Ken-Watt Court, 1954. Louise Bush-Brown Image Collection. McLean Library and Archives. Pennsylvania Horticultural Society. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

In the heart of Philadelphia there was an alley where conditions were so deplorable that it was hard to believe that it was almost within the shadow of City Hall. Opening off this alley was a little court where the residents, with the help of the United Neighbors Settlement, had striven to rise above the sordidness of their surroundings. It was known as Ken-Watt Court. Through the efforts of a member of the Settlement various improvements had been made and a Ken-Watt Community Club had been formed. Indoor plumbing had replaced the outside privies, the houses had been repaired and painted and they were ready for the next step. The staff worker who had seen some of the Garden Blocks suggested that they ask the Neighborhood Garden Association if they could become a Garden Court. -- Louise Bush-Brown. Garden Blocks for Urban America, 1969

Ken-Watt Court made its appearance in Philadelphia’s Hawthorne area in 1862 and is represented in early Philadelphia atlases as two structures separated by a narrow passageway off Rose Alley (later named Kenilworth Street). For the next 90 years, Hawthorne, located between Broad Street and 11th Street, and extending from South Street to Washington Avenue, dominated by breweries and stone and scrap yards, was known as one of the poorest neighborhoods in Philadelphia. For a few years in the late 1940s and early 50s, Hawthorne, and Ken-Watt Court, became the focus of a program that progressive Philadelphia housing advocates would call “penicillin, not surgery” that centered on rigorous code enforcement, housing rehabilitation, and citizen involvement rather than “slum clearance and rebuilding.” The United Neighbors Association, a settlement organization with activist roots dating back to the House of Industry (1846), was asked to assume a leadership role in the housing code enforcement for the Hawthorne neighborhood.

The city selected this slum area, trying out blanket code enforcement, in order to find out what would happen when an all-out effort at enforcement was made. The agency role in this project was assumed by the Hawthorne Tenants Committee for information and as a cushion between the City Housing Coordinator, property owners, tenants, and the magistrate hearings. The area was laid out street by street and block by block. The committee members made it a point to see that inspectors listed all violations. The next step was voluntary corrections by the owners, who were given the alternative of appearing before a magistrate. The Tenants Committee, mostly housewives, carried through a remarkable job of level-headed community effort which was at times even commended by the landlords. – Lucy Perkins Carner. The Settlement Way in Philadelphia (1964)

The Ken-Watt Court project, begun in 1952-53, included repair of the houses, whitewashing of all the outside walls, removal of outdoor privies and the installation of indoor plumbing, and repair and painting of the woodwork on the houses. The newly established Neighborhood Garden Association, founded by Louise Bush-Brown, worked with members of the Ken-Watt Club and the Planters’ Garden Club to establish hardy urban annual and perennial plantings for the window and ground boxes that included marigolds, zinnias, flowering tobacco, seedling dahlias and roses. Bush-Brown also noted the construction and decoration of the window and ground boxes – “Window boxes and ground boxes were made by the older boys and young men and the workmanship was of such a high quality and the boxes so attractive, each box bearing the monogram of the club.” In addition to their work in Ken-Watt Court, the Neighborhood Garden Association and the United Neighbors collaborated on several other South Philadelphia tenant-lead community improvement projects that included, for example, Abbott’s Court near 6th and Fitzwater Streets, the 100 block of League Street, and the 1200 block of Christian Street.

Ken-Watt Court, 1954. Louise Bush-Brown Image Collection. McLean Library and Archives. Pennsylvania Horticultural Society. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

1326 Kenilworth Street, Rear (Ken-Watt Court) Beauty Blooms Block by Block. Philadelphia Inquirer. October 24, 1954.

Ken-Watt Court, 1954. Louise Bush-Brown Image Collection. McLean Library and Archives. Pennsylvania Horticultural Society. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Ken-Watt Court, 1954. Louise Bush-Brown Image Collection. McLean Library and Archives. Pennsylvania Horticultural Society. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

The code enforcement project had barely started when the City Housing Authority announced four skyscrapers would be built on four blocks in the middle of the Hawthorne neighborhood. And, in 1957, Ken-Watt Court was swept away, along with 404 area dwellings that displaced “224 families and 180 single persons,” to make room for a 13-acre high-rise public housing project called Hawthorne Square.

It was inevitable that some of the areas in which the Association had developed Garden Blocks and vacant lot gardens would be affected by the Redevelopment Program of the City. This was the fate of Ken-Watt Court. The residents of the Court were relocated in various parts of the city, and they took the idea of window boxes and little gardens with them. -- Louise Bush-Brown. Garden Blocks for Urban America, 1969

Maurice Wright, in his 10-part series on the City’s Redevelopment Authority for the Philadelphia Tribune, described this particularly ill-formed public housing project where:

In one case, Dr. Richards (Dr. Carlton C. Richards) and Mrs. Montgomery (Mrs. Dorothy S. Montgomery) teamed up to try to halt the construction of the public housing project at 13th and Fitzwater Sts. [Hawthorne Square], because plans did not allow for adequate space for recreation for children or residents. They sought to point out that youngsters from the project would spill into surrounding neighborhoods to play and thereby cause friction and create other social problems. The majority of the Authority Board could not see the potential trouble spot and the two were overruled. However, history has proven them right. – Maurice F. Wright. Redevelopment Authority: Lack of Federal Money for RA Programs Resulted in Black Loss. Philadelphia Tribune. October 24, 1978.

In her interview with Tom Fox of the Philadelphia Daily News, long-time Hawthorne community activist, Alice Lipscomb correctly stated that “nobody puts money in a poor neighborhood:”

In 1956, Alice Lipscomb’s neighborhood—Lombard to Washington, Broad to 11th—was termed the worst slum in the city. The neighborhood was designated a pilot area for a housing code enforcement program. The bureaucrats went to Alice Lipscomb who was (and still is) the president of the Hawthorne Community Council. They told her that they wanted to save the neighborhood and Alice Lipscomb led all sorts of grass-roots programs to improve the area.

“Look,” she said, picking up a picture. “The before and after of a garden that the community built. Kids 10 and 12 worked on that garden. It was lovely, but it’s gone now, destroyed by the Rodman st. renewal [possibly the 1200 Block of Rodman Street]. My heart aches when I think of the work we did to improve the neighborhood. …” – Tom Fox. People are not Statistics. Philadelphia Daily News. April 1, 1970.

"... Rushing its four-building Hawthorne Square development to completion." Philadelphia Inquirer. September 22, 1959. 

[Hawthorne neighborhood demolition] Philadelphia Inquirer. August 14, 1957, and, the 700 Block of Park Avenue, 1960. [Image of Garden and Playground against one of the Hawthorne Square towers] Louise Bush-Brown Image Collection. McLean Library and Archives. Pennsylvania Horticultural Society. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

700 Block of Park Avenue, 1960. [Garden and playground project] Louise Bush-Brown Image Collection. McLean Library and Archives. Pennsylvania Horticultural Society. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Couple walking by Hawthorne Square housing project, 1972. Housing Association of the Delaware Valley Photographs (HA34018). Courtesy of the Special Collections Research Center. Temple University Libraries. Philadelphia, PA.

Implosion of Hawthorne Square (renamed Martin Luther King, Jr. Plaza) in 1999. By the time of the demolition, two-hundred of the 576 MLK public housing units were vacant and many unlivable. [Martin Luther King Buildings. Controlled Demolition Inc. October 17, 1999. Video screenshot]

About the Collection

The Ken-Watt Court images form part of the Louise Bush-Brown Neighborhood Garden Association Collection held by the McLean Library and Archives of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society. The Neighborhood Garden Association of Philadelphia was founded in 1953 by noted horticulturist, activist, author and educator Louise Bush-Brown. The collection depicts the earliest collaborative efforts of the Association, neighbors, garden clubs, and settlement houses who worked together to green and beautify neighborhoods and vacant lots throughout the City beginning with the first garden block on Mercy Street sponsored by St. Martha’s Settlement in Southeast Philadelphia to its partnership with the Penn State Extension to establish the first demonstration garden in the Mantua section of West Philadelphia in 1965.

View All Items in the Louise Bush-Brown Image Collection 

Addendum: Mapping Ken-Watt Court

Entrance into Ken-Watt Court. Samuel Lightfoot Smedley, 1862. Smedley's atlas of the city of Philadelphia. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott.

Entrance to Ken-Watt Court. Morgan Griffith Hopkins, 1875. City atlas of Philadelphia by wards: complete in 7 volumes : from official records, private plans, and actual surveys based upon plans deposited in the Department of Surveys. Philadelphia: G.M. Hopkins.

Entrance to Ken-Watt Court. George Washington Bromley and Walter Scott Bromley. 1895. Atlas of the city of Philadelphia: complete in one volume : from actual surveys and official plans. Philadelphia: G.W. Bromley and Co.

Entrance into Ken-Watt Court. George Washington Bromley and Walter Scott Bromley. 1910. Atlas of the city of Philadelphia: complete in one volume, from actual surveys and official plans. Philadelphia, Pa: G.W. Bromley.

[Hawthorne Square] Philadelphia land use map, 1962. Philadelphia, Pa: Plans & Registry Division, Bureau of Engineering