Well, a lot has happened since my last post, which was in June. It’s August now, and I have moved from San Francisco to Philadelphia. While Philadelphia is a familiar city for me (I lived here from 1986 to 2005), I am in a neighborhood that I hadn’t known too well. I’m in Roxborough, which is on the northwestern end of the city between the Schuylkill River and the Wissahickon Valley section of Fairmount Park. Roxborough is a no-frills, somewhat family oriented area, although it is adjacent to a smaller neighborhood called Manayunk that is trendy and younger. When I lived in Philly before, I hardly ever came out this way, as I lived in various West Philly and Center City neighborhoods and didn’t own a car; Roxborough/Manayunk is far from Center City, 8 to 9 miles, and thus was not so easily accessible to me back then.

It’s been interesting getting to know this area better. Fortunately for me, I have a few good friends who live nearby, and they have been helpful in acclimating me to Roxborough. It’s not a flashy place, but it has some great things to offer and some interesting history.

Early History

Like much of Philadelphia, Roxborough is OLD. Prior to white settlers, Lenape Indians lived in the area, which was called Manatawna. They created a trail called Manatawny that later became Ridge Road (now Ridge Avenue). By the late 1600s, the area was considered by European settlers to be a prime location for farming and milling. The early population of Roxborough was mostly Germans, who would eventually migrate to “Dutch Country” in southeastern/south-central Pennsylvania, and also English and Scottish people.

In 1690, the area was renamed Roxburgh, likely after Roxburghshire, Scotland, the ancestral home of Andrew Robeson, one of the earliest settlers of the area. By 1707, the name had been changed to Roxborough Township. Before the arrival of railroads, Ridge Avenue, still a main thoroughfare through Roxborough, was a key travel and commerce route, running from Center City Philadelphia, through Roxborough, and beyond.

In the fall and winter of 1777, Roxborough, among other Philadelphia neighborhoods, was the site of bitter battles in the American Revolution. Following the war, Roxborough began to prosper again. Local waterways powered saw mills, paper mills, cotton mills, and more. A dam, canal, and locks were built on the Schuylkill River at Manayunk (a sub-neighborhood of Roxborough that was then called Flat Rock) in the early 1800s, which led to more mills and factories sprouting up.

Later History

Manayunk was declared a borough within Roxborough township in 1840 and then declared a separate town in 1847. In 1854, the townships and boroughs in the region became part of the City of Philadelphia. By the mid to late 1800s, farmlands were being converted into residential streets with pretty Victorian homes. The community grew and saw the construction of a hospital in 1890.

Since the 1950s, most of Philadelphia’s major television and FM radio stations have located their transmission towers in Roxborough because of its hilly terrain and high elevation. At night, you can see the towers (near where I live) lit up with red lights. Like many urban neighborhoods, Roxborough declined in the mid to late 1900s but underwent some rebirth in the 1990s and early 2000s. Today, it has a lot of residential areas, some restaurants and other businesses centered on Ridge Avenue, and access to the trendier Main Street of Manayunk and trails and parks to the west (along the Schuylkill River) and east (in the Wissahickon Valley).