Northwest Philadelphia
Encyclopedia
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
. The official boundary is Stenton Avenue to the north, the Schuylkill river to the south, Spring Ln to the west, and Wister Street to the east. The area is divided by Wissahickon Creek
Wissahickon Creek
Wissahickon Creek is a stream in southeastern Pennsylvania. Rising in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, it runs about 23 miles passing through and dividing Northwest Philadelphia before emptying into the Schuylkill River at Philadelphia...
into two subsections. To the east are Germantown
Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Germantown is a neighborhood in the northwest section of the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, about 7–8 miles northwest from the center of the city...
, Mount Airy
Mount Airy, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Mount Airy is a neighborhood of Northwest Philadelphia in the state of Pennsylvania.-Boundaries:Mount Airy is bounded on the northwest by the Cresheim Valley, which is part of Fairmount Park. Beyond this lies Chestnut Hill. On the west side is the Wissahickon Gorge, which is also part of Fairmount...
, and Chestnut Hill
Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Chestnut Hill is a neighborhood in the Northwest Philadelphia section of the United States city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.-Boundaries:Chestnut Hill is bounded as follows:...
, and to the west are Roxborough
Roxborough, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Roxborough is a neighborhood in the Northwest Philadelphia section of the United States city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is bordered to the southwest, along the Schuylkill River, by the neighborhood of Manayunk, along the northeast by the Wissahickon Creek section of Fairmount Park, and to...
, Andorra
Andorra, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Andorra is a neighborhood in Northwest Philadelphia, which is a section of the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Andorra is a part of Roxborough, being within the borders of the original Roxborough Township and having the same zip code . At some point during the 19th or 20th century, Andorra...
, and Manayunk
Manayunk, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Manayunk is a neighborhood in the northwestern section of the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the United States. Located on the banks of the Schuylkill River, it contains the first canal begun in the United States . The area's name comes from the language of the Lenape Indians...
. Each informally comprises smaller neighborhoods. The Philadelphia Police Department
Philadelphia Police Department
The Philadelphia Police Department is the police agency responsible for law enforcement and investigations within the City of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania...
patrols two districts located within Northwest Philadelphia. The two patrol districts serving Northwest Philadelphia are the 5th and 14th districts.
Demographics and culture
Northwest Philadelphia has substantial African AmericanAfrican American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
, Irish-American, Italian-American, German-American, and British American
British American
British Americans are citizens of the United States whose ancestry originates wholly or partly in the United Kingdom . The term is seldom used by people to refer to themselves and is used primarily as a demographic or historical research term...
(English American
English American
English Americans are citizens or residents of the United States whose ancestry originates wholly or partly in England....
/Scottish American
Scottish American
Scottish Americans or Scots Americans are citizens of the United States whose ancestry originates wholly or partly in Scotland. Scottish Americans are closely related to Scots-Irish Americans, descendants of Ulster Scots, and communities emphasize and celebrate a common heritage...
) populations, but its culture is varied, and only smaller neighborhoods within it can be said to be known for one ethnicity predominating.
Compared with other sections of Philadelphia, much of the Northwest retains a more suburban feel. The mix of development is interesting for its contrasts; whereas in some spots, the buildings and street grid have existed for three centuries, other spots nearby were farmland until after World War II, and have infrastructure that is very recently developed and suburb-like. To travel from Germantown to Manayunk to Upper Roxborough is somewhat like traveling along a development timeline, from 18th-century farmhouses to 19th-century rowhomes to 20th-century shopping centers. Besides time, the other noticeable axis along which one can travel is socioeconomic. From an enclave of working-class Germantown rowhomes to the wealthy estates of Chestnut Hill, both may have been built in the period of 1880-1920, but the time period is all that they share.
Terrain and geography
Northwest Philadelphia is known for its hilly terrainTerrain
Terrain, or land relief, is the vertical and horizontal dimension of land surface. When relief is described underwater, the term bathymetry is used...
, especially in the western half between the Wissahickon and the Schuylkill River
Schuylkill River
The Schuylkill River is a river in Pennsylvania. It is a designated Pennsylvania Scenic River.The river is about long. Its watershed of about lies entirely within the state of Pennsylvania. The source of its eastern branch is in the Appalachian Mountains at Tuscarora Springs, near Tamaqua in...
. This hilly terrain is a distinct characteristic of Manayunk and Roxborough, making them popular for any recreation that can use a good hill (such as sledding and soapbox derbies, or especially challenging sessions of running and biking). Upper Roxborough, because it is one of the highest elevations in Philadelphia, is the site of a reservoir and many of the city's broadcast transmission towers. Ridge Avenue follows the ridge that divides the Wissahickon valley from the Schuylkill valley.
Learning to navigate successfully across and beyond Northwest Philadelphia requires one to keep in mind that Northwest Philadelphia's street grid is oriented along axes of northeast-southwest and northwest-southeast (X). These axes are skewed almost exactly 45° from the true north-south and east-west axes of Philadelphia's main street grid (+). Within any one neighborhood, it is easy to mentally discount the east-west gradient and think solely in terms of north-south, uphill-downhill, or (perhaps worst) to conflate those two, with the mental axis of "up"-"down" concealing the conflation. Any time that one begins to extrapolate too far along these lines, one is losing orientation with surrounding areas.
Northwest Philadelphia is an area where exceptions to the regular pattern of the street grid are plentiful. The Wissahickon gorge rather thoroughly divides the "halves" of Northwest Philadelphia because of the relative scarcity of road crossings. The rail lines tend to rather thoroughly divide adjacent neighborhoods, for the same reason. One-way streets are not uncommon, and neither is the event of a bend interspersed within the rectangular street grid. Manayunk's street grid evolved completely independently from Germantown's, which makes perfect sense from a historical perspective. The result of all these factors is that navigating in Northwest Philadelphia can be a very different experience depending on whether one is traveling by motor vehicle or on foot or bicycle. Navigating solely by motor vehicle can leave one with a rather distorted sense of how far away certain points are from each other. When one explores on foot or bike, one restores a more accurate sense of orientation.