Starting at $1,020 USD /mo. Other US patent applications are currently pending. Living in same house 1 year ago, percent of persons age 1 year+, 2017-2021. Elementary schools include Morton McMichael Elementary School and Lea Elementary School. U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts: Philadelphia city, Pennsylvania QuickFacts Table (a) Includes persons reporting only one race (c) Economic Census - Puerto Rico data are not comparable to U.S. Economic Census data (b) Hispanics may be of any race, so also are included in applicable race categories The home, a Federal-style mansion with a two-story columned portico, sat on a 250-acre parcel of land when it was constructed in 1770. The educational status of the citys residents who are 18 and older. The numbering pattern is mixed; someone traveling along Market Street into Upper Darby would cross 62nd Street, then Cobbs Creek Parkway/63rd St, then several named streets until finally arriving at 69th Street, skipping 6468. Suburban Lives. Age Under 5 Years: 6.6% As West Philadelphia became majority African American, the University of Pennsylvania began an ambitious expansion framed by its 1948 master plan (the universitys first update in almost half a century). These include five of Philadelphia's remaining six streetcar lines. Nestled in the center of Fairmount Park, it is near Memorial Hall, the current home of the Please Touch Museum, Kelly Pool, The Carousel House, and the new Microsoft partner high school, the "School of the Future". West Philadelphia was among the early streetcar suburbs, and a portion of it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the West Philadelphia Streetcar Suburb Historic District. [3] One of the major retail strips in West Philadelphia, it is lined with shops and restaurants through to 64th Street in the Wynnefield neighborhood. But the expansion into surrounding residential neighborhoods embittered many residents. . All of this information was taken from the 2010 U.S. Census Bureau. By the twentieth century many of the wealthy residents who remained in West Philadelphia located away from the Market-Frankford elevated line or the multiplicity of trolley lines, further accelerating the growth of the Main Line suburbs in the process. Rows of Queen Anne and Colonial Revival style houses were built much further from the city center in neighborhoods like Cedar Park and Kingsessing and commercial corridors developed down streets like Baltimore Avenue and Fifty-Second Street. West Philadelphia High School's student population of 372 students has declined by 22% over five school years. Often branded the 'Surekill Distressway,' the Schuylkill Expressway, connecting the Heart of Philadelphia to the northwestern suburbs, has been on of Pennsylvania's popular and congested highways. A gunfight ensued and in the end, police officer James Ramp was dead and nine MOVE members, including Delbert Africa, shown here, were arrested. Of this, 45.85% are males and 54.15% are females. The majority race in Philadelphia overall is white at 62.2% of residents. A few large estates were built during this time as well, most notably the Hamilton familys Woodlands with its iconic Georgian mansion and that of John Bartram (1699-1777), the renowned botanist and Quaker who cultivated extensive gardens along the banks of the Schuylkill. Both College Hall and the library remain standing and are West Philadelphia landmarks. This process accelerated with the full extension of the Market-Frankford line in 1907, which boosted settlement, including that of immigrant and Black laborers living close to the line. University Archives staff created the census tract maps found here. A pivotal factor in the development of West Philadelphia was the construction of the University of Pennsylvanias campus. Black Bottom was a traditionally black, working-class neighborhood along the Market Street corridor, between the Powelton Village and Mantua neighborhoods and the campuses of Drexel University and the University of Pennsylvania. [8], The area gained some fame through the DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince song "Yo Home to Bel-Air", which became the theme song to the NBC sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in which Wynnefield native Will Smith raps, "In West Philadelphia, born and raised.". Discover your neighborhood's best match, anywhere. With the exception of Market Street, these streets can be regarded as being "named after" the streets in West Philadelphia, not continuations, as they are cut off by the park. We apologize for the inconvenience. This photograph shows two clusters of houses on an otherwise vacant street, awaiting the relocation of residents before demolition. As African Americans began living in more neighborhoods, the white population began fleeing to the expanding suburbs. But during the early decades of majority-Black West Philadelphia, these challenges were attenuated by the growth of African American political power and the slowly declining, but still available, unionized industrial jobs. In 2014, President Barack Obama designated a swathe of West Philadelphia neighborhoods, including Mantua, as one of twenty-two national Promise Zones. In 1831, horse-drawn omnibus services were established in the city and some lines ran over the recently built Market Street Bridge into West Philadelphia, but it was not until they were replaced by horse-drawn streetcars in 1850 that development began in earnest. A map showing West Philadelphia in relation to the rest of the city. Housing was at a premium, and due to the desirability of the area, the newspaper of record noted that more than any other section of the city, West Philadelphia encouraged the construction of apartment buildings and the subdivision of old mansions to accommodate the boom. This activity resulted in the rejuvenation of the neighborhoods surrounding the university and the historically mixed-race neighborhood to its immediate west, which in 2010 became majority white for the first time since 1970. Commuter trains have helped to shape and define Philadelphia and its region since their introduction in 1832. 2023 University of Pennsylvania University Archives and Records Center, The West Philadelphia Community History Center is sponsored by the, University of Pennsylvania University Archives and Records Center. The area's African American population began growing in the 1880s through the migration of blacks from the southern states; white flight in the early 1960s completed the transition to a majority-black population. Immigration has become a major driver of population growth in Philadelphia in recent years, with long-term demographic and economic implications for the city and the region. The new bridge spurred growth, prompting a network of industries, including stockyards, lumber mills, slaughterhouses, coal yards, foundries, and glass factories to serve the city across the river. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2011. From radios earliest days, Philadelphia-area college and high school students have tested its boundaries. West Philadelphia contains many places of worship. Under the guidance of university president Judith Rodin (b. The street grid ends at Cobbs Creek Park along with the western political boundary of Philadelphia, but many of the street names and a roughly similar street grid (it begins to degrade outside the city) continue beyond the city limits into Upper Darby Township, into which Market Street runs uninterrupted to 69th street at the El terminal, where it turns into West Chester Pike and runs through Delaware County and into Chester County. During this period, the university adopted the moniker University City for the surrounding neighborhoods. Demographic data shown in this section was gathered from the latest U.S. Census Bureau release, the 2020 . Warner was the first known European west of the Schuylkill. One of the first homes built in West Philadelphia, in an area that was then Blockley Township, was William Hamiltons country estate, the Woodlands. The El once powered the economic engine of West Philadelphia. The houses melded the suburban principles of front porches and greenspace with the urban rowhouse form, producing profitable, yet desirable, middle-class suburban housing. Running above and, for a portion, under Market Street, this transportation link is one of Philadelphia's two major transit lines that transport hundreds of thousands of students and workers daily into and around the city. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. DJs have shaped musical tastes since the 1950s, broadcasting from stations such as WFIL, originally located at 4548 Market Street (the Enterprise Center in 2016). The impetus for Penns expansion came from an infusion of government research funding along with the urban renewal dollars made available by the national Housing Act of 1949. West Philadelphia Eastern North Philadelphia Kensington Strawberry Mansion West Philadelphia West Philadelphia is a diverse, close-knit and vibrant community home to family-friendly parks and schools, celebrated eateries, and an active arts and culture scene. A handful of chestnut trees remain near Cobbs Creek. West Philadelphia is home to a slight majority of female residents (54.11%) and a minority of male residents (45.89%) with a median age of 32.9 years. Many public sector unions became majority African American, or at least enjoyed large minorities of Black members, giving their neighborhoods larger political and economic anchors. School Dropout Rate for Population 16 to 19 Years : Civilian Population 16 to 19 Years Old: 17,540 : Not High School Graduate, Not Enrolled (dropout) 1,023: 5.8%: High School Graduate, or Enrolled (in school) 16,517: 94.2% : Employment/Unemployment for Civilian Population in Labor Force Age 16 Years and Over : Civilian Population in Labor Force . The houses in this grouping are primarily three-story Italianate buildings, linked by material, decorative detail, and form. Count. By 1840, the tract was only ninety-two acres. 30 Years Later, I'm Still Trying To Make Sense Of The MOVE Bombing (National Public Radio), PhilaPlace: Association of Islamic Charitable Projects (AICP) An Interview with Linda Hauber (Historical Society of Pennsylvania). The West Indian population is largely concentrated in West Philadelphia, with smaller numbers in the Southwest and Northeast sections. Beginning in 1801, the university occupied the Presidents House, a building constructed on Ninth and Market Streets in the hopes that George Washington would reside there during his presidency, but it was never used for this purpose. In first decades of the twenty-first century, parts of West Philadelphia saw a revival. The consolidation was one of the many factors in West Philadelphias nineteenth-century population boom. What resulted was a collection of Colonial Revival houses with Arts and Crafts influences, which reflect the sophisticated tastes of post-World War I Philadelphians. In 1923 the Philadelphia Bulletin estimated that at least half the population of the district commuted in to center city every day. In West Philadelphia, this incorporated the West Philadelphia and Belmont districts as well as Blockley and Kingsessing Townships into the city. All the trademarks displayed on this page are the property of Location, Inc. West Philadelphia's streets are laid out in a modified grid. West Philadelphia has about 75 of Philadelphia's 196 blue historic markers, which note historically important birthplaces, homes, business and other places. After Hamiltons death, much of the land was sold for residential and commercial development. Unveiled at the University of Pennsylvanias Moore School of Electrical Engineering in 1946, the world's first nontechnical computer, the ENIAC, consisted of 40 nine-foot-high cabinets containing 18,000 vacuum tubes, 10,000 capacitors, 6,000 switches, and 1,500 relays. The average annual household income in Overbrook Park is $63,686, while the median household income sits at $47,174 per year. Originally, Philadelphia city extended only from the Delaware River west to the Schuylkill River and from Vine Street to South Street. In 1924, the president of Drovers and Merchants National Bank argued that West Philadelphia should have its own seat on the local Federal Reserve Board. Learn how and when to remove this template message, West Philadelphia Streetcar Suburb Historic District, University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, National Register of Historic Places listings in West Philadelphia, "Studio 34's Eponymous Trolley, or, A Short History of Route 34", Mastery Charter Schools' big test in Philadelphia, "Commodore Theatre in Philadelphia, PA - Cinema Treasures", West Philadelphia Community History Center, Graduate Hospital / Southwest Center City. Multiple business corridors sprouted on Fifty-Second Street and Baltimore, Lancaster, Woodland, and Girard Avenues. The intersection of 52nd Street and Market Street in West Philadelphia was listed number eight in a 2007 list of the city's top ten recreational drug corners according to an article by Philadelphia Weekly reporter Steve Volk. Copyright 2000-2023 Location Inc. This postindustrial economic vise resulted in the kind of divestment and shadow economy dealings that blighted many other inner city neighborhoods. As of 2010, there were 24,608 people of West Indian ancestry living in Philadelphia, representing about 1.6 percent of the city, the vast majority of which are Haitians and Jamaicans. As a consequence, large swaths of the area became deteriorated and underpopulated, despite a vibrant Black political and cultural scene and, in the twenty-first century, a resurgent higher education and medical cluster. After 1880 the larger houses closer to the river and the university, which dated to earlier in the century, began to be carved into smaller units. Neither area proved popular at first, but as the city became more highly developed the lots began to sell. The resulting explosion sparked a conflagration that consumed much of the block and killed eleven people. West Philadelphia, nicknamed West Philly, is a section of the city of Philadelphia. Lancaster Avenue begins at 34th street near Drexel University; runs westward to the city line at City Avenue; and continues on as U.S. Route 30 to Lancaster, York, Pittsburgh. Check out how our partner Point2 can help you generate more leads by making your listings and profile stand out. The university was not the only force at work; its efforts were aided by a nationwide decline in crime and marginal increase in the desire for urban living among a segment of the professional classes. The Darby Road also ran up to this point, granting access to communities like Chester farther down the Delaware River. West Philadelphia is the home to several universities, including the University of Pennsylvania, Drexel University, the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, and Saint Joseph's University. The University and Urban Revival: Out of the Ivory Tower and Into the Streets. The area has declined in prominence over the last 50 years, thanks in part to increasing crime and the migration of many middle and upper-class residents to suburbs and other sections of the city. In . It stood divided, like much of the city and the country, between the haves and the have nots. The first building constructed, College Hall, was designed by the universitys professor of architecture, Thomas Webb Richards, and clad in green serpentine, giving it its distinctive color. number of members in ethno-racial group. Some of the largest concerns included the metal workings at Job T. Pughs Auger Works, the Otto Gas Engine Manufacturing Company, and the Allison & Sons Car & Tube Works, one of the biggest wagon firms in the nation until its destruction by fire in 1872. In Elegy (for MOVE and Philadelphia), Philadelphia poet and playwright Sonia Sanchez questions the paradoxical nature of a city that seemingly set itself and its people ablaze near Sixty-Second Street and Osage Avenue. Penn also invested in local public schools, founding the Sadie Alexander School, for pre-K through eighth grade. Most of these passenger trips originate outside of the city, but more West Philly residents are using SEPTA's multi-ride "Transpass"[citation needed], which allows unlimited rides on SEPTA vehicles within the city limits. A major wagon route, Lancaster Pike, ran through the area, and in 1805 the first permanent bridge was built over the Schuylkill at Market Street. The area's public schools are operated by the School District of Philadelphia. Since the mid-nineteenth century, West Philadelphia's fortunes have risen and fallen with shifts in transportation and demographics. Using interactive maps and data reports, Social Explorer makes available detailed information from the United States Census, beginning with the first census of 1790 and continuing to the present. The Route 10 trolley runs along Lancaster Avenue from 63rd and Malvern Avenue through to 36th and Ludlow Streets where a portal allows access to the subway tunnel into Center City. Rodin, Judith. Much of the vacancy and crime that blighted West Philadelphia could be found in these areas, which were still cut off from legitimate employment and capital markets. A controversial Philadelphia-based organization often associated with the Black Power movement, MOVE is best known for a 1985 incident in which the Philadelphia police dropped an incendiary device on their West Philadelphia headquarters. Later Tudor and Spanish Revival houses, and the Art Deco influenced apartment houses also filled in available lot spaces between developments and made it possible for more middle-class Philadelphians to move to the area. First, census tracts may vary from census year to census year, both with regards to boundaries and numbering. The construction of the University City Science Center required the demolition of the residential Black Bottom neighborhood in the 1960s. of Pa. U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, Grand Army of the Republic Civil War Museum and Library, National Museum of American Jewish History, University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=West_Philadelphia&oldid=1128789657, Wikipedia indefinitely semi-protected pages, Short description is different from Wikidata, Pages using infobox settlement with no coordinates, Articles needing additional references from July 2017, All articles needing additional references, Articles to be expanded from December 2009, Articles with unsourced statements from July 2009, Articles needing additional references from December 2010, Articles with unsourced statements from September 2012, Articles with unsourced statements from November 2010, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Non-Hispanic Black or African-American: 164,921 (76.2%), Non-Hispanic White/European: 37,010 (17.1%), This page was last edited on 22 December 2022, at 00:50. During the 1940s, the Warriors drew crowds to the Philadelphia Arena at Forty-Fifth and Market Streets. Our nationally-comparable school ratings are covered under US Patent No. West Philadelphia's population expanded in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, thanks in large part to horsecars, then streetcars, and Schuylkill River bridges that allowed middle-class breadwinners to commute into the Central Business District a few miles to the east. Different vintage years of estimates are not comparable. Philadelphia After the 1854 Act of Consolidation. Development was enabled by the creation of the horsecar, which pushed development to about 43rd Street, and, after the arrival of the electrified streetcar in 1892, accelerated to the west and southwest.[2]. Another development on Locust Street, a project by banker and West Philly resident Clarence Howard Clark, comprised three-story, two-bay, brick, restrained Queen Anne rowhouses. The city held public unwrappings in the nineteenth century and is home to several important collections, including the holdings of the Penn Museum. Meanwhile, in many neighborhoods on the border of Delaware County and elsewhere, conditions worsened during the Great Recession and the subsequent decimation of the public sector workforce. Professional, scientific, and technical services, Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islanders. The decline of the neighborhoods after World War II allowed many of these old homes to be preserved by neglect as they were not under the pressures of more central neighborhoods to develop during the urban renewal movement of the mid-twentieth century. But he abandoned the idea by 1684, two years after his arrival. Farther west, African American neighborhoods tended to be more stable, with larger populations of public sector workers and private sector white collar workers, but that was little comfort to the displaced residents of Black Bottom. QuickFacts provides frequently requested Census Bureau information at the national, state, county, and city level. Apartment buildingsunusual in this row-house-dominated citybegan to spring up as well. Despite the industry clustered along the areas shores, development in this period remained largely residential in the rest of West Philadelphia. A plethora of recreational bike trails and a bike sharing program provide cyclists with new options in the twenty first century. Like the rest of the citys manufacturing sector, West Philadelphias industry enjoyed great diversity. Scope: population of Pennsylvania and Philadelphia -40% -20% -0% +20% % ref. Users should exercise caution when comparing 2017-2021 ACS 5-year estimates to other ACS estimates. The Cynwyd Line is a limited-service express line from Center City to the Bala Cynwyd neighborhood of Lower Merion Township. The Big 5, an association of local college basketball programs, played at the University of Pennsylvania's Palestra arena from the time of its formation until 1986. After generating area maps from Google Maps,they added census boundaries and census tract labels as needed. Streetcar suburbs blossomed throughout the Philadelphia area in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as streetcar lines radiating from the city's heart allowed people to move further into its fringes. Other high schools include University City High School; William L. Sayre High School, formerly Sayre Middle School; Robert E. Lamberton High School; Mastery Charter Shoemaker Campus, formerly William Shoemaker Middle School; and Overbrook High School. Cultural venues include the Mann Music Center of the Performing Arts and the Bushfire Theater of the Performing Arts on 52nd Street. Other developments introduced urban density and architectural uniformity: the Queen Anne style with columned porches and decorative spindlework, brickwork and corbelling; steeply pitched gables with fishscale slate shingles; turrets; balconies; and windows with a single pane surrounded by small panes. Completed in 1907, this elevated subway line linked West Philadelphia, Millbourne and Upper Darby to Center City and then later to Frankford. Over twenty-five hundred residents were displaced and the neighborhood was razed. Northsouth streets are numbered, rising consecutively from 30th Street at the Schuylkill River to 77th Street on the far western edge near Cobbs Creek and to the block-long 90th Street in Southwest Philadelphia near the airport. This gradual elevation makes the skyline of Center City visible from many points in West Philadelphia. Follow Backgrounders on Twitter Police bombarded the home with water cannons and teargas, and the sides exchanged gunfire. In 1850, it was destroyed by fire. These are tabulated as the languages people preferentially speak when they are at home with their families. Please note: Unemployment data updated November 2022. In the mid-1980s, crack cocaine reached West Philadelphia and wreaked havoc in many neighborhoods, resulting in a crime wave that scared off many middle-class African Americans and some of the remaining white families as well. After a slow start, the Science Center eventually prospered. In 1840, the property was transformed into a cemetery with an arboretum of over 1,000 trees. In 1963, four stone eagles were added to the bridge approaches after being salvaged from New York Citys recently demolished Penn Station. Hampton Demographics. But farther from the university in other West Philadelphia neighborhoods, like Kingsessing and Cobbs Creek on the Delaware County line, conditions stagnated or worsened as the Great Recession eliminated many public sector jobs. Hamiltonville as a continuation of Penns grid in Philadelphia proper. These are the most common groups that city residents self-reported as their ancestry. Another major transit link in West Philadelphia are the five Subway Surface Lines, often called the Green Lines for their representation on SEPTA route maps. The two 77th Streets (as well as all numbered streets after 58th) are miles apart. University City Science Center, the nation's first urban research park was conceived as an ambitious urban renewal project, but ignited racial tensions in a city marred by poverty. Today many parts of West Philadelphia retain the character of those early streetcar suburbs. and the West Virginia border. This is how city residents have self-reported their race and ethnicity to the US Census. The population density in City Center West is 97% higher than Philadelphia; The median age in City Center West is 7% higher than Philadelphia; In City Center West 78.92% of the population is White; In City Center West 6.11% of the population is Black; In City Center West 11.66% of the population is Asian In later decades, many of these large row houses were subdivided into apartments and were joined by larger multiunit buildings as the neighborhoods continued to boom. The law profession in Philadelphia dates back to the days of William Penn. Penn also competed with other parts of the city for urban renewal funds (much of the money allocated within West Philadelphia went to the universitys ends). The information is updated yearly, as soon as new data is made available by the US Census Bureau. These include mosques such as Masjid Al-Jamia, a Sunni Muslim institution at 4228 Walnut Street. Route 36 terminates in Southwest Philadelphia at Island Avenue west and 73rd Street, near the Philadelphia International Airport. By 1820, residents of these neighboring suburbs outnumbered those of the city proper. These houses are typical of the early 20th-century developments in West Philadelphia, and are unified by rhythmic patterning of porch and gable features.