History of South
Street!
Originally named Cedar Street
in William Penn's plan of Philadelphia,
South Street was the traditional southern
boundary of Philadelphia's city limits
before the townships of Passyunk and
Moyamensing were annexed to the city.
Prior to and until the 1950s,
South Street was known mainly as a garment
district, featuring a number of (mostly
Jewish-owned) men's suit stores and
other clothing stores. At approximately
that time, city planner Edmund Bacon
and others proposed the construction
of the "Crosstown Expressway"-
a short limited-access expressway connecting
the Schuylkill Expressway and I-95 by
cutting a swath along South Street.
Although that project never got further
than the planning stage, the drop in
real estate values that resulted from
the uncertainty attracted artists and
other counterculture-types.
South Street was very different
in the 1960s-1970s than it is today.
Back then, it was filled with clubs
and bars, most of them promoting live
local music. It was on South Street
that the Philadelphia local music community
began. Most people who frequented South
Street actually lived in South Philadelphia,
unlike today where it is populated by
the inhabitants of North/West Philadelphia,
suburban Philadelphia and New Jersey.
The 1960s and 1970s saw South
Street grow to become a huge clubbing
and live music area for Philadelphia.
It was not uncommon to see South Philadelphians
go "bar-hopping" across the
clubs, listening to live bands along
the way. It was this time when many
artists, including Kenn Kweder, George
Thorogood and Robert Hazard got signed
because of this community of fans on
South Street.
However, towards the 1980s
South Street began getting more famous,
quickly becoming one of Philly's tourist
attractions. Tourists flocked to the
nocturnal community that South Street
had accumulated over the years, and
the "neighborhood" community
aspect was stripped from it. Many of
the South Street clubs closed, replaced
by chain stores and shops to cater to
the tourists who came down.
from
Wikipedia
