One of the single largest sectors of the city of Philadelphia at almost fifteen square miles between the Schuylkill River to the east and Delaware County to the west, West Philadelphia at its peak, in the early twentieth century, attracted an influx of new residents to its verdant, suburban-feeling neighborhoods. on the 200 block of West Queen Lane, in Philadelphia's . However, the Paoli/Thorndale does not stop anywhere between 30th Street and City Line Avenue, instead bypassing most of West Philadelphia ever since the closure of 52nd Street station. In the latter decades of the twentieth century West Philadelphia kept changing as the white population continued to drain out of the city. These are tabulated as the languages people preferentially speak when they are at home with their families. The teacher population of 32 teachers has declined by 17% over five school years. The NeighborhoodScout search engine is covered under US Patents No. Check out how our partner Point2 can help you generate more leads by making your listings and profile stand out. 2 (April 1980), pp. During the latter confrontation, police firebombed the group's headquarters, killing 11 people and destroying an entire block of Osage Avenue and Pine Street. Population Estimates, July 1 2022, (V2022), Population Estimates, July 1 2021, (V2021), Population estimates base, April 1, 2020, (V2022), Population estimates base, April 1, 2020, (V2021), Population, percent change - April 1, 2020 (estimates base) to July 1, 2022, (V2022), Population, percent change - April 1, 2020 (estimates base) to July 1, 2021, (V2021), American Indian and Alaska Native alone, percent, Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone, percent, White alone, not Hispanic or Latino, percent, Owner-occupied housing unit rate, 2017-2021, Median value of owner-occupied housing units, 2017-2021, Median selected monthly owner costs -with a mortgage, 2017-2021, Median selected monthly owner costs -without a mortgage, 2017-2021, Living in same house 1 year ago, percent of persons age 1 year+, 2017-2021, Language other than English spoken at home, percent of persons age 5 years+, 2017-2021, Households with a computer, percent, 2017-2021, Households with a broadband Internet subscription, percent, 2017-2021, High school graduate or higher, percent of persons age 25 years+, 2017-2021, Bachelor's degree or higher, percent of persons age 25 years+, 2017-2021, With a disability, under age 65 years, percent, 2017-2021, Persons without health insurance, under age 65 years, percent, In civilian labor force, total, percent of population age 16 years+, 2017-2021, In civilian labor force, female, percent of population age 16 years+, 2017-2021, Total accommodation and food services sales, 2017 ($1,000), Total health care and social assistance receipts/revenue, 2017 ($1,000), Total transportation and warehousing receipts/revenue, 2017 ($1,000), Mean travel time to work (minutes), workers age 16 years+, 2017-2021, Median household income (in 2021 dollars), 2017-2021, Per capita income in past 12 months (in 2021 dollars), 2017-2021, Total employment, percent change, 2019-2020, Men-owned employer firms, Reference year 2017, Women-owned employer firms, Reference year 2017, Minority-owned employer firms, Reference year 2017, Nonminority-owned employer firms, Reference year 2017, Veteran-owned employer firms, Reference year 2017, Nonveteran-owned employer firms, Reference year 2017. US-born citizens make up 88.6% of the resident pool in West Philadelphia, while non-US-born citizens account for 5.29%. Many young professionals and families have moved into the area. [citation needed], The nation's oldest zoological garden, the Philadelphia Zoo, has exhibitions and educational programs. In . 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. The streets were once lined with American Chestnut and walnut trees that touched across the five lanes of roadway, but many were removed due to Chestnut blight and replaced with a mix of sycamore and poplar trees. West Philadelphia | LISC Philadelphia 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. Like the rest of the citys manufacturing sector, West Philadelphias industry enjoyed great diversity. 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. The construction of the University City Science Center required the demolition of the residential Black Bottom neighborhood in the 1960s. Grades Offered Grades 9-12 Total Students 372 students Gender % Total Classroom Teachers 32 teachers Students by Grade School Rankings Raw data sources: The main thoroughfare, Market Street, runs East and West, paralleled to the north and south by smaller streets named for tree species. 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. Instead, it provided unarmed security services to patrol the area and exercised soft power to provide incentives to staff, from professors to janitors, to buy and repair homes in a catchment area around the university. Our nationally-comparable school ratings are covered under US Patent No. In addition, one of Philadelphia's six streetcar lines, the Route 10 Green Line, transports commuters and students daily along Lancaster Avenue from 36th and Ludlow streets to 63rd and Malvern Avenue in Wynnefield. There are 200,637 residents in West Philadelphia, with a median age of 33.1. Statistics are provided for West Philadelphia as a whole and by individual census tract. 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 Black population swelled again during World War II, breaking West Philadelphia's racial boundaries by moving south of Market Street and west of Fifty-Ninth Street. 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. 1 Baths Ba; 320 S. 10th Street. Founded in 1897, the Commercial Museum promoted the merits of international trade. (Author information current at time of publication.). No representation, guarantee or warranty is made as to the accuracy or completeness of information modified or aggregated for specific neighborhoods and/or zip codes. Despite the industry clustered along the areas shores, development in this period remained largely residential in the rest of West Philadelphia. This photograph shows two clusters of houses on an otherwise vacant street, awaiting the relocation of residents before demolition. Philadelphia's Immigrants | The Pew Charitable Trusts Trains influenced suburban development and provide a green alternative to crowded highways systems. Route 36 terminates in Southwest Philadelphia at Island Avenue west and 73rd Street, near the Philadelphia International Airport. Living in same house 1 year ago, percent of persons age 1 year+, 2017-2021. 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. 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. From designs evoking Greek temples built at the dawn of the automobile age to the ubiquitous utilitarian structures of the twenty-first century, gas stations have become a fixture of the Philadelphia area's landscape. Different vintage years of estimates are not comparable. . Today, Penns influence can be felt throughout the University City neighborhood it inhabits, from displacement of working-class black neighborhoods in the mid-twentieth century to more recent campaigns to revitalize the neighborhood and provide services and better schools for its residents. Everything from printers and bakeries to slaughterhouses and mirror manufacturers dotted this slice of the landscape. Click the Quick Info icon to the left of each row in TABLE view to learn about sampling error. Social Explorer was created by a group of New York demographers to provide online access to U.S. socioeconomic data from a variety of sources, including the United States Census. The demographic statistics presented here include all variables found in the "Comprehensive Reports" generated by Social Explorer for the census years since 1940. Age is classified into groups; each percentage listed is that group's percentage of the total population. Although this part of the region witnessed small settlements of Lenape and Swedes who established Lutheran churches and log cabins on the west side of the Schuylkill, it was not included in the original plan of Philadelphia. Streetcars were electrified beginning in the 1890s and accelerated the suburbanization of West Philadelphia. 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. Coordinates: .mw-parser-output .geo-default,.mw-parser-output .geo-dms,.mw-parser-output .geo-dec{display:inline}.mw-parser-output .geo-nondefault,.mw-parser-output .geo-multi-punct{display:none}.mw-parser-output .longitude,.mw-parser-output .latitude{white-space:nowrap}395833N 751246W / 39.975709N 75.2129W / 39.975709; -75.2129. Cultural venues include the Mann Music Center of the Performing Arts and the Bushfire Theater of the Performing Arts on 52nd Street. Other US patent applications are currently pending. Rodin, Judith. By the end of the 1920s, 220,000 African Americans lived in Philadelphia, and they desperately needed housing beyond the older Black ghetto in North Philadelphia. 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. Two other trolley lines originally ran through West Philly. West Philadelphia has about 75 of Philadelphia's 196 blue historic markers, which note historically important birthplaces, homes, business and other places. U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts: Virginia As African Americans began living in more neighborhoods, the white population began fleeing to the expanding suburbs. 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). Scope: population of Philadelphia and Allegheny West. Penn took full advantage of postwar federal largesse, competing successfully with its counterparts in higher education for research and development grantsespecially after the flood of funding following the Soviet Unions Sputnik success in 1957. West Philadelphia High School was one of the biggest and most diverse schools in state when it was opened in 1911. Alhough there are no officially defined boundaries, it is generally considered to reach from the western shore of the Schuylkill River, to City Avenue to the northwest, Cobbs Creek to the southwest, and the SEPTA Media/Wawa Line to the south. West Poplar; Philadelphia Population Statistics. 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. By 1840, the tract was only ninety-two acres. 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. The Black neighborhoods closest to the river, and therefore closest to Penn, tended to be those with the lowest income and the least political power. 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. 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. The land that makes up West Philadelphia was not always part of the city. 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. Miller, Rogerand Joseph Siry. Combined, these trolley routes convey more than 150,000 passengers daily, and operate 24-hour schedules, even in blizzards. 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. Over twenty-five hundred residents were displaced and the neighborhood was razed. mile) Land Area (in sq. The Emerging Suburb: West Philadelphia, 1850-1880, Pennsylvania History, Vol. An additional but smaller and less ornate 16 Italianate, brownstone, semi-detached houses, similar in form to the initial houses, were built around Chester Avenue. The University and Urban Revival: Out of the Ivory Tower and Into the Streets. . "Match Any Neighborhood" calculates the Match Level of one neighborhood to another using more than 200 characteristics of each neighborhood. [28] Since the mid-nineteenth century, West Philadelphia's fortunes have risen and fallen with shifts in transportation and demographics. Other settlements followed, including Mantua Village, carved from the holdings of a local landowner, Judge Richard Peters (1743-1828), and laid out in 1809. Elementary schools include Morton McMichael Elementary School and Lea Elementary School. 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. Much of West Philadelphias housing stock was built on speculation during the nineteenth century, when revolutions in transportation allowed wealthier citizens to live outside of the crowded city center but still commute in for work. 85.6%. The street was unified by front yards, and enclosed by decorative iron fences. We apologize for the inconvenience. During a confrontation at the fortified compound of the anarcho-primitivist group MOVE in 1985, the police attempted to drop a high explosive on a bunker atop the radicals home. Select your ideal criteria and let Scout do the rest. From 2000 to 2016, the number of foreign-born residents rose by roughly 95,000 while the number of U.S.-born Philadelphians fell by 44,500. 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. For a complete list of the variables and breakdowns of data available, consult the professional version of Social Explorer available from the University of Pennsylvania Libraries and other institutional subscribers. Estimates are not comparable to other geographic levels due to methodology differences that may exist between different data sources. On the morning of August 8, 1978, Mayor Frank Rizzo ordered police to enter the property by force. Starting at $1,140 USD /mo. The original bridge, often called the Schuylkill Permanent Bridge, was first built with exposed trusses, but covered a few years after its completion with a wooden roof and walls adorned with sculptures by William Rush. High school sports programs began in the nineteenth century in Greater Philadelphia. Arrivals from East Asia and Latin America, mainly Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, and Mexicans, have given the area small Hispanic and Asian American populations. Philadelphia's love affair with the bicycle began with its public debut at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition, held in Fairmount Park. Its western majority African American neighborhoods were declining in population and median income. It was purchased by the Woodlands Cemetery Company that year for use as a rural cemetery. A map showing West Philadelphia in relation to the rest of the city. 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. By this standard, about 231,000 Philadelphia householdsor about 529,000 peoplewere cost-burdened in 2018, the last year for which data was available. But over the course of the twentieth century, as the area became majority African American, it was hobbled by racist lending and employment practices. The 36 trolley leaves the 40th Street transit tunnel running along Woodland Avenue until 49th Street where it turns south to continue along Lindbergh Boulevard turning at Elmwood Avenue starting at 55th Street. Etienne, Harley F. Pushing Back the Gates: Neighborhood Perspectives on University-Driven Revitalization in West Philadelphia. In contrast, people younger than 25 and those older than 65 earn less, at $35,844 and $33,684, respectively.