Matthew Smalarz teaches history at Manor College in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, where he serves as Chair of Social Sciences as well as History and Social Sciences Coordinator. He received the Outstanding Educator of the Year Award for the 2016-2017 academic year.
City and state politicians representing Northeast Philadelphia, deeply unsettled by the shifting economy and demographic makeup of the city in the 1980s, proposed seceding to create “Liberty County,” a separate, suburban municipality to ostensibly address taxpayers’ demands for improved municipal services. The primary impetus for such a radical step, however, was reaction to ...
From its colonial foundations as a farming hinterland to its dramatic post-WWII development, Northeast Philadelphia became a desirable destination for those seeking to improve their economic, social, and cultural ...
From its initial, colonial foundations as a sparsely populated farming hinterland to its dramatic postwar housing development after World War II, Northeast Philadelphia developed into a desirable destination for those seeking to improve their economic, social, and cultural standing within Philadelphia’s city boundaries. Even as Northeast Philadelphia came to symbolize a middle-class environment ...
Deemed one of the boldest planning projects undertaken by the Philadelphia City Planning Commission during the mid-twentieth century, Penn Center replaced the Pennsylvania Railroad’s infamous “Chinese Wall” viaduct and Broad Street Station in Center City with modern civic spaces and commercial structures. The complex, which grew to comprise thirteen buildings stretching from Market Street ...
Opened to the public in 1893, Reading Terminal Market came into being amid the chaotic, but transformative, industrial and commercial forces that swept through late nineteenth-century Philadelphia. A descendant of the market-oriented atmosphere and culture entrenched primarily along High (subsequently Market) Street since the colonial era, the Reading Terminal weathered myriad commercial, labor, ...
Snaking its way through parts of North and Northeast Philadelphia, the Roosevelt Boulevard, formally known as the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Boulevard, has become one of the most heavily traveled thoroughfares in the Philadelphia metropolitan region. Initially conceived amid political maelstroms during the “corrupt and contented” phase of Progressive Era Philadelphia, “the Boulevard,” as ...
By binding together retailers into one physically convent and easily accessible venue for suburban customers, shopping centers have profoundly altered the commercial landscape of Greater Philadelphia. Commercial retailing began to decentralize themselves from the Central Business District of Philadelphia in the 1920's and underwent significant changes as location, planning, and physical ...
Connecting the Past with the Present, Building Community, Creating a Legacy