Morrell Park, Philadelphia
Morrell Park | |
|---|---|
  Morrell Park | |
| Coordinates: 40°04′01″N 74°59′20″W / 40.067°N 74.989°W | |
| Country |  United States |
| State | Pennsylvania |
| County | Philadelphia County |
| City | Philadelphia |
| Area code(s) | 215, 267 and 445 |
Morrell Park is a
Characteristics
Morrell Park is primarily a residential district, with only a handful of small industries, all of which are located within one and one-half miles of the Northeast Philadelphia Airport. The residences themselves consist mostly of rowhouses, but Morrell Park is distinctive in that most of its row homes have garages in front, facing and with access to the street, something quite different from the traditional Philadelphia rowhouse design. (An exception is one side of one block of Wessex Lane and Churchill Lane, where houses have garages in the back with access to a shared driveway. The duplexes along Frankford Avenue are also set up in this manner.) Later rowhouses followed this form of having garages in the front, but this was first seen in Morrell Park in the very late 1950s. Most homes have kitchens that face the front, living rooms that face the rear of the property, three or four bedrooms, and about 1,200 sq ft (110 m2) of living space. The street pattern of the development is also quite distinctive, as a view of an aerial photo will confirm, consisting of a few through streets that curve through many looping side streets with only one cul-de-sac, Pitt Place. The streets curve to conform to the natural topography of the area, for years avoiding development right along the stream valley of Byberry Creek, which flows through and about the development before its confluence with Poquessing Creek.
History
The land area of Morrell Park was originally the 300-acre (1.2 km2) summer home estate of
The Morrells entertained extensively, maintained a horse track, established the first telephone line north of
The Morrells had no children. Edward Morrell served on Philadelphia's board of education from 1912 to 1916, and died in Colorado Springs, CO (where he had gone for health reasons) in September 1917; he is interred in a family crypt at Eden Hall in Torresdale. Louise died twenty-six years after her husband, in 1943, and the area was planned for development by the Korman Corporation in the late 1950s.
Morrell Park was settled in earnest during the 1960s by families moving from other areas of Philadelphia. Children attended the Aloysius Fitzpatrick Elementary School at Knights Rd & Chalfont Dr until the John Hancock Elementary School opened at West Crown & Morrell Ave in the autumn of 1968. Children also attended Christ the King School on Chesterfield Road, which opened in 1965. The population of its postal
References
- Freitag, Alicia M & Harry C Silcox, eds. Historical Northeast Philadelphia: Stories and Memories. Holland, PA: Brighton Pr, 1994.
- Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present