The scorching heat of the midday sun on Friday, June 21, was nothing compared to the fiery pride of the crowd that gathered at the corner of 15th and Christian Streets to celebrate the renaming of six blocks in Philadelphia.
“Good morning, and welcome to Black Doctors Row, not Graduate Hospital,” said local resident and historic preservationist Richard Griniak, calling the area by its newly recognized name.
Christian Street, from Broad Street to 20th Street, is now known as Black Doctors Row, in hopes of remembering the accomplishments of the African-Americans who once called this thriving community home during a time when discrimination was rife.
According to City Council Speaker Kenyatta Johnson, the renaming “also recognizes the designation as Philadelphia’s first African-American Historic District.”
Rich black life
“I grew up on Black Doctors Row,” Cheryl Mobley Stimpson, a fourth-generation resident of the area, told the crowd. “It’s time to tell our story.”
Originally a middle-class Irish community, by 1910 the area had become a middle-class African-American neighborhood, home to prominent and prosperous African-American doctors, as well as teachers, architects, politicians, pharmacists, small business owners, funeral directors, postal workers, and a variety of social organizations and churches that anchored community life.
Its residents were a mix of famous and unknown, including Julien Aberle, the city’s first African-American designer. Horace Trumbauerconstruction companies, and Reverend Charles Tindley He founded a church on Broad Street with 10,000 members and eventually Tindley Temple United Methodist Church In his honor.
Another resident Walter F. Jerrick He was a physician and one of the founders of the Pyramid Club, a social club that invited celebrities such as Langston Hughes and Duke Ellington and required members to maintain their membership. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
Mobley Stimpson also reflected on how important church life was to area residents, including concert singers. Marian Anderson She grew up nearby and bought a house in the neighborhood in 1924. Union Baptist Church There she learned to sing, and, according to her biography, neighbors and church members helped pay for her vocal lessons.
The Philadelphia Orchestra recently renamed the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts’ Verizon Hall Marian Anderson Hall in honor of contralto singer and civil rights hero Marian Anderson.
” read more: Verizon Hall at Kimmel Center to be renamed after Philadelphia legend Marian Anderson
The Urgency of Preservation
The demolition of the house next door to Abele’s old home at 1515 Christian Street first prompted neighbors to speak out about the urgency of preserving the area.
“Is Julien Abert’s house next?” Griniak recalls thinking. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, Abert designed both the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Free Library.
“When neighbors learned that the home next door to Julian Abele’s residence at 15th and Christian Streets was scheduled for demolition, there was widespread confusion, frustration and disappointment that this was happening without a moment’s input or consideration,” Nicole Koediker, then-executive director of the South of South Neighborhood Association, testified on behalf of Johnson’s ultimately successful one-year effort to block demolition in the area.
By the time the moratorium expired, Christian Street had become the Christian Street/Black Doctors Row Historic District, containing more than 150 properties.
Anxiety about the future
Renaming the area is part of an ongoing effort to salvage the African-American history of this area of South Philadelphia. Greater Philadelphia Preservation Alliance, It is to recognize and celebrate the achievements of Black professionals who have overcome great obstacles and made immeasurable contributions to the well-being of Philadelphia’s African-American community.
” read more: South Philadelphia’s Black “Main Street” Moves One Step Closer to Becoming a Historic District and Making History
The celebratory mood was tempered by the fact that Black Doctors Row is now located in the Graduate Hospital District, one of the city’s most gentrified communities, raising concerns about the area’s future.
“Will my 30-year-old nephew and niece be able to inherit and keep my house?”
“I’m worried about the next two generations,” said Linda Evans, another longtime resident and advocate of the historic district, who bought the home in 1998 for $67,000 and says it’s now worth $900,000.
“Will my 30-year-old nephew and niece be able to inherit and keep my house?” she said.
Evans said the area still has a “long-term community of modest-living African-Americans who want to continue living here.”
Evans is now campaigning for policies and resources to help residents stay in their homes. “We still have long-term residents with complicated tenure situations who need basic repairs,” he said.
“You have to have some net worth to stay here,” said Donald Butler, a retiree who attended the celebration and has lived at 1600 Montrose Ave. for 20 years. “You have to have above-average net worth.”