Wissahickon, Philadelphia

Wissahickon
Neighborhood of Philadelphia
Ridge Ave. over Wissahickon Creek in Wissahickon
Country	United States
State	Pennsylvania
County	Philadelphia County
City	Philadelphia
Zipcode	19128
Area code(s)	Area code 215

Wissahickon is a neighborhood in the section of Lower Northwest Philadelphia in the state of Pennsylvania. Wissahickon is located adjacent to the neighborhoods of Roxborough and Manayunk, and it is bounded by the Wissahickon Valley Park, Ridge Avenue, Hermit Street, and Henry Avenue. The name of the neighborhood comes from the Lenni Lenape word wisameckham, for "catfish creek", a reference to the species of fish that once abound in the nearby Wissahickon Creek.

The village of Wissahickon was founded by officials of the Pencoyd Iron Works in the late nineteenth century.

The School District of Philadelphia operates public schools. Cook-Wissahickon School is a K-8 grade school located in the area. The school was built in 1968 at the corner of East Salaignac and Righter Streets to replace the aging Cook Public School and the Wissahickon School.

Residents zoned to Cook-Wissahickon are zoned to Roxborough High School.

Free Library of Philadelphia operates its Roxborough Branch, serving Wissahickon, at 6245 Ridge Avenue at Hermitage Street. A prior library, the Wissahickon Branch, located at Manayunk Avenue and Osborn Street, opened in 1909 and was built on land donated by the Pencoyd Iron Works. It was the ninth Andrew Carnegie-funded Free Library branch designed by the architectural firm of Whitfield and King and featured a main reading room, a children's room which also served as a lecture room seating 100, and a basement consisting of a boiler room, coal bin, staff room, a small magazine room, and two toilets. The Wissahickon Branch served the Wissahickon neighborhood until it closed in 1969. Sometime soon after, the building burned down.

One SEPTA Regional Rail line connects the neighborhood to Center City: the Manayunk/Norristown Line stops at the Wissahickon station. The station was once home to a building designed by the renowned architect Frank Furness; however, the building was later demolished. Improvements were made to the existing station, and during Summer 2016, local artist and Moore College of Art & Design faculty member, David Guinn painted a mural on a retaining wall running along the outbound platform of the station, coordinated by the Wissahickon Interested Citizen's Association, Mural Arts Program, and Cook-Wissahickon School.