Like much of the surrounding North Broad Street area, the block would spend the early part of the 20th Century dedicated to the proliferation of America’s auto industry. As the nation’s love affair with the automobile continued to evolve, the industrialized area just above City Hall proved highly conducive to its maturation. As the image here below, taken from G.W. Bromley’s 1910 Philadelphia Atlas, shows, the site in question was simply identified as a Motor Shop.
Delorean Time Machine: Packard Motor Car Building | Naked Philly.