the Water department said it basically "petrified" due to sediment from the river and water table, probably because we're talking a couple blocks from the current Delaware River, but a block from the actual original waterfront - https://water.phila.gov/watersheds/history/
An illustration of the Delaware waterfront at Front Street and Market Street in 1702. Dock’s Creek is to the south of Market and Pegg’s Run; both creeks were eventually filled or buried. City of Philadelphia Archive
It currently looks like this along the stretch where several blocks worth of land were dredged and filled in. Front Street is where the low-rise set of red buildings are in the center of the pic -
The alley is about a block and a half in from Front St. There were "new" streets created since the 1800s including what is the current "waterfront" street - Delaware Avenue (and parts of that in that location/area, are below sea level), and the final I-95 link in the 1970s .
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