Parkside is a neighborhood in the

West Philadelphia West Philadelphia, nicknamed West Philly, is a section of the city of Philadelphia. Alhough there are no officially defined boundaries, it is generally considered to reach from the western shore of the Schuylkill River, to City Avenue to the nort ...

section of

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

, USA. Much of the Parkside neighborhood was built during the 1876

Centennial Exhibition The Centennial International Exhibition of 1876, the first official World's Fair to be held in the United States, was held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from May 10 to November 10, 1876, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the signing of the ...

. It is a

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

Historic District with many examples of

Victorian architecture Victorian architecture is a series of architectural revival styles in the mid-to-late 19th century. ''Victorian'' refers to the reign of Queen Victoria (1837–1901), called the Victorian era, during which period the styles known as Victorian we ...

, some well-preserved, others in poor condition. The neighborhood was populated by

German American German Americans (german: Deutschamerikaner, ) are Americans who have full or partial German ancestry. With an estimated size of approximately 43 million in 2019, German Americans are the largest of the self-reported ancestry groups by the Unite ...

s, followed by

Eastern European Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, whi ...

Jew Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""Th ...

s, before becoming heavily

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. (Directly after World War II it was home to many displaced persons from Eastern Europe, which included Latvians.) In 2008, a shopping mall called the Park West Town Village Shopping Center was completed. Its anchor stores are Shop Rite,

Lowe's Lowe's Companies, Inc. (), often shortened to Lowe's, is an American retail company specializing in home improvement. Headquartered in Mooresville, North Carolina, the company operates a chain of retail stores in the United States and Canada. A ...

McDonald's McDonald's Corporation is an American Multinational corporation, multinational fast food chain store, chain, founded in 1940 as a restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald, in San Bernardino, California, United States. They rechri ...

, and CW Price. It is located on North 52nd Street. Parkside is the home of the Evans Recreation Center. In 2014, the

Philly Pumptrack The Philly Pumptrack is a bicycle pump track within Fairmount Park, in the Parkside neighborhood of West Philadelphia. The pump track has separate beginner and expert sections. History The Philly Pumptrack was created by Philadelphia cycl ...

opened at Evans. Parkside was the early home of

gangsta rap Gangsta rap or gangster rap, initially called reality rap, emerged in the mid- to late 1980s as a controversial hip-hop subgenre whose lyrics assert the culture and values typical of American street gangs and street hustlers. Many gangsta rappe ...

per

Schoolly D Jesse Bonds Weaver Jr. (born June 22, 1962), better known by the stage name Schoolly D (sometimes spelled Schooly D), is an American rapper from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Career Schoolly D teamed up with DJ Code Money in the mid-1980s. His ...

, and was referenced in his songs "PSK" (Park Side Killers) and "Parkside 5-2". File:Parkside HD Philly a.JPG, Building at 41st and Parkside File:Parkside HD Philly b.JPG, Detail of window of building at 41st and Parkside File:Parkside HD Philly c.JPG, Building at Memorial and Parkside

External links

Parkside Historic Preservation Corporation

East Parkside Community Revitalization CorporationParkside Association Of Philadelphia
(PAP)

References

{{National Register of Historic Places in Pennsylvania Neighborhoods in Philadelphia National Register of Historic Places in Philadelphia Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Philadelphia Houses completed in 1876 Philadelphia Register of Historic Places West Philadelphia Houses in Philadelphia Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Pennsylvania