Point Breeze, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Point Breeze
Neighborhood of Philadelphia
Point Breeze Avenue street sign at its northern terminus at Federal and 20th streets.
Country	United States
State	Pennsylvania
County	Philadelphia County
City	Philadelphia
ZIP Code	19145, 19146
Area code(s)	Area code 215

Point Breeze is a multicultural neighborhood in South Philadelphia in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. It is bounded by 25th Street to the west, Washington Avenue to the north, Broad Street to the east, and Mifflin Street to the south. Southwest Center City lies to its north, and Passyunk Square lies to its east. Point Breeze is separated from Grays Ferry to the west by a CSX railway viaduct over 25th Street.

According to historical maps, much of what is South Philadelphia including Point Breeze was still not yet developed and integrated into the rectilinear grid system by 1843 or later. "Point Breeze" was a point on the western side of the Schuylkill River approximately where the Passyunk Avenue bridge is today. It and the area across from it on the eastern side of the river were established as an area for oil refinery in the 1860s by Atlantic Petroleum Storage Company, later the Atlantic Refining Company. From this point, oil that had been drilled in Western Pennsylvania could be processed and then shipped down the Schuylkill, to the Delaware and out to sea. The Avenue that connected the city proper to the east side of the river at Point Breeze had existed by 1808 as "Long Lane." In the mid-to-late 1800s, development of Philadelphia continued westward from the Delaware River and southward from Market Street. Long Lane also began to be known as Point Breeze Avenue by 1895 and lent its name to the neighborhood that was to spring up here. "The earliest references to Point Breeze" as a neighborhood "date to 1895." The area was first settled by working-class European Jewish immigrants followed by Italian and Irish immigrants. In 1930s the neighborhood saw an influx of African Americans some of which were involved in The Great Migration escaping Jim Crow in the South and looking for work in the urban centers of the north. At this time the African American epicenter of Philadelphia was shifting from near Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church at 6th and Lombard to west of Broad.