Cross Section of Philly, via 5th Street (Far North Philly edition)

Sorry for the delay. Practically a month later this is the final post about my extensive 5^th Street ride. There really is not that much of the ride to blog about, only 3 neighborhoods.  But all of the areas were very new to me. So again pardon my dorkiness.

I left off last time in Hunting Park. Hunting Park (the park itself and the neighborhood) is bounded by Roosevelt Blvd., which is the main thoroughfare running through Northeast Philadelphia. On the north side of the boulevard from the park lays a huge swath of vacant land. It was like wandering into the City of Detroit. 

In the center of this apocalyptical field lays one sole house that seems to have evaded the fate of his counterparts. Naturally I went over the concrete barriers to explore. It was so creepy to be on a road that for the most part was just a strip of cracked asphalt, except for one odd 20 foot section that had a house, sidewalk, and 3 overgrown street trees. The house didn’t even look abandoned. Upon closer inspection of the site I noticed there were a few other abandoned streets that had houses on them, or half houses. 

While riding through this area I wondered what on earth happened. I know Philadelphia has lots of very beat up, abandoned neighborhoods but this area seemed different. The surrounding neighborhood was fairly vibrant and there are few areas in the city that look as systematically abandoned as this section. Turns out that the 35-acre area I biked through is known as the Logan Triangle, which I remember hearing about as some part of Penn Design’s studio list. It is a part of the city that was built up in 1920s as housing by filling in a 45’ stream bed.  Apparently filling in that much area leads to a lot of unsettling and over the next few decades several of the homes began to show signs of major structural and foundation damage. By the 1980s the City bought out many of the home owners, relocated them and demolished the houses. Since then the area has remained vacant with several attempts of redevelopment. In 2002 the Planning Commission released the Logan Area Redevelopment Plan which in so many words called for the area to become a shopping center. However due to the insurmountable environmental costs of refilling the area (ULI estimated the costs to be $50 million in 2009) and the fact that not all of the area is owned by the Redevelopment Authority, no project ever took off.  Currently ideas are being floated around to find some alternative use while waiting for demand for retail development to return; ideas such as a tree farm, community garden, etc. In late 2010, the National Park Service offered assistance in creating a new plan that would focus on redeveloping the area as a green/recreational space.  For now it is just a reminder that if you’re going to develop over centuries of Mother Nature’s work, make sure you do your due diligence. 

After my foray into bustedville I entered the neighborhood of Olney.  The neighborhood did not begin to develop until the early 20^th century and rapidly urbanized with the introduction of the Broad Street line in 1928. During the 1960s, Olney had the largest high school in the city, one of the largest theaters and even its own symphony. As in many city neighborhoods the latter part of the century was characterized with deindustrialization and shifting demographic patterns. Olney is now one of the most diverse neighborhoods in the city; large parts of the west are predominately African –American and along 5^th Street there are thriving Hispanic and Asian American shopping districts. Much of Olney’s housing stock was constructed later than the traditional Philadelphia rowhouse. There are elements of 20^th century rowhouse architecture, predominately, porches, steeper rooflines, and front yards. Olney has very similar architecture as Southwest Philly and Frankford.   

Within Olney lays Fisher Park, a 23 acre park that is part active recreation and part wooded trails. The park was originally laid out by Joseph Wharton (of UPenn Wharton fame) and donated to the city as a “Christmas gift” in 1908, must be good to be rich. As with many of the parks in the city it is in desperate need of maintenance. However the wooded ravine is a nice oasis with several trails. Many of the trails have trail markers that I found unique. The signs posted a lot of random information about the short paths such as, average grade, the cross slope and the trail width. 

While riding up 5^th Street I was unaware of crossing between Olney and East Oak Lane. 5^th Street became wider and had more auto dominated businesses along it and I was really focused on biking up a hill that seemed to be never ending.  On the right of me there was a giant empty reservoir and I took the moment to stop, drink some water, and snap these pictures.

In the one looking down the hill you can see a tall building off in the distance, that’s the St. James at 8^th and Walnut. That’s when I realized it’s going to be a long ride bike. Within a couple minutes I hit Cheltenham Ave and took another break, mostly to figure out how to bike along the really busy avenue.  I biked northwest until I went under a railroad bridge and realized that these cars were not going to be as cautious as in the city. I ducked into a street on the left to find this:

A suburban stretch of street that had houses that would rival the architectural grandeur of Mt. Airy or Overbrook.  The further I biked through these streets I found all different types of housing from Victorian and Tudor Revival to Modern houses. Additionally, all of these abodes were tucked graciously into huge, gorgeous white and purple bushes.

Apparently large single family houses and large lots are what define the neighborhood of East Oak Lane. Until I researched the neighborhood, according to their neighborhood association website the area is William Penn’s first neighborhood as part of his green country town. While I feel like that’s a bold claim, apparently the area was laid out and much of the land was claimed in the late 17^th century. The green country town didn’t really develop until the late 19^th century when it became a Victorian, wealthy summer resort. Kind of like The Hamptons of Philly.  Many of the large vacation estates were subdivided into smaller lots for single family houses in the early 20^th century an in the 1950s many of the permanent residents (mostly white) fled across Cheltenham Ave to areas such as Elkins Park and Melrose Park. Now the area is predominately African-American and Asian-American. Regardless of its demographics or history East Oak Lane is absolutely spectacular. Along with the burst of spring colors when I biked through, the diversity of architectural styles is awe-inspiring. 

A nice Victorian house almost set up for a transition into a haunted house if needed

A beautiful (huge) Tudor Revival

The Modern collection

And of course my favorite, the Arts and Crafts bungalow

Lastly there was spring everywhere!

After a month in the making I finally made it all the way up 5^th Street to the city’s border. Hope you enjoyed it and maybe now I can blog about some of the other interesting rides I’ve been on.