ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the more important elite and upper-class neighborhoods, and the historical development of each. Both a description of the rise and fall of fashionable neighborhoods, and a tracing of the family migrations from one neighborhood to another in succeeding generations are indispensable means of understanding the contemporary class structure. In 1940 Walnut Street was the 'Wall Street" of Philadelphia. As the banking gentlemen of Philadelphia moved their families out to the suburbs in the first part of the century, commuting to the downtown business section became less convenient. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, members of the North Broad Street elite began to move out into the less congested areas of the city, the Disstons and Bromleys out to Chestnut Hill, Foerderers and Hires to the Main Line, and the Widener and Elkins families out along the Old York Road. Many families who were less fashionably inclined, however, moved over to West Philadelphia.
