Vacant Land

This map shows vacant land mapped in summer 1989. It has not been updated since. The categories describe the relationship between vacant properties and their immediate context. The data for these maps was gathered by teams of research assistants who drove through every block of West Philadelphia and recorded every vacant property. These field maps were digitized for most of the WPLP project area. The categories are:

Corner Lots (Orange)
Missing Teeth (Purple)
Lots Connecting Blocks (Light Blue)
Swiss Cheese (Gray)
Whole Blocks (Light Green)
Multiple Contiguous Blocks (Red)


Map Source: Field survey conducted by research assistants during summer 1988 under the supervision of Michele Pollio

Vacant land -- once built and now open once again -- occurs in virtually all of West Philadelphia's neighborhoods. South of Market Street, this vacant land consists largely of single lots, on corners and midblock. North of Market, however, particularly in Belmont, Mill Creek, and Mantua, there are many blocks of tumbled-down houses with almost as many vacant lots as buildings. In the Mill Creek neighborhood, entire blocks are vacant. Some of this open land is covered with grassy rubble, while on others trees have grown twenty feet high.

There is no single cause for all these vacant properties. Individual open lots may be due to accidental events like fire. Concentrations of vacancies, however, were caused by larger forces, such as changing patterns of shopping and business and new aspirations for housing. After World War II, federal funds built highways and new services in suburban areas and provided mortgages for veterans. Banking and insurance practices discouraged investment in many urban neighborhoods and supported new housing construction and purchases in suburban regions. Owners who wished to move from parts of West Philadelphia often found themselves unable to sell their property.

These trends affected all of West Philadelphia, but, most particularly, the neighborhoods built before 1895 with no provision for private or public open space and with no accomodation of the automobile: Belmont, Mill Creek, and Mantua. The resulting vacant lands form different patterns which pose different limitations and opportunities for reuse. (See WPLP report: "Vacant Land: A Resource for Reshaping Urban Neighborhoods.")

Vacant Corners. Throughout West Philadelphia, but particularly North of Market Street, there are many vacant corner properties. Most are filled with piles of rubble, overgrown with weeds, and littered with trash. Some have been converted into community gardens, playgrounds, and ballcourts; others are now parking lots. In Belmont, Mantua, and Mill Creek, at least one corner lot at many intersections is vacant, creating holes in what were once coherent, densely developed neighborhoods. There were once corner stores throughout West Philadelphia, particularly in residential neighborhoods of rowhouses and apartment buildings. Some of these neighborhood stores still exist, but most have vanished, leaving numerous abandoned corner buildings and vacant corner lots. Small businesses and factories were once embedded within some residential neighborhoods. In Mill Creek, at 48th and Aspen Streets, for example, there was a small factory where several current residents once worked. When the business closed, the building was abandoned, became deteriorated, and was then destroyed, leaving a vacant corner that neighbors eventually transformed into one of Philadelphia's largest and most successful community gardens--Aspen Farm. The story behind vacant corners is one of changing patterns of business and shopping. This is not West Philadelphia's story alone, but one shared by other, older inner-city neighborhoods across the country.

"Missing Teeth." A missing tooth is a vacant lot or small group of adjacent lots within a block that creates a gap between a row of houses. Missing teeth are particularly noticeable in blocks of rowhouses where even one missing building creates a break in the block. In some neighborhoods missing teeth have been turned into midblock gardens, parking lots, and playlots, serving the needs of particular people. Sometimes missing teeth connect two streets in the middle of a block. Sometimes the gaps are larger than the remaining houses, a condition which poses an intimidating obstacle to renewal.

Vacant Blocks. In North Philadelphia, whole blocks of old warehouses and factories are vacant. These create a formidable obstacle to community development. They are extremely expensive to demolish and, once torn down, create a large gap. Fortunately, West Philadelphia never had many large factories and has therefore largely escaped this predicament. Large blocks of vacant land in West Philadelphia have another cause related to topography, sewers, and flooding. In 1970, 43rd Street caved in between Walnut and Sansom Streets. Passersby who looked down into the hole that spanned the entire street from sidewalk to sidewalk were startled to see a rushing river beneath the street, its waters encased in a huge, masonry conduit. Such cave-ins have happened in many places along the length of the Mill Creek Sewer over the past century. Even where the land has not caved in, there has been extensive damage above ground. In the years since the Mill Creek floodplain was filled in, the land has settled, damaging many homes and businesses. Cracks in the sewer also allow water to saturate the soil, so many buildings in the former floodplain have wet basements. The high costs involved in the upkeep of buildings in these areas make them expensive to maintain. Along with foundation problems brought about by subsidence, this caused the abandonment and demolition of entire blocks of buildings, especially where they had been constructed over the sewer. This has happened in the Mill Creek neighborhood and in the Walnut-Market corridor between 42nd and 47th Streets where there are now many vacant lots and even entire blocks that are vacant.

Other low spots in the Mill Creek floodplain lie between Walnut and Market Streets from 43rd to 47th Streets. Here also are contiguous blocks that are largely or partially vacant, creating a huge hole in the urban fabric. Bounded by streets, this land is wide open and unprotected and often becomes a dump for trash and construction debris. The impact of this vacant land is great; it is felt not only on the adjacent blocks, but also extends into adjoining neighborhoods. Such large areas of vacant land exist in several parts of West Philadelphia, but they are related. They trace the course of an underground river.

In the 1960s, the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority cleared land in the Mill Creek neighborhood and built public housing in these low-lying areas. Today, much of this housing is abandoned or in poor repair, subjected to some of the same problems that plagued the former houses. Other land remains vacant.

Vacant blocks of land in the Mill Creek floodplain still cover a large area and create a desolate landscape. Their redevelopment, with careful attention to the special problems they pose, has the potential to transform the surrounding neighborhood.


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Last Update: 23 July 1997