Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church (Northern Liberties), Philadelphia

Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church
Location	Philadelphia
Country	USA
Denomination	Roman Catholic

The Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church is located at Front and Allen Streets in Philadelphia, PA 19123 in the Northern Liberties, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania section of the city; after over 140 years as an independent parish, it became a worship site of the adjacent St. Michael's parish in 2011. The parish was founded in 1869, under the leadership of Bishop James Frederick Wood. Twenty-five years earlier, two Catholic parishes within about a mile of the church—St. Augustine Church, Philadelphia at 4th and Vine and St. Michael [1] at 2nd and Jefferson—were burnt to the ground in violent anti-Catholic nativist riots.

At the time of its founding, the area surrounding the church was largely composed of row houses which were home to Irish immigrants (although the ground for the church complex itself had earlier housed a spoke factory at Front and Canal (now Allen) Streets). Later the area became industrialized through the early part of the twentieth century.

In the early 1970s, much of it was gutted by the construction of Interstate 95 in Pennsylvania which emptied five blocks in the parish of houses and caused the demolition of houses on many other blocks in the way of the road. In the early part of the 21st century the area began to undergo a continuing process of gentrification with thousands of newly constructed and rehabilitated housing units as well as an increased workforce with the arrival, about three blocks from the church, of the SugarHouse Casino which anticipates an ultimate workforce of 1,500 full and part time positions and is planning an onsite hotel. (As for housing, the local Northern Liberties Neighborhood Association estimates an increase of close to 10,000 new residents in the area since 2000.)

In the spring of 2000, Immaculate Conception was twinned with St. Michael's parish (two of the 22 parishes twinned at the time) and a single pastor was appointed for both churches. In 2010, a former parochial vicar at the parish, the then-Msgr. Michael J. Fitzgerald, was ordained an auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

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