History

History

Geography: Grays Ferry area is in South Philadelphia, 1/12 miles south and west of City Hall. It is bound by 25th Street on the east, the Schuylkill River on the west, Vare Avenue on the south, and Grays Ferry Avenue on the north

Demographics:

Black- 56 %

White- 39 %

Other- 5%

More than 30% of the residents are under 18.

Though the neighborhood represents less than 1% of Philadelphia’s population, it makes up more than 10% of the City’s Section 8 Residents

(Statistics from A Prayer for Grays Ferry article http://citypaper.net/articles/2005-08-04/cover.shtml)

Pre-Settler History:
Before Gray’s Ferry, before Philadelphia, and before the arrival of Europeans, there were the Lenape (which means “Original People”) Indians. They were a nomadic people who spoke Alogonquin Language. The Lenapes lived in structures called Wigwams which were made from wood found by the river. Before the Swedes came, the Lenape called South Philadelphia “Weccacoe”, or “pleasant place”. Then, the Swedes came and maintained generally good relations with the Lenape. They annexed Weccacoe into New Sweden, which started in what is now Wilmington, DE. In 1654, the Swedes and Lenape signed the Friendship Compact in 1654 at Tinicum down from Philadelphia. Eventually, after passing through Dutch hands, the English crown ceded the land to the British.

Grays Ferry Grows:

As early as the mid-1600’s, travelers were using the area now known as Gray’s Ferry to cross the Schuylkill. Back then, it was known as “Chalmer’s Ferry”, which was purchased in 1747 by a man named George Gray. He made use of the area by planting a garden and establishing Gray’s Inn nearby. In 1778 a bridge replaced the ferry. In 1785, the Federal Government laid a road through Gray’s Ferry and connected Philadelphia and the north with Delaware and the South. Then in 1838, the bridge was replaced by a permanent and covered structure, along with a railroad line.

The railroad brought many different industries to Gray’s Ferry, from Grays Ferry Chemical Works, Kalion Chemical Works, and the Ammonia Company of Philadelphia. The building of these factories brought many immigrant German, Italian, and Irish workers, who built homes around the factory that remain today in the northern section of Grays Ferry.

Race Riots:

One of the most notable events during the first half of the 20th century was a race riot in 1918 when a black woman tried to move into the neighborhood. Tensions were high throughout the neighborhood as many African Americans had moved up from the South as a part of the Great Migration spurred by job opportunities from WWI. They got jobs in railroad maintenance, meat packaging, steel production, and sheet building. This influx of African Americans caused housing problems, and blacks started to move out of the “black” areas into the mostly white ones. The first incident of violence occurred on July 26th, 1918, when a white mob threw a brick into Julia Bond, a black probation officer’s window. The riot continued for four days until the mob quieted down.

Troubled Racial History:

Ever since the deindustrialization of the 1960’s, the neighborhood went through drastic changes. It had been primarily Irish American, but White Flight and black displacement resulted in large numbers of African Americans moving into the neighborhood, and a large number of Irish Americans moving out to the suburbs. The Irish Americans felt galled at ceding their historical territory to Blacks, and African Americans were appalled by the intolerance with which they were received. In one instance, Annette Williams, a black woman, and her two sons were savagely beaten by a large group of white men outside a historically white church St. Gabriel’s without provocation. In another, a group of drunken white men came at a young black boy with a baseball bat in Lainer Park, an area which has historically served as the dividing line between blacks and whites. As the black boy ran away from the white men and tried to jump over a fence, his ring got caught in the metal twists, and his finger tore out of its socket. Later on in the year, a black man was arrested for killing two white teenagers at a local convenience store, supposedly in retaliation. As incident after bloody incident took place, community activists planned a massive 5,000 person march down Grays Ferry and an anti-racism rally on April 14th, 1997. Figures like Louis Farrakhan and Ed Rendell got involved in the march, and Grays Ferry became the subject of a national controversy over violence, injustice, and race in inner cities.

Gray’s Ferry’s Peace Wall

Though Gray’s Ferry has a sad and troubled history, the community has been the site of reconciliation

In the midst of all the negative attention on Gray’s Ferry in 1997, a passionate, courageous muralist named Jane Golden, who is now the head of the Mural Arts Program, saw an opportunity to create social change. She worked with fellow artists Peter Pagast and James Adonis to start up a project that would bring together black and white residents using funds from the William Penn Foundation. Jane contacted Lillian Ray, a community leader who had been trying for years to bring about a sense of racial reconciliation by setting up interracial sports teams and the like.

Lillian had formed a group called Grays Ferry United around the mission to bring blacks and whites together. Together with the artists, they met with Grays Ferry residents in churches and schools to seek support for the mural and to come up with ideas for the design. At the meetings, some residents suggested a dove with an olive branch, and some suggested elders showing youth right from wrong. Finally, Lillian suggested layers of multicolored hands. The idea resonated with the crowd. Jane presented a sketch to the community members several weeks later which was met with overwhelming approval. That summer, Jane and Lillian went knocking on doors to get volunteers for the project. They stopped children on the streets and pleaded with parents to “literally lend us your hand”. When they got the volunteers, Jane’s husband Anthony Heriza took pictures of the hands stacked together in the center. The image was then transferred to a digital slide which they projected onto the wall where the artists sketched its outlines. Through this process, the artists were able to create a stunningly realistic painting. Throughout the painting of the mural, Jane and Lillian encountered many cynics who believed that a mural was too dangerous, that it would be a magnet for graffiti, that it could never solve racial tensions. “I failed to see how some silly mural was going to create equality and justice,” said James Helman, a white community organizer and retired night club owner . Charles Reeve, an African American resident and leader of local Committee of Concerned Citizens, was another of the mural’s greatest opponents. He thought the painting was an idealistic, naïve representation of a brutal reality, “I thought it was a joke… What neighborhood are they talking about?”

Despite the ongoing skepticism, the team persisted, and the community slowly rallied around the effort. As the sketch was going up, community members gathered around and offered lemonade and cookies to the artists After a series of community meetings, black and white residents started to come together. At first, the meetings centered on the design and composition for the mural, but as time progressed, the meetings became about other issues, such as beautifying the neighborhood and fixing the streets. At long last, the residents at Grays Ferry were coming together to solve their common problems. The mural was dedicated in January 1998 to a multicolored crowd of residents and state officials. Lillian Ray described it as a “symbol of the love that was here in Grays Ferry, as opposed to the hate… It’s utopia…”.

Gray's Ferry Peace Wall Mural

Tasker Housing Projects:

The Tasker housing projects were located at 29th and Morris Streets. These homes were built in 1942, and consisted of 1,077 units spanning 44 acres across the neighborhood. The place had originally been a clean, safe, and integrated place to grow up in. However, towards the 1980’s, the area disintegrated into a mess of crime, drugs, and poverty.

However, in 2002, the Philadelphia Housing Authority announced plans to completely demolish the Tasker Projects and replace it with the Greater Grays Ferry Estates. In 2004, the project was finished, and sales opened up to low-income residents and former residents of the Tasker Homes. The new town homes span 554 units and currently house 125 residents. In order to purchase a home in Greater Grays Ferry Estates, residents must homeowner’s education and join the Greater Grays Ferry Estates Homeowners Association.

Philadelphia Housing Authority has called it its “jewel”, and invited people for all aruond the world to see it.