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

This 5^th Street series is getting a little out of control. I never expected it to be 5 posts long. Thanks for allowing the geek out.  I suppose I need to sometimes. This post is getting into areas that I’m only familiar with by name mostly so they were total discoveries.  

http://www.dailymile.com/people/Jerome9883/entries/6816980

As stated in the last post I biked through West Kensington, which is oddly north of Old Kensington, but has the same post-industrial landscape.  According to Wikipedia, West Kensington was the home to Rocky in the movie series so they have that going for them.  However since the 1970s/80s the area has had a dramatic demographic shift. Beginning in West Kensington and continuing into the neighborhood of Fairhill 5^th Street becomes a vibrant commercial corridor that is the heart of the Philadelphia Hispanic community.  Over the past fifty years the two neighborhoods have predominately become home to Puertorriquenos, Dominicanos and Columbianos, so much so that the stretch of 5^th Street between Lehigh and Allegheny is formally known as El Centro de Oro or the Golden Block.  The area is also home to community groups such as Asociación Puertorriqueños en Marcha  (APM), Congreso de Latinos Unidos, and the  Hispanic Association of Contractors and Enterprises (HACE) which are very active throughout the city’s Hispanic community. 

When traveling through El Centro de Oro I noticed a lot of construction activity, the neighborhood was completely redoing their streets. Naturally I was really excited to research what they were doing.  Apparently HACE, a Main Street organization, prepared design guidelines a few years back that called for the stretch of 5^th Street to evoke the Caribbean culture of the neighborhood.  Last year they secured financing from the state and city for the $3.8 million project and began construction. 

While I could find no design drawings of the proposed streetscape the project seems like it is nearing completion.  While I was there they were painting the sidewalk with a wavy yellow strip to suggest a yellow brick road.  Along with the metal palm trees the plan calls for the street might turn into THE most post-modern streetscape the city has done.  And there is a lot of competition for that designation surrounding Independence Mall.  The plans additionally will dispose of the overhead wires along the street, add new planters and benches, improve signage, and create pedestrian bumpouts at intersections.  I think I might have to bike back up here in a few months to check out the progress.  I’m really intrigued by metal palm trees.

While the 5^th Street was full of vitality, when biking back down 8^th street through Faihill there were certainly signs of a extraordinarily high poverty rate.  Crime, poverty and drug activity plague the area. I was forced to bike down Franklin Street through Fairhill on my return and I ended up in a small intimate street that was very typical of Philadelphia blocks.  However this stretch of Franklin Street contained barred in porches; nerve-racking when people decide to imprison themselves.  As I biked down the street I had a beautiful abandoned building in the vista. 

I snapped that picture while on my bike and then a car slowed down and stopped right in front of me. I awkwardly had to pass them while they gave me a death stare. So instead of stopping and getting more (or even a better picture) I bolted. 

The abandoned building is the old Thomas A. Edison High School/Northeast Manual Training Center. Originally built in the early 20^th century and it was expanded for a vocational school in the 1930s.  In the late 1950s, the Northeast Manual Training Center became Northeast HS, famous for Tony Danza’s foray into teaching. The building remained Edison HS, however with much less funding and more diversity. In the 1980s a new building was created for Edison/Fareira to the east and the original building was partially used as various other schools until completely abandoned in the late 1990s. 

There are several articles/posting about the building including this amazing video and a four-part blog photo series: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4. 

Just north of Fairhill is Upper Kensington (yes another one) and Hunting Park.  These neighborhoods are physically separated by the large Northeast Rail Corridor.  This corridor runs through North Philly and contains Amtrak’s Northeast Regional and Acela trains, NJ Transit’s trains to Atlantic City, and SEPTA’s Trenton Line trains.  Needless to say it’s a very busy stretch of transit infrastructure, and as anything dealing with trains it once was a lot busier.  Much of the land along the two streets paralleling the corridor, Sedgley and Glenwood, is home to large vacant industrial buildings or land providing an additional barrier between neighborhoods.  And planners are always complaining about highways and interstates cutting through cities, rail also has serious implications on urban form.

This building at 5^th and Glenwood I thought was a one of the more interesting buildings I saw along the corridor, although it’s partially abandoned. 

Looking back down 5^th Street one can tell how much of an ascent there is to bridge over the corridor (many of the crossings are under the rail lines)

When traveling back to the Center City I crossed over a mini rail corridor along Sedgley Ave. on a bridge that looks as if it would fail the DOT standards for safe bridges.  Turns out it was constructed in 1906.

This bridge however provided some awesome vistas of the industrial landscape surrounding this area. 

Anyway, the neighborhood of Hunting Park is so named because of the large park that resides in the area.  The 87 acre, Hunting Park, has a sorted history. The area dates as far back as the 18^th century, when William Penn’s secretary, James Logan (of Logan Circle fame) decided to build his country estate here. His house still stands at the southwest corner of the park but is boarded up. In the early 19^th century the park was home to a horse racing track but that was scrapped when horse racing became illegal in the 1850s. The park has since been used as a passive/active recreational space. A little fact that I learned while researching, the park once had a carousel until 1967, when it was moved to Cedar Point, in Ohio.  I’ve ridden that carousel!

Until next time, please feel free to check out the other parts of this series:

Lower North Philly, Center City, South Philly