From Van Stone: Democrat Candidate For PA
State Rep 190th Legislative District 2020- My Fight For The Neighborhood Of
West Park (Historical Community Site Territory) And The Origins Of West Park
For Life Family Story! Series. Part 3?
On the east and west side of the entire Delaware
County and Philadelphia County, the Lenape lived in numerous small towns along
the old Indian trails, rivers and streams that fed the waterways. They likely
shared the Mill Creek, Mill Creek Country and West Park section of the
Schuylkill.
On the west side, the Lenape lived in numerous small
towns along the rivers and streams that fed the waterways, and likely shared
the hunting territory of the Schuylkill River. The entire area was known as the
Indian
Mangenesey. The Indian Mangenesey, or Black Men,
territory was the areas of, but not limited to, Penn’s Landing, University
City, Lancaster Avenues, and into both the Southeastern and Eastern Delaware
County areas.
Unfortunately, though, it was William Penn and the
so-called Penn Treaty Park, a land purchase agreement between Penn and my
Lenape forefathers in 1683, that resulted in Penn’s new colony effectively
displaced (modern day gentrification of Black Americas) many Lenape and forced others
to adapt to new cultural demands.
Penn gained a reputation for benevolence and
tolerance, but his efforts resulted in more effective colonization (modern day
gentrification of Black Americans) of the ancestral Lenape homeland than
previous ones.
Turns out that, immediately after William Penn’s death
his sons ignored Penn’s support for ending Slavery, fighting for the equality
of all people, religious tolerance and Black people’s representation.
After all, then, William Penn failed the Quakers.
To return to Mill Creek Country land and West Park,
when I grew up there, the site of a 381-unit, low rent, public housing project,
on 11.4 acres of the old Institute of Pennsylvania Hospital site in West
Philadelphia.
The site, known as Kirkbride’s, fronts, (I will detail how Kirkbride’s,
fronts, becomes a part of the complex later) on Market St. between 44th and
45th Streets and runs to Haverford Avenue.
So, just what actually was West Park, the land before
it became West Park the farm land complex? West Park, an abundance of grass and
hills, demographic territory and complex, at first was actually a township.
It was named Blockly Township. West Park was at first,
not in the suburbs, it was the Philadelphia suburbs. I was actually from the
suburbs, the old suburbs, that is.
There were many exciting changes long before the
campus complex became West Park. To be continued…
