Northeast Philadelphia | |
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.jpg) Aerial view around theNortheast Philadelphia Airport | |
 Map of Philadelphia County with Northeast highlighted, which contains the lower Northeast neighborhood.Click for larger image. | |
| Country |  United States of America |
| State |  Pennsylvania |
| County |  Philadelphia |
| City | Philadelphia |
| Area | |
• Total | 50.8 sq mi (132 km2) |
| Population (2010) | |
• Total | 528,810 |
| • Density | 10,455/sq mi (4,037/km2) |
| ZIP Code | 19111, 19114, 19115, 19116, 19124, 19135, 19136, 19149, 19152, 19154 |
Northeast Philadelphia, nicknamedNortheast Philly,the Great Northeast, and known colloquially as simply "the Northeast", is a section ofPhiladelphia,Pennsylvania. According to the 2000 census, Northeast Philadelphia has a population of between 300,000 and 450,000, depending on how the area is defined.[1] The Northeast is known as being home to a large and diverseworking class population, includingPolish,German,Jewish,Russian,African American,Brazilian,Puerto Rican,Dominican,Guatemalan,Ukrainian,Indian,Chinese,Irish, andVietnamese neighborhoods.[2]
Because of the large size of the Northeast, the Philadelphia City Planning Commission divides it into two regions called Lower Northeast and Far Northeast, the names being derived from their distance fromCenter City. The term Near Northeast is not widely used colloquially; Lower Northeast is more commonly used, but the term Far Northeast is in widespread use. The demarcation line between the two sections is typically given asPennypack Creek.[3]
Northeast Philadelphia is bounded by theDelaware River on the east,Bucks County on the north, andMontgomery County on the west. The southern limit is given asFrankford/Tacony Creek or Adams Avenue.[4]
The first European settlement in the Northeast was by Swedish farmers, who emigrated there when the area was a part of theNew Sweden colony.[5] They were followed by EnglishQuakers, includingThomas Holme, who came to begin the settlement ofWilliam Penn's Pennsylvania colony in the late 1680s. In the years to follow, Northeast Philadelphia developed as a scattering of small towns and farms that were a part of Philadelphia County, but not the City of Philadelphia. Before consolidation with the City, what is now the Northeast consisted of the townships ofByberry,Delaware,Lower Dublin,Moreland, andOxford, (largely rural areas); and the boroughs ofBridesburg,Frankford, andWhite Hall, which were more urbanized.[6]
While most of the land in what is now the Northeast was dedicated to farming, the presence of many creeks, along with proximity to Philadelphia proper, made the towns of the Northeast suitable for industrial development. The Northeast's first factory was the Rowland Shovel Works on thePennypack Creek. In 1802, it produced the first shovel made in the United States.[7] More mills and factories followed along the Pennypack andFrankford Creeks, and traces of themill races and dams remain to this day. The most famous of these factories was theDisston Saw Works inTacony, founded by English industrialistHenry Disston, whose saw blades were world-renowned.[7][8]
By 1854,Philadelphia County wasincorporated into the city.[6] In spite of the political incorporation, the Northeast retained its old development patterns for a time, and the dense populations and urban style of housing that marked older, more traditional sections of the city had not yet found their way there.[9] In the first three decades of the 20th century, rapidindustrialization led to the growth of industrial sections of the northeast and the neighborhoods surrounding them.[10] These demographic changes, along with the building of theMarket-Frankford Line train and new arterial highways, such as theRoosevelt Boulevard, brought new middle class populations to the lower half of the Northeast.[11] Vast tracts ofrow homes were built in that section of the Northeast for new arrivals in the 1920s and 1930s, typically with small, but valued front lawns, which impart a "garden suburb" quality to much of the Northeast, reducing the sense of physical density felt elsewhere in the city.[12] Much of this development occurred east of Roosevelt Boulevard (Mayfair, Torresdale) and in Oxford Circle.[11]
AfterWorld War II, newer arrivals, armed with the mortgage benefits of theGI Bill, brought thebaby boom to the Northeast. This newer population was heavilyJewish or ethnicCatholic[13] (includingIrish,Italian,Polish, andGerman Americans) and completed the development of the region, filling in undeveloped areas of Rhawnhurst and Bell's Corner and developing the previously rural Far Northeast. As older sections of the city lost populations of young families, the Northeast's school-age population swelled, requiring rapid expansion of schools, libraries, cinemas, shopping, transportation, restaurants and other needed amenities.[14]
The period from 1945 through the 1970s was marked in many American cities by urban decline in older, more industrial areas. This was especially true in Philadelphia, in which much of the city's North, West and South sections lost population, factories, jobs and commerce. During the postwar period, the Northeast experienced a heavy influx of growing middle-class families, and had become an almost exclusively white community. This aroused controversy in the 1960s and 1970s, as passions for and againstschool busing were focused on the Northeast, to address racial imbalances, especially in the city's public schools. That racial imbalance was ultimately addressed by the upward mobility enjoyed by many of the graduates of the Northeast's excellent public and parochial school systems, who made their way out of the Northeast and into the suburbs from the 1980s onward, making room for new arrivals from the city'sLatino,African American andAsian populations.[15]
In the 1980s, the Northeast developed along a separate path from much of the rest of the city. In addition to the racial differences mentioned above, the political climate in the Northeast was balanced evenly betweenRepublicans andDemocrats, while the rest of the city almost uniformly voted for the latter party.[16] As a result, many Northeasters became more and more discontented with the high city taxes and a perceived imbalance in the services they received for them.[17] This discontent grew to give rise to asecessionist movement, led by State SenatorFrank "Hank" Salvatore, among others. Salvatore introduced a bill in the State Senate to allow the Northeast to become a separate county called Liberty County, but the bill failed to progress beyond this stage.[17] As the Philadelphia economy grew stronger, and most discontented people fled to the suburbs, and a new, more popular mayor,Ed Rendell, was elected, the call for secession waned, and the section settled back into life as a part of the city.
Today, the Northeast enjoys greater racial balance and relative stability. The region is uniformly developed, but like many American urban communities, it has witnessed the loss of manufacturing, factory conversions to marginal retail "outlets," and growing vacancies along shopping avenues, especially in the southern part of the region. During the housing boom of the first decade of the 21st century, property tax advantages granted to new construction within the city limits led to a growth in residential units and an escalation of existing home prices in the Northeast.[18]
According to the2010 census, 432,073 people live in the Northeast section of Philadelphia.[19] (Map)
By 2018 immigration and ethnic diversity had increased in the region.[20]
The spur of theIrish Famine drew many Irish immigrants to the city.
Today, the Irish in Philadelphia make up 14.2% of the city's population, the largest ethnicity in the city.[22] Although there are Irish in almost every area of the city, they still are predominantly located within Northeast Philadelphia,[2] especially in neighborhoods such as Kensington,Fishtown, andMayfair.
While Philadelphia as a whole is heavilyDemocratic, there is consistent competition betweenRepublicans and Democrats in some parts of the Northeast. Republicans currently hold one State House seat, and a portion of another, in the Northeast and one non at-largePhiladelphia City Council seat. As of 2019, no Republican represents any part of the Northeast in the United States Congress.[23]
All of Northeast Philadelphia is in the2nd Congressional District of Pennsylvania, and is currently represented byBrendan Boyle.
In thePennsylvania State Senate, most of the Northeast is in the5th district, represented by RepublicanJoe Picozzi.[24] Smaller parts are represented by DemocratsSharif Street (the3rd district)[25] andTina Tartaglione[26] (the2nd district).[27]
The Northeast is split among several State House districts, including those of DemocratsEd Neilson,Kevin Boyle, Pat Gallagher,Jared Solomon,Jason Dawkins, Anthony Bellmon, and Joseph Hohenstein, and RepublicanMartina White.[28]
In thePhiladelphia City Council, the Far Northeast is represented by the 10th district councilman and Council Minority (Republican) Leader,Brian O'Neill.[29] The Lower Northeast is divided among five other council districts, all represented by Democrats, including the 1st, represented byMark Squilla, the 5th, represented by Council PresidentDarrell Clarke, the 6th, represented byMichael Driscoll, the 7th, represented byMaria Quiñones-Sanchez,[30] and the 9th, represented byAnthony Phillips.[31][32]
ThePhiladelphia Police Department patrols four districts within its Northeast Division, including the 7th and 8th districts in the Far Northeast, and the 2nd and 15th in the Near Northeast.
Northeast Philadelphia is home toPhiladelphia Mills, formerly known as Franklin Mills, a shopping mall that was built on what was onceLiberty Bell Park Racetrack, and is one of the most visited attractions in the state.[33] The lower sections of the Northeast still boast pleasant shopping avenues lined by stores and restaurants, such as Castor Avenue. Major shopping centers along Cottman Avenue include, the Cottman-Bustleton Center, and theRoosevelt Mall which opened in 1964 at Cottman Avenue and the Roosevelt Boulevard.[34]
Also present in the Northeast are two nationally recognized medical establishments,Friends Hospital[35] andFox Chase Cancer Center.[36]
Prior to its disestablishment,Ransome Airlines had its headquarters on the grounds ofNortheast Philadelphia Airport.[37]
The first school was founded in the Northeast in 1723 by Silas Crispin,Thomas Holme's son-in-law.[38] The Northeast is home toFox Chase Farm, an educational facility that is the only working farm left in the Philadelphia city limits.[39]
The main campus ofHoly Family University is located in Northeast Philadelphia. The university, founded in 1954, has more than two thousand students.[40]
TheSchool District of Philadelphia operatespublic schools in the area. Public high schools in the area includeNortheast,Abraham Lincoln,Samuel S. Fels High School,Frankford,George Washington,[41] andSwenson. Several publicly fundedcharter high schools also operate in Northeast Philadelphia, including Philadelphia Academy, MaST, Franklin Towne and Maritime Academy Charter High School. Northeast Philadelphia is also home to a publicmagnet school,The Arts Academy at Benjamin Rush.
TheRoman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia operatesCatholic schools. Catholic high schools in Northeast Philadelphia includeSt. Hubert Catholic High School for Girls,Father Judge,Cardinal Dougherty,Northeast Catholic, andArchbishop Ryan.[42] It was announced in October 2009 that both Cardinal Dougherty and Northeast Catholic would be closed due to decreasing enrollments.[citation needed]Nazareth Academy is an independent Catholic high school founded and operated by the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth.
A free weekly newspaper, theNortheast Times, is distributed throughout the Northeast. A second free newspaper, theNortheast News Gleaner, was also printed there until it closed December 11, 2008. Two citywide newspapers,The Philadelphia Inquirer andPhiladelphia Daily News, both dailies, also cover the Northeast.
A prominent geographic feature and recreation destination in Northeast Philadelphia isPennypack Creek, which runs throughPennypack Park. The park's 1,600 acres (6.5 km2) of woodlands span the width of the Northeast, and serve as a natural oasis amid urban development. The park is home to the oldest stone arch bridge still in use in the United States, built in 1697 on what is now Frankford Avenue.[43][44] The section is also home to many playgrounds and smaller parks, including Burholme Park.
The Northeast's main highways areInterstate 95 (Delaware Expressway)[13] andRoosevelt Boulevard (US 1).[13] Secondary major arteries include Cottman Avenue (Pennsylvania Route 73), Frankford Avenue (US 13), Woodhaven Road (PA 63), Grant Avenue, Oxford Avenue (PA 232), State Road, Bustleton Avenue (PA 532), Bridge Street, Harbison Avenue, and Academy Road.
TheTacony-Palmyra Bridge, the onlyDelaware River crossing inPhiladelphia not operated by theDelaware River Port Authority (thus resulting in a cheaper toll), allows one to drive between theTacony section of the city andPalmyra, New Jersey.[45]
The Northeast is also served bySEPTA'sMarket-Frankford Line, often called the "Frankford El" or "the El" because portions of the rail line are elevated above streets below, including Frankford and Kensington avenues. The northernmost and easternmost terminus of the line is at theFrankford Transportation Center, Frankford Avenue and Bridge Street. Threecommuter rail lines also serve the Northeast. Anextension of the Broad Street Line along Roosevelt Boulevard has been proposed,Roosevelt Boulevard Subway. Many SEPTA bus routes and all three of itstrackless trolley routes run through the Northeast, although north-south buses run more frequently than west-east ones. Most north-south routes terminate at the Frankford Transportation Center.[46]
One of two airports that serve Philadelphia,Northeast Philadelphia Airport (PNE), is located in this section of the city. PNE is the sixth busiest airport in Pennsylvania.[47]
Places adjacent to Northeast Philadelphia | |
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| International | |
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40°05′14″N74°57′42″W / 40.0873°N 74.9616°W /40.0873; -74.9616
