Angora is a neighborhood in the

Southwest The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sepa ...

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. Since ...

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, ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

. Although its boundaries are not precise,

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 ...

is to its north,

Kingsessing Kingsessing is a neighborhood in the Southwest section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. On the west side of the Schuylkill River, it is next to the neighborhoods of Cedar Park, Southwest Schuylkill, and Mount Moriah, as well as the ...

is to the south, Cedar Park is to the east, and

Cobbs Creek Cobbs Creek is an U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed April 1, 2011 tributary of Darby Creek in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, in the United States. It forms an approximat ...

is to the west. The Angora Commuter Rail Station on the

Media/Wawa Line The Media/Wawa Line is a SEPTA Regional Rail service that runs from Center City Philadelphia west to Wawa in Delaware County. It uses the West Chester Branch, which connects with the SEPTA Main Line at 30th Street Station. Under the Pennsylva ...

, two bus lines (routes 46 and "G"), and a trolley line (

SEPTA Route 34 SEPTA's subway–surface trolley route 34, also called the Baltimore Avenue subway line, is a trolley line operated by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) that connects the 13th Street station in downtown Philadelphia, ...

) all intersect around Baltimore Avenue and 58th Street, which is unofficially the nexus of the neighborhood. On May 12, 2005, a commercial block in Angora was certified as blighted by the City Planning Commission, and a redevelopment plan was proposed later that year. However, Angora Terrace and other portions of the neighborhood are well-kept.

History

The neighborhood was founded by Robert and George Callaghan in 1863, who named it for

Ankara Ankara ( , ; ), historically known as Ancyra and Angora, is the capital of Turkey. Located in the central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5.1 million in its urban center and over 5.7 million in Ankara Province, maki ...

, the city in Turkey. The landscape was sparsely populated until for decades, and a surrounding woodland provided a bucolic environment seemingly separate from the city of which it was part. Development began in earnest between 1900 and 1920. In its founding, it was the site of the Callaghan

textile mill Textile Manufacturing or Textile Engineering is a major industry. It is largely based on the conversion of fibre into yarn, then yarn into fabric. These are then dyed or printed, fabricated into cloth which is then converted into useful goods ...

; later, in the early 20th century, a mill that produced yarn and a factory that produced glass were erected. This industry was accompanied by the relatively limited development of residential areas within the neighborhood, mainly restricted to the 5800 block of Baltimore Avenue (between 1918 and 1920) and to an area that once was a grove of trees, known as Sherwood Forest. A nearby attraction for residents (mainly children and older residents) was Kingsessing Park, in the Kingsessing neighborhood, in which a recreation center was constructed in 1918. Of note was the Sherwood Cricket Club of Angora. A watercolor of it can be found at th
PhillyH2O website
Cricket was an important sport at that time, with the

Belmont Cricket Club The Belmont Cricket Club was one of four chief cricket clubs in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, that played from its 1874 founding in West Philadelphia until its disbanding in 1914. Bart King, arguably America's greatest cricketer during its 1890- ...

, in West Philadelphia, being one of the most prominent venues in the country. There are many references to the Sherwood Cricket Club of Angora on cricketarchive.com.

References

External links

* {{Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania Neighborhoods in Philadelphia Southwest Philadelphia