Mill Creek

This photo shows the greenspace in the low-rise complex. Mill Creek Homes had 100-percent African American occupancy.

This photo shows a courtyard of the low-rises when they were new.

This aerial photo highlights the high-rise apartment buildings in the Mill Creek Homes development. 

Louis I. Kahn’s diagram of his comprehensive plan for Mill Creek Homes. The drawing shows Aspen Street as the primary civic street of the development. Note Kahn’s designation of the high-rise apartment group as the Mill Creek “Acropolis.”   

This 1964 map provided by the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority shows the RDA’stargeted zone for urban renewal—to be distinguished from the Philadelphia Housing Authority’s Mill Creek Project (Mill Creek Homes). Note, as a landmark, Sulzberger Junior High School, at 48th & Fairmount.

Philadelphia 1962 Land Use Map, showing site of Mill Creek Homes, here designated as a “project.” This designation would distinguish it from West Mill Creek Urban Renewal Area, a Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority initiative launched in 1964 for housing conservation and recreation west and northwest of Mill Creek project.  

Map excerpt showing the future site of Mill Creek Homes: Fairmount Ave. to Aspen St., N. Markoe St. to 45th St.

Mill Creek Homes, a modernist public housing project designed by architect Louis I. Kahn, 1953–55; in its first phase consisting of three 17-storey elevator towers at 46th St. & Fairmount Ave. overlooking a cluster of two- and three-story houses on Aspen St.

Mill Creek Farm, the second large-scale gardening project in the footprint of the buried floodplain, launched in 2006 at 4901 Brown Street.