Society Hill

Society Hill is a historic neighborhood in Center City Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, with a population of 6,215 . Settled in the early 1680s, Society Hill is one of the oldest residential neighborhoods in Philadelphia. After urban decay developed between the late 19th and early 20th centuries, an urban renewal program began in the 1950s, restoring the area and its many historic buildings. Society Hill has since become one of the most expensive neighborhoods with the highest average income and second-highest real estate values in Philadelphia. Society Hill's historic colonial architecture, along with planning and restoration efforts, led the American Planning Association to designate it, , as one of the great American neighborhoods and a good example of sustainable urban living. The neighborhood hosts one of the largest concentrations of original 18th- and early 19th-century buildings in the United States. Society Hill is noted for its Franklin street lamps, brick sidewalks, cobblestone and Belgian block streets bordered by two- to four-story brick rowhouses in Federal and Georgian architecture, and public buildings in Greek Revival architecture such as the Merchants' Exchange Building and the Old Pine Street Church. Etymology Society Hill is named after the 17th-century Free Society of Traders, which had its offices at Front Street on the hill above Dock Creek. The Free Society of Traders was a company of elite merchants, landowners, and personal associates of William Penn who were granted special concessions in order to direct the economy of the young colony. Society Hill was initially known as the Dock Ward, an appropriate designation until the post-World War II period when the shipping industry declined and relocated. The Dock Ward, first defined in 1705, was one of the ten original wards that the city used to subdivide land east of 7th Street. As part of the 1854 Act of Consolidation, the Dock Ward was renamed the 5th Ward. The wards were realigned in 1965 and the boundaries of the 5th Ward no longer correspond to Society Hill's boundaries.