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    1958–1970

    University Redevelopment Area Unit 3 came to represent the divide between university and community after residents were displaced as part of the creation of the University City Science Center.

    University Redevelopment Area Unit 3 (RDA Unit 3), centered around Market Street between 34th and 40th Streets, was certified for redevelopment in the late 1960s. The developer, the West Philadelphia Corporation (WPC), planned the area for the University City Science Center. The WPC, a coalition funded and run primarily by the University of Pennsylvania, saw the Science Center as the centerpiece of their conception of the scholarly urban oasis branded "University City." The Drexel Institute (Drexel) was another WPC member (and therefore also involved in the construction of the Science Center), but held limited stakes and interest in the project. Before redevelopment, RDA Unit 3 was a residential area and the construction of the Science Center displaced over 2,000 residents, primarily African American renters.

    Decades
    1950s, 1960s
    Keywords
    Race Relations, Race, Ethnicity, Nationality, African Americans, Residences, Apartments, Rowhouses, Schools, Colleges and Universities
    Themes
    Changing Neighborhoods, Commercial and Industrial Development, Schools, Higher Eds and Meds

    Continue reading The University Redevelopment Area
    Woodland Avenue and Creating Penn’s Pedestrian Campus

    In the 1950s, the City facilitated Penn’s plans to create its modern pedestrian campus by putting the Penn trolleys underground and deeding the footprint of Woodland Avenue to the University. 

    Federal- and State-Funded Urban Renewal at the University of Pennsylvania

    In the 1960s, the University expanded west and north in Redevelopment Authority Unit 4, drawing upon both federal and state urban renewal building funds.

    Drexel and Penn in University RDA Unit 1

    The Drexel Institute of Technology’s successful efforts to receive half of University Redevelopment Area Unit 1—originally designated exclusively for the University of Pennsylvania’s campus expansion—asserted the Institute’s importance as a rising educational institution in West Philadelphia.

    Drexel and Community Conflict in Unit 5

    Drexel unveiled a plan in 1964 for expanding its holdings and building dormitories in Powelton Village and the planned projects were protested by community members until the mid-1970s.

    University Redevelopment Area Unit 3

    University Redevelopment Area Unit 3 came to represent the divide between university and community after residents were displaced as part of the creation of the University City Science Center.

    Stories in this Collection

    The West Philadelphia Corporation
    1959–2018

    The West Philadelphia Corporation (WPC) was created by a coalition of West Philadelphia education institutions to address the growing disparity between their campuses and the communities surrounding them. The spurring event was the 1959 murder of a Penn graduate student by young local residents. The goal was to create a city environment “compatible” with the WPC member organizations. The most notable of the efforts was the marketing University City, a new name for the area surrounding Penn, Drexel, and the University of the Sciences. The heart of the University City would be the University City Science Center, which was created to attract new scientists and academics to the area.
    Drexel and the Creation of the University City Science Center
    1963–1967

    The Drexel Institute was only marginally involved in the creation of the University City Science Center, a project of the West Philadelphia Corporation (WPC) in Unit 3, which included the blocks between 34th and 38th Streets from Powelton and Lancaster Avenues on the north to Chestnut Street on the south. Drexel’s president, William Hagerty, James Creese’s successor, resented Drexel’s second-class status vis-à-vis Penn in the WPC, the Science Center, and the larger cosmos of West Philadelphia urban renewal.
    A mosaic displaying a bulldozer approaching a row of houses filled with African American residents.
    Collateral Damage in Unit 3
    1958–1970

    In the late 1960s, the West Philadelphia Corporation, a non-profit coalition of West Philadelphia “higher eds and meds” and a surrogate for the University of Pennsylvania, redeveloped RDA Unit 3 in the Market Street area and recruited the University City Science Center to fill the core of the unit. That large-scale project and the Science Center’s proposed affiliate, University City High School, necessitated the leveling of a working-poor, majority African American neighborhood known locally as the “Black Bottom” and displaced its residents. Penn’s role in the Science Center severely damaged its community relations for decades to come.