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Old Posted Jan 14, 2023, 1:57 PM
mja mja is offline
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Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 477
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nanyika View Post
I would challenge this statement. Into the early years of the 20th century, the area was overwhelmingly residential. After the construction of the BF Bridge in the 1920s, and as the century wore on, more and more houses were torn down, either for warehouses and small industrial establishments or for parking lots, but still a lot of houses remained. You can view old maps of the area to see how it changed over the years: https://www.philageohistory.org/tiles/viewer/
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.