Quote:
Originally Posted by mja
Sure, there were / are houses, but even most of that was built to house workers in nearby factories. Specifically I'm talking the area north of Chinatown, i.e. roughly 9th to Broad, Vine to Spring Garden. It was / is already severed by the viaduct and it's chock full of century+ old industrial factories, warehouses, etc. The idea that it was truly functioning residential area before Vine St. came along is more than a stretch, let alone to claim it was a part of Chinatown.
And if we're talking East Callowhill, wasn't that the tenderloin? I'm not saying it should have been raised to the ground, but it was skid row.
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Historically, that is still not true. Most of the houses in the area that you cite were built in the early 19th century, long before the era of factories and before the Reading Viaduct was built. Even in the early 20th century, the area was mainly residential — unlike today. And some of the houses were fairly large, for middle-class people, not just workers.
In regard to Chinatown, to my understanding, the Chinese ethnic population greatly expanded in Philadelphia in the decades after World War II. The Chinese residential area overflowed from the "old" Chinatown, centered around Race St., to adjacent areas — including north of Vine. The widening of Vine St. destroyed a lot of the housing stock.