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Ever since its creation in the 1960s the Yorktown neighborhood in North Central Philadelphia has been a well-kept, tight-night community that’s withstood years of changes in the surrounding areas.
Yorktown was built as an experiment in community design with cul-de-sacs, garden-style homes, and other features not heard of in urban development. Yorktown’s unique design and close proximity to Center City generated enough positive press and sales to make the neighborhood a success.
Yorktown provided blacks with an unprecedented opportunity to become home owners. President of the Yorktown Community Development Corp. Felicia Woods is a lomgtime Yorktown member. “There were churches here, there were schools here. With the development of Progress Plaza, you had the shopping opportunity to walk over and do all your shopping… this became a community rather than a development,” Woods explained.
Yorktown, like some upscale suburban neighborhoods has a handbook of rules, the covenant among neighbors for community members to follow. “The purpose of this covenant, and even now, is for the future beauty of Yorktown,” Woods said.
“We still have blocks where you know the name of every single person on your block. It’s a tight and stable community of neighbors helping neighbors,” Woods said.
Yorktown CDC and Progress Investments Association board member Anita Chappell echoes the sentiment that what makes the community is its people.
“Yorktown’s strong feature is its block associations that find family members and friends to fit into the framework when there’s an opening in the community…they look out for each other,” Chappell explained.
Times are changing, however, and with Yorktown’s residents aging and having to leave their homes, the community is challenged with losing its identity to students and gentrification.
“New folks who come in are not really assimilating. You have investors and speculators who come in and purchase the property and they have no interest in community and supporting the growth, development, and stabilization of the community. It’s all an economic gain for them,” Woods explained.
Because Yorktown borders Temple University, students seeking more affordable, private housing than is offered by the university often look in Yorktown, which also poses a problem for the community.
“Students are interested in getting their education, and once they get their education, they’re ready to get out, so you have that transitory element…and when you have four or five people in a house it’s a rooming house, and rooming houses diminish the value of a property,” Woods said.
But Yorktown resident Chanise Vern feels that Temple presence has a positive influence on the community. “I think it’s nice because the mayor lives here and they got the college right here. They got a lot of stuff going on in the neighborhood, like schools and stuff."
Even with the challenges facing Yorktown, Woods is confident that it will maintain its community feel. “There is a move by us with some energy to market and repopulate with younger people. In the next decade, I think that we’ll have a more mixed population. Baby boomers are coming back and are buying the condos, and I’m not sure that all the students that are here will leave. I think some are going to stay and invest in the community. While we are in a transition, I don’t see that all the change will be detrimental,” Woods said. |
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