Over the past ten years, the Philadelphia Housing Authority has transformed Martin Luther King Plaza. Located on the edge of Center City, this development runs roughly between 12th and 13th Sts., from Bainbridge to Christian St. At this location, public housing towers built in 1960 once contained about 600 units and rather rapidly turned into a poverty-stricken, drug-infested, crime-ridden neighborhood. Conditions at this site were so bad that about half of the units were unlivable when the towers were finally demolished in 1999.

Walking through this section of Hawthorne today, it is so completely changed that virtually no trace remains of its history. In place of the towers, PHA has constructed 245 low-rise units, with 109 owner-occupied units and 136 rentals. These houses are unlike many PHA properties in that their facades resemble classic Philadelphia row houses. Looking at these buildings and seeing that PHA clearly knows how to build homes that look like the most of the others in this town makes us wonder why this ever happened.

The best news of the moment, as home construction has come to a close, is the upcoming Hawthorne Park. The future park currently looks like this:

View from 12th and Catharine

We’ve gotten some renderings that show what the park will look like when it’s complete.

Again, a view from 12th and Catharine Sts.

The park looks wonderful and has a reasonable price tag of just over $2M. Considering where this community was just ten years ago, this is truly an amazing addition- when it opens next Spring, this park will definitely put a bow on an area that had turned around 180 degrees.