West Philadelphia | LISC Philadelphia 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. From radios earliest days, Philadelphia-area college and high school students have tested its boundaries. For the first time in West Philadelphia, houses had garages. By 1950, West Philadelphia had lost a quarter of its Irish-American and 11 percent of its Italian-American population, while the African American population increased by 72 percent. 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. The demographic statistics presented here include all variables found in the "Comprehensive Reports" generated by Social Explorer for the census years since 1940. 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. "Match Any Neighborhood" calculates the Match Level of one neighborhood to another using more than 200 characteristics of each neighborhood. 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. It remained to be seen whether the ascendancy of the eastern section of West Philadelphia, where old industries and worker housing were giving way to new investment, would be enough to buoy the fortunes of the outlying, formerly middle class areas. In 1963, four stone eagles were added to the bridge approaches after being salvaged from New York Citys recently demolished Penn Station. 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. The Woodlands Cemetery, which is located near the west bank of the Schuylkill River, was originally the estate of Andrew Hamilton who bought the property in 1735 from descendants of Blockley Township's founder, William Warner, who hailed from Brockley, England. According to the 2010 census, 216,433 people live among the ZIP codes of 19104, 19131, 19139, 19143 and 19151.[1](Map). West Philadelphia Census Statistics | West Philadelphia Community This gradual elevation makes the skyline of Center City visible from many points in West Philadelphia. 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 district still had fewer than a hundred thousand people in 1890, but every new census revealed meteoric growth. 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. The majority race in Philadelphia overall is white at 62.2% of residents. Mummies have captured the imagination and sparked the curiosity of Philadelphians since the Colonial Era. A gunfight ensued and in the end, police officer James Ramp was dead and nine MOVE members, including Delbert Africa, shown here, were arrested. Police bombarded the home with water cannons and teargas, and the sides exchanged gunfire. For the 1844-54 legal entity, see, Neighborhood of Philadelphia in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Hospitals and academic medical centers have played a central role in the economies of many major U.S. cities, including Philadelphia. In 2008, the area around the Please Touch Museum, Philadelphia Zoo, and the Mann Music Center was designated the Centennial District: an area to be revitalized by the country's 250th birthday in 2026. Every day, thousands of vehicles travel this route, which is one of the major commuter routes into and out of Philadelphia from Delaware and Chester Counties. West Philadelphia contains many places of worship. At the time, the majority of residents were working classabout half immigrants from Ireland, Germany, and Englandand settlements of any density tapered off at what would become the boundaries of Fortieth Street, with the wealthy clustered along Walnut and Chestnut near this westward extremis. Overbrook Park, PA Household Income, Population & Demographics | Point2 A bustling light industrial sector continued to grow south of Market Street on land adjacent to the river, relying on the Pennsylvania Railroads infrastructure around 30th Street Station to convey the sectors goods efficiently. on the 200 block of West Queen Lane, in Philadelphia's . Jake Blumgart is a reporter for WHYYs PlanPhilly. The topography of West Philadelphia is composed of rolling hills rising slowly from the Schuylkill River toward Cobbs Creek in the west and toward Belmont Plateau in the northwest. It was purchased by the Woodlands Cemetery Company that year for use as a rural cemetery. The Orlons, who recorded the hit song 'South Street,' formed at Overbrook High School in West Philadelphia in the 1950s. Elementary schools include Morton McMichael Elementary School and Lea Elementary School. View All Data Tools and Apps For more information, please visit the 2021 5-year ACS Comparison Guidance page. This section compares the 50 most populous of those to each other. 99-146. Later renamed the Civic Center Museum, it closed in 1994. The topography of West Philadelphia is composed of rolling hills rising slowly from the Schuylkill River toward Cobbs Creek in the west and toward Belmont Plateau in the northwest. A map showing West Philadelphia in relation to the rest of the city. 77th and 86th Streets run just a few blocks before they leave the city for surrounding jurisdictions. With firefighters fearful of being fired upon, the blaze was allowed to burn. The western portion of the neighborhood was once home to some of the most expensive real estate in the country (and much striking Victorian-era architecture remains). Founded in 1897, the Commercial Museum promoted the merits of international trade. Philadelphia, PA | Data USA After several high-profile murders of Penn graduate students living in the mixed- race neighborhoods beyond the campus borders, which had lost much of their white population during the 1990s, the university began to again be active in the community. In 1854, the Act of Consolidation was signed, aligning Philadelphias borders with those of Philadelphia County. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Neighborhood Map Area: 0.192 square miles Population: 2,019 Population density: 1,660 71.5% Black 231 9.9% White 173 7.4% Hispanic or Latino 147 6.3% Asian 64 2.8% American Indian 48 2.1% Two or more races Median household income in 2019: Distribution of median household income 198 Less than $10,000 169 $10,000 to $19,999 US-born citizens make up 88.6% of the resident pool in West Philadelphia, while non-US-born citizens account for 5.29%. There are 200,637 residents in West Philadelphia, with a median age of 33.1. As the student body swelled in the first half of the nineteenth century, the center city campus was expanded and new buildings were constructed to replace the Presidents House, but the school still needed more space. Estimates are not comparable to other geographic levels due to methodology differences that may exist between different data sources. In that year, 40% of the city's households were cost-burdened, a figure that is in line with many other major cities. As African Americans began living in more neighborhoods, the white population began fleeing to the expanding suburbs. Select your ideal criteria and let Scout do the rest. 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. Largely commissioned by speculative developers and designed by some of the city's most prolific architects, they were purchased by industrial managers and other professionals who led the first movement of upper and middle class from the more crowded city center. The information is updated yearly, as soon as new data is made available by the US Census Bureau. Rural cemeteries were promoted in the mid-nineteenth century as a solution to crowded city churchyard and municipal cemeteries that also provided residents of the citys crowded center with green space for recreation and fresh air. 8,376,755. 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. Residents complained of a bullhorn broadcasting political messages all day and accused the group of stockpiling weapons. Puckett, John L. and Mark Frazier Lloyd. After years of neighbor complaints regarding the group loudly broadcasting political messages and neglecting its children, MOVE was ordered to leave the property. A plethora of recreational bike trails and a bike sharing program provide cyclists with new options in the twenty first century. For eight remarkable decades, local Philadelphia fans consistently supported a series of Black baseball clubs whose successes generated racial pride and represented a triumph of African American institution-building. The Route 11 trolley runs along Woodland Avenue from the transit tunnel at 40th Street to the city line at Cobbs Creek and continues into Darby Borough. The educational institutions and city planners wanted to establish a research park like Stanford Universitys Industrial Park to revitalize the community. Connecting the Past with the Present, Building Community, Creating a Legacy, TheEncyclopedia 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. In the early days of decline, the major universities reacted to changes in their surrounding areas aggressively, displacing residents and creating barrier zones between their campuses and city residents. Since the dawn of rail transportation, Philadelphia has been home to a number of grand railroad stations. Allegheny West. The neighborhood of Eastwick in Southwest Philadelphia, near Philadelphia International Airport, showed the greatest poverty-rate increase of any community, rocketing from 12 percent during 2006-10 to 26 percent in the newest survey. Everything from printers and bakeries to slaughterhouses and mirror manufacturers dotted this slice of the landscape. Neither area proved popular at first, but as the city became more highly developed the lots began to sell. Initial development was divided into block lots and sold in 1852 with the condition that "substantial stone or brick buildings" be erected. A click on a specific census tract as found in either the list or the map for a given census year will present a detailed map with a link to the demographic statistics for that census tract. Total Population by Neighborhood#5 To accommodate the bourgeoning population, in 1844 Hamiltonville, Mantua, and Powelton joined together to incorporate as the borough of West Philadelphia, before being brought into the city proper with the consolidation of 1854. [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.". The Route 38 trolley, running from Wynfield to Center City via Belmont Avenue, and the Route 31 trolley, running from Overbrook to Center City via Haverford Avenue, were replaced by diesel buses when the Philadelphia Transportation Company transferred control of the trolley service to National City Lines. 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. 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. 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. Foreign Born residents have immigrated to the United States from another country and may or may not be naturalized citizens. Completed in 1907, this elevated subway line linked West Philadelphia, Millbourne and Upper Darby to Center City and then later to Frankford. High school sports programs began in the nineteenth century in Greater Philadelphia. 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 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. U.S. District Court for the Eastern Dist. The western reaches of West Philadelphia included miles of two-story rowhouses with bay windows above classical columned front porches. Only two MOVE members, Ramona Africa and a child, Birdie Africa, survived the blaze. These include five of Philadelphia's remaining six streetcar lines. In contrast, people younger than 25 and those older than 65 earn less, at $35,844 and $33,684, respectively. The demographic statistics for this exhibit have been compiled fromSocial Explorerby the staff of theUniversity Archivesof theUniversity of Pennsylvania. West Philadelphia - Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia 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. Total Population 1,576,251. Philadelphia. U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts: Virginia 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. In first decades of the twenty-first century, parts of West Philadelphia saw a revival. Many young professionals and families have moved into the area. In the 1980s some immigrants began to move into the area, chiefly African and Cambodian, although the latter population would almost entirely decamp for other parts of the city by the beginning of the twenty-first century. The student body continued to grow into the twentieth century and by 1900 the campus had expanded to thirty buildings including dormitories, laboratories, and the Frank Furness-designed library shown at left in this postcard. On Chestnut Street, Drexel Universitys WKDU regularly welcomed local talent into its studio for live events, as did WPEN, which lent its studio to college broadcasters. The device ignited fuel in a generator on the roof, causing a fire that spread through the neighborhood. Measuring America's People, Places, and Economy. By the early twenty-first century West Philadelphia was about as populous as it had been in 1910, having lost more than a hundred thousand residents after 1950. Miller, Rogerand Joseph Siry. For the next half century at least, West Philadelphia largely became a suburb in the cityabetted by a series of advances in transportation technology, starting with the horsecars of the 1850s. The two 77th Streets (as well as all numbered streets after 58th) are miles apart. The land that makes up West Philadelphia was not always part of the city. 302 South 12th Street. The second story, projecting, semi-hexagonal bay is incorporated into this design, an element which defines the later rowhouses. University City is the easternmost portion of West Philadelphia, encompassing several Philadelphia universities. Philadelphia police are investigating the fatal shooting of a 44-year-old man in Germantown. Then in the 1870s the University of Pennsylvania left its cramped center city location for West Philadelphia, a move with enormous effect on the development of surrounding neighborhoods, especially during the second half of the twentieth century. Satterlee Hospital, one of the largest Union Army hospitals of the Civil War, operated from 1862 to 1865; part of its grounds are now the northern section of Clark Park. QuickFacts provides frequently requested Census Bureau information at the national, state, county, and city level. 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. One of the aggravating factors in this change has been the recent reconstruction of the EL which, due to detours of the "number streets" or numbered northsouth thoroughfares and closure of large portions of Market Street, have led to many remaining businesses failing. 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. Age is classified into groups; each percentage listed is that group's percentage of the total population. The 77th Street in Overbrook is not contiguous with the 77th Street in the column of streets that ends with 90th Street in Southwest Philadelphia. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2011. By the 1840s developers in Philadelphia, which was the second-largest city in the United States at the time, were already looking beyond the Schuylkill for fresh land. The group refused to leave and a year-long blockade followed. 2.57. In May 1985, an attempt to evict MOVE again escalated to violence. A few African American neighborhoods close to campus were largely destroyed by eminent domain as a result, most famously the area known as Black Bottom that stood between the university and Powelton Village. 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. The NeighborhoodScout search engine is covered under US Patents No. top Male population 45.52% Female population 54.48% Citizen US Born 88.53% Citizen not US Born 5.24% Not Citizen 6.24% Moved from Abroad 0.94% Moved from Same County 9.19% Moved from Same State 2.37% Moved from Different State 3.65% Same House as Last Year 83.85% Demographic data shown in this section was gathered from the latest U.S. Census Bureau release, the 2020 . 7,043,501 and 7,680,859. 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. Airy, West Oak Lane, East Oak Lane, Rhawnhurst, Germantown, Mayfair, Tacony, Wynnefield and Olney. MOVE, founded in 1972 by West Philadelphia native John Africa, was originally headquartered in the Powelton Village neighborhood. These are the types of employers who city residents work for. In the following decade, farther to the east, general violence continued to rise, as it did in the rest of the country. number of members in ethno-racial group. Despite the industry clustered along the areas shores, development in this period remained largely residential in the rest of West Philadelphia. 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. The eastern side of West Philadelphia is also known as University City. The introduction of electric streetcars in the 1890s further altered the area, as those with more resources moved farther out, leaving behind a more broadly based middle class. 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. Man, 44, shot in the head and killed on a Germantown street, police say 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 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. Trains influenced suburban development and provide a green alternative to crowded highways systems. Count. West Philadelphia has about 75 of Philadelphia's 196 blue historic markers, which note historically important birthplaces, homes, business and other places. Population by Neighborhood in Philadelphia There are 158 neighborhoods that are fully or partially contained within Philadelphia (144 fully and 14 partially). 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. New Census figures on Philly neighborhoods show inequality, high - WHYY Statistics are provided for West Philadelphia as a whole and by individual census tract. St. Thomas More High School for Boys at 47th and Wyalusing Avenue was closed in 1975 and now houses the Sr Clara Muhammad School. 85.6%. By 1820, residents of these neighboring suburbs outnumbered those of the city proper. During the colonial era, West Philadelphia was accessible from the city only by ferry. Race and Ethnicity in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania The remaining African American neighborhoods continued to suffer discrimination in access to jobs and capital while many of the jobs that previously fostered economic stability were lost or undercut by the flight of manufacturing firms. Finally, note that Social Explorer has included in its Comprehensive Reports most, but not all, of the variables available for each census year. Other major thoroughfares include Chestnut and Walnut Streets, which together form Pennsylvania Route 3. (Author information current at time of publication.). West Philadelphia, PA Household Income, Population & Demographics | Point2 After a slow start, the Science Center eventually prospered. Hampton Demographics. During the latter confrontation, police firebombed the group's headquarters, killing 11 people and destroying an entire block of Osage Avenue and Pine Street. The students of "West" were the children of middle-class black people, as well as of Irish, Jewish, Polish and other immigrant groups. Scope: population of Philadelphia and Allegheny West. Mapping Progress in 55 Philadelphia Neighborhoods - Next City 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. 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.