Home > Your Personal Side > City Guides > Philadelphia > Neighborhoods > West Philadelphia

West Philadelphia

Photo Credit: T.Leonardi Greater Philadelphia Tourism

Beginning at the west bank of the Schuylkill River, West Philadelphia is a widely divergent community. In the area closest to Center City lie many of the city's major colleges and universities including Drexel University, the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science and the University of Pennsylvania.

City Avenue serves as the northwestern boundary of West Philadelphia. Here you will find St. Joseph's University as well as major areas of Fairmount Park. The Philadelphia Zoo and Mann Music Center, while in Fairmount Park, are also in West Philadelphia.

As outlined in the Philadelphia Planning Commission's Plan for West Philadelphia, "today, 220,000 people, or about 14% of the City's population, live, shop, and in many cases work in West Philadelphia. These residents share many experiences, some of them unique to West Philadelphia: riding the trolleys into Center City, shopping at 52nd Street (West Philly's Main Street), picnicking and playing ball in Fairmount Park, driving between the support columns of the Market-Frankford El, tending neighborhood garden plots, participating in community meetings or school functions, attending the annual May Fair at Clark Park, and keeping up their houses."

Unfortunately, some West Philadelphia neighborhoods suffer the same ills that affect other older urban areas. Over the last several decades there has been a substantial loss of middle class population, widespread poverty, property deterioration and abandonment. Many of the main streets have declined and don't represent the best face of the community. Deteriorating infrastructure, and too many incidents of crime against people and property have had devastating impact on certain neighborhoods.

Major area in West Philadelphia include:

• Belmont
• Carroll Park, Cobbs Creek
• Haddington/Dunlap, Mantua
• Parkside, Overbrook
• Wynnefield, and University City

Belmont
Named after the long obsolete Free Society of Traders, this area was home to many members of the federal government when Philadelphia served as the nation's capital. The area also attracted both the locally and internationally wealthy as well. As the land juxtaposed the river and the seat of government, it was the most valuable in the city. From greed and speculation, lots were divided and divided again. The result: the serpentine walkways, abrupt angles, and tiny alleys that today make the area so appealingly intimate.

Over decades the area lost its cachet and ultimately became a dilapidated slum. The city seeking to improve its image tore down many buildings and homes. Historic colonial houses were acquired by the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority who sold them to private citizens along with a binding agreement that the individuals would restore the buildings. In this way, about 600 historic houses were renovated. Empty lots were filled by contemporary houses that tried to merge contemporary style with a colonial heritage.

Today this district is full of charming row houses, tree-lined streets, and brick and cobblestone sidewalks that “appear” to have been virtually untouched in the last 200 years. Once again, it is a neighborhood with considerable pedigree and history.

Carroll Park, Cobbs Creek
One of William Penn's original five squares, Rittenhouse boasts lush plantings and fine statuary that contradict its more humble 18th century beginnings as a pasture for stray cows, pigs, and chickens. During the mid-1800s, the area underwent a transition to become a fashionable downtown address for many city residents. In the early 20th century, famed architect and planner Paul Philippe Cret conceived the square's current layout. Today, it is a popular gathering place for everyone from students to seniors, couples to families.

Residents of Rittenhouse Square enjoy a diverse mix of lovely shuttered brownstones and stately apartment buildings. At one time it was a mark of great prestige to live on the “square”. Today, private homes are gone, but it still counts for something to live on the Square. There are several houses still standing, but they have been converted into apartments. With cooperative apartments and condominiums displacing private dwellings in the last three decades, some of the Old Guard still live on here — in these homes in the sky rather than family mansions.

Haddington/Dunlap, Mantua
Washington Square was also one of Philadelphia's five original squares as laid out in 1682 by William Penn's surveyor, Thomas Holme. It was then called Southeast Square, as Quakers did not believe in naming places after people. The square started as a pasture but later served as a burial ground — potter's field — and many American and British soldiers of the Revolution lie here, along with victims of the yellow fever epidemic of 1793.

In 1825 the city changed the square's name to Washington Square in tribute to George Washington. Later in the nineteenth century, legal firms moved into the area, and in the first half of the twentieth century Washington Square became the center of Philadelphia's publishing industry. Popular books, medical texts, and magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post and Ladies' Home Journal were published from offices around the square. Many of the buildings facing the square reflect that era. Particularly notable is the ornate Art Deco N.W. Ayer building whose great bronze doors illustrate the goals and purposes of the advertising industry.

Parkside, Overbrook
The original Northwest Square provided burial plots, pasturage, and an area for public executions — a gallows stood here until 1823. In 1825, the square was renamed for James Logan, who had served as secretary to William Penn and chief justice to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. As the neighborhood developed, the city began to improve the square, planting trees and installing walks and fences.

The Circle in the Square: Logan Square entered the 20th century as a pleasant but modest area of trees, flowers, and walkways. But its size and appearance changed dramatically with the adoption of Jacques Griber's Parkway plan of 1919. Griber, a French architect, created the final design for the city's great diagonal boulevard, the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, and like a jewel at its center he placed a remodeled Logan Square. Basing his concepts on the Place de la Concorde, Griber designed a large traffic circle in the square with space for a monument and formal gardens in the middle. As the square became a link between center city and the green belt of the upper Parkway, the surrounding area changed from a predominantly residential neighborhood to a locale for major cultural institutions such as the Franklin Institute and the Free Library.

Wynnefield, and University City
Philadelphia's Chinatown is a compact neighborhood that does not approach the scale of the more famous Chinatowns in San Francisco or New York. Yet, the neighborhood's intimacy is also what makes it attractive. It's been said that if you bring any 20 people together in Philadelphia's Chinatown, five are relatives. It's an enclave bordered by a Convention Center, an Expressway, and a downtown shopping megamall. With ducks hanging upside down in restaurant windows and streets signs in Chinese, Chinatown feels a world apart from the rest of the city.

The area grew slowly until the 1940, and was considered a "bachelor society". After World War II, a new wave of immigrants helped transform Chinatown into a family community. This also transformed the culinary front as well. The few early restaurants served mostly Cantonese fare. Today one can get all manner of Chinese cuisine -- Szechuan, Mandarin and Hunan. In addition to the dozens of Chinese restaurants, there are now several Vietnamese restaurants and a handful of Burmese, Japanese and Thai eateries located in Chinatown as well.