Neighborhood Around Temple University

[MsChelle]

Originally Posted by skyscraperboy93

Hi, my name is Dan, I am planning a visit to Temple University this Thursday. Lately everyone is asking me what colleges I am looking at, and I list them, and then I say and I am going to check out Temple in Philadelphia, and everyone goes, "Ohh, thats in a bad, high crime area." I want to know is the area really that bad, someone told me it is patrolled by armed guards at night, while I have no supporting evidence for this, I want to know the truth, especially because my mom is a nervous wreck that I would even consider a city like Philadelphia to spend four plus years of my life. To understand where I am coming from you need to know that I am from Worcester, Massachusetts, outside Boston, and well, Boston in my mother's eyes is this luxurious wealthy area, where the schools that I am looking at there are in better neighborhoods, while to her Philadelphia is the worst place ever. I think otherwise, while crime seems to be higher in Philly than Boston, I think Philadelphia is cool and I like some of the grit that I can't see in Boston, I think Boston may be too clean for me, especially because I am planning to study Architecture and see Philadelphia as a cool place to learn about architecture, so, can anyone give me the truth on the Temple University area?

Also I want to go to downtown, and seeing as we will be paying for parking in a garage for the day near Temple, would it be safe to ride the subway into downtown? I am open minded about subways, I am a frequenter of the NYC, Boston, and DC subways, so I have seen alot, is the Broad Street Line as safe as the subways in those cities?

North Philadelphia has definitely earned it's reputation as a ghetto. Not all of N. Philly is a ghetto, but there are plenty of areas that are the pits, e.g. Strawberry Mansion, Glenwood, Nicetown, and Fairhill.

From the times I've been up around Temple, I've noticed that the area south of Temple is safer and less ghetto than the area north of the university. The areas south of the campus are closer to CC and there is gentrification occurring in some areas. Also, the Yorktown neighborhood is a middle class Black neighborhood. The area between the north edge of the main campus and Temple Hospital is pretty ghetto. It's definitely not an area to walk around at night, particularly alone, even right on N Broad St.

I've taken the 23 bus through North Philly, and the reason that the area around Temple can be the pits has a lot to do with deindustrialization. There are a lot of abandoned factories, meaning a lot of jobs that left. Also, there's a lot of public housing near the university. The Philadelphia Housing Authority has redone some of these housing developments which has probably helped the condition of the neighborhoods.

Philadelphia has some GREAT architecture (along with it's fair share of ugly buildings). I have lived in Philly for about a year and believe the city has a lot to offer. I love it. It does have it's ghetto areas, for sure. Most of the homicides in the city is street violence/confrontations involving young Black men (see Philadelphia Police Department | Crime Statistics). The crime is not equally dispersed.

There are a lot of areas of the city that are quite safe (e.g. Center City, Old City, some parts of U City, Chestnut Hill, etc.). You should be fine riding the subway during the day. I ride it all the time and have never had any problems. Of course there are the occasional drunks and people blasting loud music, but that happens everywhere. However, the subway stations and tunnels can be hard to navigate at first (especially, 15th St.). With your experience on the subways in NYC, Boston, and DC, you should be fine. I can't speak much for how it is at night. I hope you enjoy your visit to Philly!

[templeu]

Interesting read about progress at TU:

Temple's next president will face the task of building on success | Philadelphia Inquirer | 09/13/2011