Washington Ave. Case Study: The Transformation of the Union Burial Ground

A Temple University economic geographer, Sanjoy Chakravorty, writes in his study of Indian industrialization that “even post industrial growth, which is characteristic of the more developed nations today, is based on the foundations created by industrial growth.”  As Philadelphia begins to take on the trappings of a global city, its new residents connected to distant countries and capital, Chakravorty’s observation calls us to look at the ways in which the spatial realities of the industrial city are being reworked to meet the needs of a more global Philadelphia.

[ORIENTAL SUPERMARKET, 6TH AND WASHINGTON AVE.]

Clearly Washington Avenue, once a distinctive functional district of the industrial Philadelphia, is being reworked to fit the postindustrial needs of an increasingly diverse city.  Along the western side of Washington Ave., the historically large building footprints, good access to highways, and the two lane median for loading and unloading goods all make the corridor ideal for building supply wholesalers.  In fact, the two lane median still functions much like the two track railroad that ran down the center of the Avenue until the 1970s.  The building boom of the past decade has grown the building supply wholesale industry, some now under Chinese ownership.

[PARKING LOT, ORIENTAL SUPERMARKET, FORMER SITE OF UNION BURIAL GROUND]

Just as the building wholesalers have developed a symbiotic relationship with contractors active in residential reinvestment, a similar relationship has developed with the ethnic food stores and their own network of wholesalers.  With good access to the Food Distribution Center further south, and an increasing population of Chinese, Cambodians, Laotians and Vietnamese, large warehouse properties and other disused tracts of land have been repurposed as supermarkets and wholesalers.

While no good research exists to explain how ethnic savings rates, commercial loaning from ethnic banks and strong patronage of ethnic supermarkets have combined to catalyze this transformation of Washington Avenue’s built environment, clearly Southeast Asian communities have developed the financial instruments and the capital to make these reinvestments.  Over the past quarter century, the advantageous land conditions, precise application of ethnic capital and consistent immigration rates have turned Washington Ave. into a vibrant culinary corridor.

[REMAINS OF MASONRY WALL AND WROUGHT IRON FENCING AT UNION BURIAL GROUND]

The transformation of the Union Burial Ground at 6th and Washington serves as an ideal case study for this process.  Union probably received the most of its interees during the mid to late 19th century, with politicians of middling rank like Congressman Lemuel Paynter and Civil War soldiers buried there.  Because they are reliant on the relatives living close by for their care and upkeep, cemeteries’ conditions can diagnose larger neighborhood transitions.  By the early 1960s, with Delaware Expressway lacerating the heart of Southwark, the declining industrial utility of Washington Ave. and the construction of the racially divisive Southwark Plaza, Union’s stewardship naturally declined.  By 1970, the residents of Union were disinterred and the parcel offered for redvelopment.

[SOUTH SIDE UNION BURIAL GROUND 1962, FROM FEDERAL ST., WITH SOUTHWARK PLAZA IN BACKGROUND]