If there is a North Philly, South Philly, West Philly, etc., where is East Philly?

[Redddog]

Market East is East Philly....

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by Redddog

Market East is East Philly....

When I moved here, there was a community weekly called The South St. Star that dubbed itself "The Community News of East Philadelphia."

In a very technical sense, if we make City Hall the center of the city - it was the center of Thomas Holme's grid - then anything east of it would have been "East Philadelphia."

But the city was settled from the Delaware westward, so there was no such animal, as has already been noted.

One other oddity: When the grid was finished in the early 18th century, the numbering system at the time numbered the houses inland from the two rivers: there were two Front Streets, one on the Delaware and the other on the Schuylkill, and the numbers increased as you headed away from the rivers. Houses also were numbered consecutively from 1 at the river, again in both directions (though since there was no development west of about 6th Street at the time, this wasn't much of an issue). I'm guessing that as the city grew westward towards Center Square, someone figured out how this system might be impractical, and the street and house numbers were changed so that the street numbers increased westward from the Delaware and the house numbers began with the number of the cross street to their east, thus increasing by 100 every major block (or "square" in occasional local parlance). Unless I'm mistaken, that made this city also the first in the US to adopt that house numbering convention.

[chessimprov]

Originally Posted by Urban Spaceman

East Philly is the River Wards on the eastern edge of the city. They were once considered the Lower NE but the NE is so huge and sprawling that the Lower NE actually starts around Harbison and Torresdale.

I am with Urban Spaceman. Maybe Pennsport too to add to that.
Market East and CC could fit a separate "region" of being in the "center" as opposed to N,S,E,W.

[myplacephilly]

Philadelphia started on the Delaware River, the east side of current Philly. So "east" was THE Philly. The other areas got named from the direction away from the original city. My guess.

[selhars]

I'm guessing that as the city grew westward towards Center Square, someone figured out how this system might be impractical,

Although, of course at least one other city has figured out, sort of, how to have challenging street name and numbering systems. I'd say DC's, same name/same number quadrant system could fit that bill. Woe be unto you, if you don't catch on to the NE, SE, NW, SW system.....

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by selhars

Although, of course at least one other city has figured out, sort of, how to have challenging street name and numbering systems. I'd say DC's, same name/same number quadrant system could fit that bill. Woe be unto you, if you don't catch on to the NE, SE, NW, SW system.....

Actually, it's worse in Des Moines.

Iowa's capital city is also divided into four quadrants, but the quadrants are not uniform in their designators. I don't remember exactly what they're called or where the designators lie, but I think they are (clockwise from top right) N, SE, SW, W.

[FKD19124]

Where I grew up, I always called parts of Frankford "East Frankford". But you did have towns like Bridesburg, Port Richmond that were in the east part of the city.

[Flyers Girl]

Since this thread has been revived...

I don't know if I've already responded and I don't want to look through eight pages, so here's my response to the question posed in the thread title.

East Philadelphia is...the Delaware River.

[drive carephilly]

The number grid "0" address is at Front and Market. Technically, anything east of Front St. is "East." The problem is that the river starts to curve hard to the east north of Spring Garden so you don't really get into full neighborhoods east of Front St. until you're in Fishtown and by the time you get north of there people are more likely to say "Greater Kensington," "River Wards," or "the Northeast"

If there were actually full neighborhoods east of Front St. between Girard and Washington you'd probably hear people say "East Philly" but short of that it's just a cheeky way of saying Camden.

Also, FWIW, I went to Rutgers-Camden and worked in the city for two years after graduation. Most of my time was in East Camden or Fairview and Morgan Village. I also worked in Chester, PA and lived in Philly for 12 years. South Camden is like the Badlands. East Camden is pretty similar to Frankford. Fairview is more like West Oak Lane. Every neighborhood in Camden has an analog in Philly. The problem with Camden is that the reverse isn't true. There is no Chestnut Hill in Camden. No Rittenhouse Square. No East Passyunk or Spruce Hill.