west philadelphia demographics west philadelphia demographics

Follow The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia on Instagram 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. Over the city's three centuries, it has evolved into a diverse and vital aspect of the city community. Population by Neighborhood in Philadelphia There are 158 neighborhoods that are fully or partially contained within Philadelphia (144 fully and 14 partially). 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. The Black population swelled again during World War II, breaking West Philadelphias racial boundaries by moving south of Market Street and west of Fifty-Ninth Street. Most of the houses in West Philadelphia are row houses, although there are areas of semi-detached and detached houses. 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. Along with a decrease in crime and a trend toward urban living, most of University City underwent gentrification. West Philadelphia, nicknamed West Philly, is a section of the city of Philadelphia. University City is the easternmost portion of West Philadelphia, encompassing several Philadelphia universities. 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. In recent years, parts of West Philadelphia have undergone "Penntrification," a term that reflects the University of Pennsylvania's role in gentrification of the neighborhood; including a campaign to rename part of the area University City (the designation now appears on maps as well as public street signs and government listings). 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. The NBC drama American Dreams is set in West Philadelphia in the mid-1960s. Professional, scientific, and technical services, Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islanders. The highest numbered street to run any considerable distance contiguously is 58th Street, which runs from the northern frontier of West Philadelphia at City Avenue south to the Schuylkill River. Apartment buildingsunusual in this row-house-dominated citybegan to spring up as well. During this period, the university adopted the moniker University City for the surrounding neighborhoods. Public sector employment in city government and the school district offered a wide range of employment opportunities for Black workers, from professional positions as managers and teachers to jobs that required less formal education, like sanitation and transportation. 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. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015. 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. The North Philadelphia neighborhood, which straddles Germantown Avenue just west of Broad Street and Erie Avenue, has seen its population rise 4 percent (above the city's 1 percent increase), its housing prices rose 11 percent again above the citywide average. 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 Wynnefield neighborhood is a location frequently used by photographers and organizers of civic events. West Philadelphia is also served by five of SEPTA's thirteen Regional Rail Lines, which transport thousands of commuters daily to and from Center City and University City, and provide a quick and inexpensive link to the Philadelphia International Airport. Click the Quick Info icon to the left of each row in TABLE view to learn about sampling error. 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% In 1872 the university moved to a new campus near Spruce and Thirty-Fourth Streets in West Philadelphia. 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 earliest developments began in 1850 and the final period of mass construction ended in 1930. Most residents of West Philadelphia are U.S.-born citizens (88.93%) with a minority of non-U.S. citizens (6.25%) and an even smaller percentage of U.S. foreign-born citizens (4.82%). . The map below highlights areas of . Finally the decision was made by Philadelphia Police Commissioner Gregore Sambor to drop an incendiary device on the bunkerlike structure to weaken MOVEs position. Under the guidance of university president Judith Rodin (b. 302 South 12th Street. 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. 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. 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. West Philadelphia drew national attention in 1978 and 1985 for violent clashes between police and an Afro-centric, back-to-nature group called MOVE. The eastern side of West Philadelphia is also known as University City. 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 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. Other settlements followed, including Mantua Village, carved from the holdings of a local landowner, Judge Richard Peters (1743-1828), and laid out in 1809. 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. Blocks away from "West" were the West Philadelphia Catholic High Schools for Girls at 46th Street and Boys at 48th Street, now consolidated into West Catholic Preparatory High School in the building at 46th Street. Later renamed the Civic Center Museum, it closed in 1994. The houses in this grouping are primarily three-story Italianate buildings, linked by material, decorative detail, and form. 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. The cemetery is open daily to visitors and still allows up to one hundred burials per year; the mansion is open seasonally for tours. Scope: population of Philadelphia and Allegheny West. 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. After years of neighbor complaints regarding the group loudly broadcasting political messages and neglecting its children, MOVE was ordered to leave the property. In contrast, people younger than 25 and those older than 65 earn less, at $35,844 and $33,684, respectively. The educational status of the citys residents who are 18 and older. Starting at $1,020 USD /mo. This set the living pattern apart from its counterparts in North and South Philadelphia, where row houses were interspersed with factories and warehouses. American Bandstand (1952-89) was a massively popular music television program with strong Philadelphia roots, storied national success, and the power to shape the music industry and society. An alternate definition includes all city land west of the Schuylkill; this would also include Southwest Philadelphia and its neighborhoods. 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. 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. By the 1930s one of the more notable developments in West Philadelphia was the growing number of Black residents and the discriminatory pressures that boxed them into an intensely segregated area stretching south to Market Street, west to Fifty-Ninth Street, and bounded to the north and east by the main line of the Pennsylvania Railroad and the river beyond it. QuickFacts provides frequently requested Census Bureau information at the national, state, county, and city level. Two other trolley lines originally ran through West Philly. As the century wore on, the only corners of West Philadelphia that were not overwhelmingly Black were immediately around Drexel and Pennsylvania universities and in a band of neighborhoods to the west of the higher education cluster that remained racially mixed from the 1960s onward. A plethora of recreational bike trails and a bike sharing program provide cyclists with new options in the twenty first century. Median household income provides the best measure of the budget of the typical family or other non-family household. "Match Any Neighborhood" calculates the Match Level of one neighborhood to another using more than 200 characteristics of each neighborhood. 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. City officials found these species much more tolerant of the urban environment and resistant to disease. 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. In 1850, it was destroyed by fire. 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. In May 1985, an attempt to evict MOVE again escalated to violence. The NeighborhoodScout search engine is covered under US Patents No. Allegheny West. In . 99-146. There are 200,637 residents in West Philadelphia, with a median age of 33.1. The law profession in Philadelphia dates back to the days of William Penn. University Archives staff members Mary D. McConaghy and Michael L. Ellerson gathered these statistical tables from the professional version of Social Explorerthen edited them for use here. 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. The students of "West" were the children of middle-class black people, as well as of Irish, Jewish, Polish and other immigrant groups. 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. Community groups have called on SEPTA to reopen closed Regional Rail stations in areas further away from the Market-Frankford Line and the Broad Street Line. In the period after World War II, many white residents and industrial jobs left the city for its suburbs, leaving in their wake overwhelmingly black communities with few employment opportunities. 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. Modeled after the Crystal Palace Great Exhibition in London, the Centennial Exhibition in 1876 exhibited national pride and belief in the importance of education and progress through industrial innovation. Many young professionals and families have moved into the area. These are the types of employers who city residents work for. West Philadelphia was divided into townships and districts with independent governments. 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 land that makes up West Philadelphia was not always part of the city. [28] Then on the far bank of the Schuylkill, port and mercantile infrastructure began to build up at this westward point of entry to the city. US-born citizens make up 88.6% of the resident pool in West Philadelphia, while non-US-born citizens account for 5.29%. Neither area proved popular at first, but as the city became more highly developed the lots began to sell. 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 The group resurfaced in the Cobbs Creek neighborhood in 1981 and was again the subject of neighborhood complaints. 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. Starting at $1,192 USD /mo. West Poplar; Philadelphia Population Statistics. ofGreaterPhiladelphia. In that year, 40% of the city's households were cost-burdened, a figure that is in line with many other major cities. [citation needed] Harrity Elementary School is a district-owned school operated by Mastery Charter Schools.[6]. The El once powered the economic engine of West Philadelphia. 3,248,528. Since the dawn of rail transportation, Philadelphia has been home to a number of grand railroad stations. Additionally, 6.11% of the population is represented by non-citizens. It is situated directly across the Schuylkill River from Center City . 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. The Cynwyd Line is a limited-service express line from Center City to the Bala Cynwyd neighborhood of Lower Merion Township. For more information, please visit the 2021 5-year ACS Comparison Guidance page. 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.