Eastwick, Philadelphia

Eastwick
Eastwick Loop station
Eastwick
Coordinates: 39°53′25″N 75°14′33″W / 39.8903°N 75.2424°W / 39.8903; -75.2424
Country	United States
State	Pennsylvania
County	Philadelphia
City	Philadelphia
Area code(s)	215, 267, and 445

Eastwick is a neighborhood in the

History

The neighborhood is named for Andrew M. Eastwick, an engineer and patron of Bartram's Garden.^[1] It was largely rural until the 1920s when swampy land was dredged to create room for an airport and other large-scale uses within the city limits. Much of the original housing built before the 1950s lacked sewer service and other urban conveniences. Residents referred to the neighborhood as "The Meadows."^[2]

Residents enjoyed the ability to have a rural lifestyle within city limits; nearby creeks provided recreation in the form of swimming, bathing, and fishing. An extensive crabbing home industry was based in The Meadows.

Homes ranged from traditional single-family residences with lawns and gardens to traditional Philadelphia-style row houses; sometimes, these two housing styles appeared on the same block. Brick was the predominant material used in construction. Homes were built from the early 19th century until the Second World War caused a shortage of material for new construction.

The city of Philadelphia, which had been under Republican control in the 1940s, shifted in the 1950s toward reform Democrats, whose policies included community redevelopment. At the same time, city planners began to eye Eastwick as a place to relocate low-income black populations being displaced by development projects in North and West Philadelphia.^[3] Yet although planners described Eastwick as "open land," it actually constituted an integrated community of some 19,000, the majority of whom owned their homes.^[4] Unsurprisingly, the plan faced opposition.

But it nevertheless went forward. In 1958, Eastwick was declared the largest

Designing the project was the Greek urban planner Constantinos Apostolou Doxiadis, mastermind of Islamabad, Riyadh, and Baghdad's Revolution City. In these cities, he had made a name for himself by integrating city and countryside in a way that he, and state officials, hoped would ease the transition of rural migrants to urban space. Put differently, Doxiadis's designs were seen as anti-communist.^[6] In Eastwick, Doxiadis's work took the form of row houses on cul-de-sac streets, with traffic funneled toward peripheral roads.^[7] The neighborhood was one of only three in Philadelphia that grew in population between 1970 and 1990.^[3]

The

From January 15 until March 18, 1946, a surging crowd of more than 3,000 electrical strikers protested around Eastwick and the area's former General Electric plant in connection with a court injunction prohibiting mass picketing at the plant by Judge Thomas D. Finletter, which led with a total of 25,000 demonstrators.^[9][10] The protests later turned into a "siege of violence" three days after the protests started. There were reports of 20 injuries, 17 protestors detained by officers, and reports of protestors giving hateful speeches, including the Nazi salute, forcing nearly 300 officers to break up the violence.^[11]

The strike came to a conclusion on March 18, 1946, when employees returned back to the plant.^[12]

Demographics

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As of the

Eastwick is served by

Free Library of Philadelphia operates the Eastwick Branch, which serves Eastwick and other subdivisions, at 2851 Island Avenue.^[14]

References