Nicetown–Tioga, Philadelphia

Nicetown–Tioga
Neighborhood of Philadelphia
The Wayne Junction train station is located in Nicetown–Tioga.
Country	United States
State	Pennsylvania
County	Philadelphia County
City	Philadelphia
Area code(s)	Area code 215

Nicetown–Tioga is a neighborhood in the North Philadelphia section of the city of Philadelphia, in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. It comprises two smaller, older neighborhoods, Nicetown and Tioga, although the distinction between the two is rarely emphasized today. The name "Nicetown" is often simply used to refer to any part of Nicetown–Tioga.

The boundaries of Philadelphia neighborhoods are often not universally agreed upon. There are no "official" boundaries to the Nicetown–Tioga area, but some possible boundaries are:

This makes Wayne Junction station the northernmost tip of Nicetown–Tioga.

The Philadelphia City Planning Commission (PCPC) defines Nicetown as a much smaller area bounded by Wingohocking Street, Broad Street, Hunting Park Avenue, and Clarissa Street; it defines Tioga as a smaller area bounded by Broad Street, Hunting Park Avenue, the railroads [exact western boundary unclear], and Allegheny Avenue.

The 19140 ZIP code includes both Nicetown–Tioga and Hunting Park.

Nicetown began centuries ago as a small town in what was then rural Philadelphia County, outside the City of Philadelphia (which occupied the area known today as Center City). Mease notes that Nicetown was named for Hans te Neues, a Mennonite immigrant who purchased the land of present-day Nicetown in 1699. Family legend among the Nice/Nyce family states that Hans threw a bottle of schnaps over his first house to christen it. This original early 18th century structure burned in 1800. Hans and his brother Jan had emigrated from Amsterdam in 1698; Jan settled in Germantown. Both were Mennonite ministers and could read and write. Hans and his descendants were well-known as zimmermen (builders of houses). One descendant was a member of the Carpenter's Society of Philadelphia in the early 1800s. Another was Captain John Nice of Germantown, who led the charge at the Battle of Germantown during the Revolutionary War. Other authors provide varied suggestions for the origin of Nicetown. Finkel says that it was "[n]amed for de Neus, Dutch Huguenots who settled there about 1700". Other spellings seen for the same surname are Neiss, Neisse, and, of course, the Nice seen in the placename Nicetown. There are 19th-century headstones in nearby Germantown marked with the surname Nice. (Regarding the orthographical "correctness" of surnames and placenames, it is important to remember that in the surnames and placenames of past centuries, orthography was often second to pronunciation. Witness the names of the nearby Tookany/Tacony Creek.)