Packer Park is a neighborhood in the South Philadelphia section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States that originally included 1,000 homes built in two unique builder developments, of Packer Park in the 1950s and Brinton Estates during the 1990s. It is now one of four residential communities to be designated as Packer Park. The original footprint community is also one of four adjacent communities that form Philadelphia's Sports Complex Special Services District. The approximate boundaries are Packer Avenue to the north, Hartranft Street to the south including FDR Park farther south, Broad Street to the east known as the Southern Parkway, and I-76 to the far west. Packer Park has been considered home to one of the most organized community groups in the South Philadelphia region.
Overview
The area was a section of Passyunk Township, a defunct township that was located in Philadelphia County and originally occupied by settlers from New Sweden. The township ceased to exist and was incorporated into the City of Philadelphia following the passage of the Act of Consolidation, 1854. The American Swedish Historical Museum located in Franklin Delano Roosevelt Park on the southern border of the Packer Park community memorializes the Swedish ethnic history.
To the immediate east is the South Philadelphia sports complex consisting of Citizens Bank Park, Lincoln Financial Field, Wachovia Spectrum, Wachovia Center, and the dining complex of Xfinity Live!. This was also the former site of now demolished Veterans Stadium, the Spectrum and John F. Kennedy Stadium.
Packer Park
Packer Avenue itself was named in honor of William Fisher Packer, a former governor of Pennsylvania, and was built as an approach to the American International exposition grounds of the Sesquicentennial Exposition of 1926. Following 1926, the exposition was demolished and the US Navy built temporary housing on the site. The Navy abandoned the site and moved families to new housing west of Penrose Avenue. This opened up the site to the private development of Packer Park on what was reclaimed swampy land and preserved the vitality of the borders of Board Street's Southern Blvd, together with the Olmsted Brothers architecturally designed landscaped FDR Park on the south and Marconi Plaza, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Park on the upper north. FDR Park is 348 acres (1.41 km2) which include a 146-acre (0.59 km2) golf course, about 125 acres (0.51 km2) of buildings and managed landscapes, and about 77 acres (310,000 m2) of natural lands including ponds and lagoons. Also on the south side from Packer Avenue to Hartranft Street is the Philadelphia Eagles Football Practice Field, Novacare Center, and Vendemmia Square maintaining large green areas from the site of the former U.S. Naval Hospital. Along the six blocks from Broad Street to 20th on Hartranft Street is a landscaped pedestrian walkway park lined with trees and seasonal plants, nicknamed the "Gladway" (memorializing the 1926 Sesquicentennial Exposition green area of rows of hundreds of Gladiolus).
The Packer Park urban townhouses distinguish themselves in South Philadelphia by departing from the Philadelphia grid of streets and blocks of dense rowhouses. This included cul-de-sacs that were designed with a greater emphasis on a green park setting with common green spaces and accommodation for driveways and off street car parking. The community soon became populated by a large third -generation Italian Italian Americans. Packer Park is one of two remaining majority Italian American neighborhoods in South Philadelphia (the other is the nearby Girard Estates neighborhood)
Geary Estates
Most recently, 10 new townhomes have been built on the block of 1900 Geary Street at the site of the former Holy Spirit convent. Geary Estates in Packer Park are three-story, new-construction homes with luxury amenities, including two-car parking, decks, skyline views, a finished basement, granite counters, stainless steel appliances, luxury cabinetry, ten-year tax abatements, etc.