Packer Park, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
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Packer Park is a neighborhood located in the South Philadelphia section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States that includes 1,200 homes built in two unique builder developments of Packer Park 1950's and Brinton Estates 1990's. It is one of four residential communities that form Philadelphia's special Sports Complex District. The approximate boundaries are Packer Avenue to the north, Hartranft Street to the south, Broad Street to the east, and 20th Street to the west. Packer Park is also home to one of the most organized community groups in the South Philadelphia region.
Adjacent is the Reserve at Packer Park a third separate housing development of 230 homes built 2003-2007 on a triangular land area to the west of 20th Street, north of Pattison, east of Penrose Avenue. The Reserve was built on what was formerly a United States naval housing site, built in 1962 and abandoned in 1995 after the Cold War. The Capehart property, a designated ACT II site, housed nearly 400 naval families in two story townhouse structures separated using a cul-del-sac street design. Upon the Military Base Closing Act in 1995, the United States government deeded the 27 1/2 acre Brownfield property to the city of Philadelphia. New luxury townhouses were built on the site by a private developer styled for families and is an example of an envirnomentally adaptive re-use of existing piles and foundations, infrastructure, and materials. The layout preserved existing green areas augmented with large back yards, open area pocket parks and tot lots.
The Packer Park urban townhouses distinguish themselves in South Philadelphia by including a greater green park setting, airlite homes with a unique style of step down living rooms with accommodation for driveway and off street car parking. The community soon became populated by a large second generation Italian immigrant population, and continues to be an Italian American neighborhood like much of South Philadelphia. The community was named after the main Avenue by the primary real estate developer Ludwig Capozzi. Packer Avenue itself was named in honor of William Fisher Packer a 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 preserving the vitality of the borders of Board Street's Southern Blvd, and the Olmstead Brothers architecturally designed landscaped 4 acre FDR Park on the south and Marconi Plaza, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Park on the upper north. Historically this area was a section of Passyunk Township, Pennsylvania a defunct township that was located in Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania orignially settled by settlers from 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 FDR 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 and Wachovia Center. It was the former site of both now demolished Veterans Stadium and John F. Kennedy Stadium.
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