Upper Francisville

The neighborhood between Broad, Fairmount, Girard, and Corinthian is known as Francisville due to the fact that it encompasses an old village once named Francisville. In fact, this old village creates the interesting situation where there is a secondary inner grid--the grid pattern of Francisville village--tucked into the main Philadelphia grid. Unsurprisingly, Francisville's grid is aligned to Ridge, which at that time was a key interurban highway; it is this grid, surrounded by the broader citywide grid, which gives Francisville its character.

Francisville is considered to be the same type of neighborhood as Sharswood--that is, in early gentrification. It is bordered by Fairmount to the west and Sharswood itself to the north, both bearing strong gentrification pressures. Fairmount is organized around Fairmount Avenue, its main corridor being the section that runs between the Eastern State Penitentiary and the Perelman Annex to the Art Museum, a prime tourist gateway; as Francisville's southern border, Fairmount has the possibility of channeling this energy eastwards all the way to Broad. The same runs along Girard.

In fact, one of the things I noticed most quickly was that the artefacts of gentrification--sale signs (instead of rent) and renovation--are clustered around Girard Avenue; this is a pattern that meshes well with what is so on Fairmount (another subject for another day). A major lack of businesses of any sort, though, can be noted, although Ridge ought to be one of the strongest commercial corridors in the city. What happened?--the Schuylkill Expressway diverted traffic that supplied these businesses, making them go bankrupt one by one, and if that weren't enough, widespread neighborhood disinvestment occurred throughout this corridor, bringing about a characteristically weak, slummy district: from Callowhill through Ludlow and Francisville, Sharswood and Strawberry Mansion the Ridge Avenue corridor is in severe distress; it only begins to improve again in East Falls. What this tells us is that a healthy commercial corridor requires a healthy (middle-class) degree of neighborhood investment: disinvested neighborhoods, by their very nature, produce disinvested commercial districts.

What, then, constitutes a disinvested neighborhood? Blight is the most obvious factor, blight Francisville has in spades. Along Poplar there is no small amount of vacancies. The Met at it and Broad is in a state of half-ruin; they have been trying to raise funds for its renovation, but the process has been slow; lots abound, particularly between 15th and 16th where one feels almost one is walking through a fallow field bisected by asphalt and concrete; vacancies--abandoned houses--abound. Signs are For Rent instead of For Sale. There is less sidewalk traffic; those who do dare traverse display hopelessness. This part of Francisville is severely blighted; this blight is related (this is no expert's opinion) to the disinvestment and blight along the Ridge corridor.

Yet west, in the off-kilter grid, along Wylie, a different situation emerges. Looking down the cross-streets blight again re-emerges, yet along Wylie itself houses are in good repair and still there; along Perkiomen houses are still there, in good repair. Occasional vacancies crop up, but here the living conditions are better, here there is life, the sidewalk, while not bursting, has a decent amount of people using it. This neighborhood, then, has some health, but not enough: it, too, is tied into Ridge, and without the Ridge corridor's function as a central neighborhood market, this neighborhood is much too weak: how it's so healthy is a worthy question to ask all by itself. Do these denizens shop where Fairmounters do? Is the mean income of these people higher than their counterparts on Ridge's other side? But life is here and so, therefore, opportunity.

Construction work is being done at 19th and Poplar; there is some ongoing in other parts of the neighborhood, but here it seems stronger. Between Girard and Poplar lies the gentrification lane; in the off grid lies the healthiest (though by no means vibrant) neighborhoods. Temple students seem to occupy a large portion of those apartments in the gentrification corridor; this form of gentrification is greatly limiting (look at Templetown).

A church lies at Girard and Ridge, at the end of an intact row of semi-brownstones, mansions for the industrial nouveau riche. Once it was a bank: Northwestern, the sign, still etched into the lintel, tells me. It is a late Victorian design: Furness? The degree of richness and eclecticism, the tomb-of-stone feel it emanates seems to indicates it was he. If so, the importance of this row, besides its inherent physical beauty, is amplified: few verified Furnesses still exist. Many of the best were completely demolished in some revitalization program or another.

A Google Map.