Yorktown Historic District

Brick rowhouses built between 1959 and 1969 in lower North Philadelphia, immediately south of the Temple University campus, form the Yorktown Historic District. Its 624 two- and two-and-a-half-story houses are arranged in mirrored pairs and groups of four to eleven along curved and cul-de-sac streets set back behind curbed islands, a layout borrowed from suburban planning and new to the city's grid. Each house has a driveway and garage or yard, pent eaves, and louvered shutters in a simplified Colonial Revival style. The developer was Denny Development Corporation, and Hassinger & Schwam were the architects. Yorktown was the first city redevelopment project handed to a private for-profit developer, and its uniform suburban-style houses were marketed to middle-income buyers. African-American community leaders, notably Reverend William H. Gray Jr. of Bright Hope Baptist Church, had a large role in shaping the project. Two churches, Bright Hope Baptist and Mount Zion United Methodist, both dated 1964, are contributing buildings.