There were also kosher butcher shops that catered to the still-large Jewish community. There were two five and dime stores (Woolworth’s and Kresge’s), and the Curson family operated a dress shop patronized by residents for First Communion and weddings. At night, Point Breeze Avenue (known by residents as “The Breeze”) was illuminated by scores of shop signs advertising clothing, fresh produce, appliances, ice cream, and soda. Its residents almost never went into Center City, as they had everything they needed within a few blocks of their two story rowhouses. Until the late 1960s, Point Breeze was a relatively stable, self-sufficient neighborhood. DuBois as the “hereditary enemy” of urban African-Americans.” ii Many of Point Breeze’s African-Americans worked for Center City hotels, the Pennsylvania Railroad, local factories, and city government. ![]() This expansion often brought them into conflict with neighboring Irish-Americans, described by W.E.B. The Great Migration, however, pushed the boundaries of the African-American settlement west of Broad Street to Point Breeze. By the 1930s, these immigrant groups were joined by African-Americans from the Deep South, who had come to Philadelphia looking for work and to escape Jim Crow.ĭuring the nineteenth century, Philadelphia’s African-American community was centered east of Broad Street, near Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church at 8th and Lombard. i Conditions were primitive: chickens in backyards were a common sight. Italian and Irish immigrants soon followed. ![]() It was first settled by Eastern European Jews, many of whom set up shops on Point Breeze Avenue and lived in apartments above their businesses. Since the time of its beginnings in the late nineteenth century, Point Breeze has been a no-frills working class neighborhood.
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