018 resident at the Barnes Foundation — escaped the wreckage Thursday relatively unscathed with her cat. She said she is currently staying in a hotel.

But her paintings and art supplies, she said, were ruined. In an instant, King — who has created works for high-profile rappers including Kodak Black and Scar Lip — said she lost around 20 pieces of art for an upcoming show at the end of the month, as well as a commissioned family portrait for a rapper.

King has resided in the 18th-century tavern — once frequented by George Washington during the Battle of Brandywine, and the site of a 1777 battle during the British occupation of Philadelphia — for the last eight years, tending to the historic building. The inn is managed by the Philadelphia Department of Parks and Recreation and the Fairmount Park Conservancy. King said she was skeptical the trolley’s damage to the building would be able to be repaired.

“This is not a good time for the Blue Bell,” she said. “It’s a beautiful place to live, and is full of history... but it’s come at a very high price.”

Thursday’s crash marked the third time a vehicle has rammed into the historic building in the last three years. Last year, King said, a driver lost control of a stolen car at the intersection, careening into the house and taking out a front window, which was never repaired.

And in August 2020, a car smashed into the covered porch of the Blue Bell Inn, damaging the awning structure. Later that same day, floodwaters of Tropical Storm Isaias filled the home, washing away King’s art studio and most of her belongings before she and her son were rescued by fire crews.

“I can’t really face it. I lost everything in that flood,” King said. “All my art supplies, everything, and it’s really taken me a long time to replace everything. It’s very expensive to produce art, and so I finally had everything replaced, and I lost it all again.”