In October 2018, business leaders and residents of Philadelphia’s historic Italian Market publicly announced a plan to establish the area as a business improvement district (BID). The plan–which follows in the footsteps of a similar proposal in 2016 that ultimately failed–would levy a fee on neighborhood property owners in order to improve infrastructure, increase cleaning services, and counter the blight precipitated by vacant properties along South 9th Street and adjacent roads.

 

A spate of economic woes sparked the latest BID campaign, including the closure of several meat markets (including Fiorella’s-Sausage, the 114-year-old family-run shop) and a slight decrease in foot traffic over the past couple of years. These setbacks stand in contrast with recent neighborhood success stories like chef and immigrant rights activist Cristina Martinez, whose popular Italian Market-based restaurant South Philly Barbacoa was recently featured on two major cooking programs, Ugly Delicious and Chef’s Table.

 

By making a home for themselves and thriving in the area, recent immigrants continue a neighborhood legacy that stretches back to the 19th century.

 

Endemic poverty in Southern Italy and Sicily resulted in mass immigration at the turn of the 20th century, with upwards of four million Italians resettling in the United States in the hopes of securing a better life. Historically the home of Irish, Jewish, and German communities, what is now known as the Italian Market in Philadelphia’s Bella Vista neighborhood became a cultural hub for newly arrived Italian immigrants. The burgeoning Italian community repurposed the first floors of the area’s row homes as storefronts, retaining the other floors for family living quarters and boarding rooms.

 

While the area provided economic opportunity to immigrants through the linguistic and cultural affinities of its blossoming Italian-American businesses, packed tenements and poor sanitary conditions underscored the dire economic conditions of the neighborhood’s immigrant residents, many of whom arrived in the United States penniless. A prominent housing advocate named Emily W. Dinwiddie mapped the neighborhood, then known as the Italian District, in 1904 to gain a clearer picture of its housing conditions. In her report, Dinwiddie noted that nearly 15 percent of families in the neighborhood shared a single toilet with six other families. “Health and decency are surely sacrificed under such conditions,”she wrote.