Transcript of Interview - Mrs. Henningson

I have lived in the neighborhood for my whole life. So that’s – I’m 66 – so that’s how long.

How many generations has your family lived here?

Um…probably two, or, two before me. Maybe three. And my sons lived here so I guess…and my grandkids so we’re up to like five, probably.

Where have you lived other than this house?

In this house? No, but before I was married I lived on Twenty-Third Street, so I only moved one half a block around the corner.

Where in the city have you worked?

I have worked um…in town. So I worked at, like, Sixteenth and Arch, Broad and Arch, um, The Bell Telephone Building, Sixteenth and Arch I guess. I always – when I worked, I always worked for the phone company, which is now Verizon.

What is a common occupation in the neighborhood?

Um…generally, it’s a pretty mixed neighborhood. Probably there’d be a percentage going a little bit to lawyers.

What changed most in the neighborhood?

Um…this was always – this was always a pretty stable neighborhood. It was is – in my memory it’s about – um – it’s about the same. There was always families; there was always kids, and the kids grew up – you know – in the neighborhood and went to school. Probably the difference is maybe most people went to school right close-by, whereas now, kids go all over the place to school.

What is a significant memory you have of the neighborhood?

Um…one of the places that really – um – figures in my memory is, is Fitler Square and the, the neighborhood’s now, like real estate people call it Fitler Square1. We didn’t.

I think we always just called it Center City. Um…the neighborhood a little bit further west is called Schuylkill, but we weren’t actually in – we were kind of on the very edge of Schuylkill on Twenty-Third Street, so we just called it Center City.

Um…probably the memory is playing in Fitler Square2 and – um – and then having my kids do the same thing, like play in Fitler Square. And then my grandkids playing in Fitler Square and it’s kind of – I guess that would be – that’s kind of a, uh, a tying theme to, like, the years that I’ve been here.

Where were the “hot-spots” of the neighborhood?

Hot-spots? There weren’t any hot-spots. There was a drugstore on the corner of Twenty-Second and – um – Pine and – uh – you could actually have lunch; they had a lunch counter, so you could have lunch there and I guess – hm – guys used to hang out in front of the drugstore. As I went to high school in South Philadelphia, so I kind of hung out down in South Philadelphia, not – uh – not here.

What kinds of businesses used to be here?

Well the drugstore – and there was corner stores. There were – the – where the restaurant is at Twenty-Third and Lombard was a corner store – um – a grocery store, and a butcher’s. Um…there weren’t really – there were little – there weren’t really delis. There was the drugstore – um – there was dry-cleaning…Um – There was always a supermarket at Twenty-Third and, and South. It – uh – went – it had many different names over the years, but there was always a supermarket there as long as I know, so. We always had a small supermarket here.

Is and was the neighborhood friendly?

It’s generally friendly, yeah, I think so. It’s like a – it’s like a small town in the middle of – on the edge of the city. So, yeah, people know each other still even though you would think, like, people who live in town don’t, don’t know their neighbors and that’s not true.

Has the neighborhood always been primarily middle class?

It was working class – um – not primarily lawyers, or – you know – like I said, what I would think it to be now. More – uh – gentrified now.

No, it was originally a Irish – like west of us was a very Irish neighborhood, Schuylkill was a very Irish neighborhood, I – my background is Irish. Um – there was a lot of – there was Jewish, there was other things, but everybody kind of kept in their own group of people and didn’t mingle too much as far as – I know – I know I didn’t. But it was always friendly and – you know – nice neighbors and people who talk to you, people who looked out for you when you were young, that kind of stuff; got in your business, I guess.

Has Center City been expanding into the neighborhood?

There were probably – there were probably always a mix of small businesses, people who probably had businesses at home that – you know – you really didn’t know about in that way. Um…I don’t think there’s any more big companies moving in, or – um…It might have been a bit more residential than it is now because as I say there really weren’t, like, the restaurants around that there are now, like – you know commercial restaurants – um – so in that way, yeah. But, but I don’t consider that a bad thing.

How and when have the buildings changed?

Probably was in the Fifties. Um…when I grew up on Twenty-Third Street, there were no houses here. Other than – the houses where we live – where I live right now, Croskey Street, these houses were built in 1863, so these houses – these little houses were here for a long time. But there were no houses across the street. I mean, I could look all the way to Twenty-Third Street from here. In fact, I played in that empty lot. So I’d say somewhere I know those houses were built in the Fifties sometime, so – um – that’s when a lot of the neighborhood started to change and houses were done over; different people moved in. And those people are still called “new people” even though they might have lived here since the Fifties.

THE END

It’s still has maintained the same kind of flavor and there’s still a mix of different types of people who – um – live here. Yeah, it’s still – well, I think it’s still a great place to live.

1 The neighborhood has very names and numerous boundaries depending on the person. Here, Mrs. Henningson describes the area as Fitler Square, as real estate people have recently come to call it.

2 This is referring to the actual park called Fitler Square, located between Twenty-Third and Twenty-Fourth Street and from Panama Street to Pine Street. As it is sometime perceived as the center of the neighborhood, Fitler Square Park and the area around it is sometimes called the Fitler Square area.