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Chester is a city in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, population 36,854 at the 2000 census.
Chester's most famous son may well be John Morton, who cast the deciding vote on the Declaration of Independence, but Ethel Waters of jazz fame was born here on October 31, 1896, and Martin Luther King Jr. obtained his Bachelor of Divinity here in 1951 from Crozer Theological Seminary. Jameer Nelson, point guard of the Orlando Magic and alumnus of St. Joseph's University, also hails from the city. He led the Chester High School Clippers to a PIAA State Championship in 2000. Wisconsin men's basketball coach Bo Ryan is also a Chester native.
History
The colonial settlement that became Chester was first known as "Finlandia," then "Upland" by the Swedes who were the first European colonial settlers in the area. William Penn first landed on the soil of the Province of Pennsylvania in Upton on October 27, 1682, via the ship Welcome. Penn renamed the settlement, then the province's most populous town, after the English city of Chester. Chester served as the first capital of Pennsylvania, before being moved out first to York, and then to Harrisburg, as well as being the county seat for Chester County, which then stretched from the Delaware River to the Susquehanna River. In 1789, the city became the county seat for the newly-created Delaware County (whereupon Chester County became a landlocked county with West Chester as its county seat), with the county seat finally being moved out to the borough of Media in 1851. The historic courthouse is located near the new City Hall building.
Chester's naval shipyard supplied the Union during the Civil War, and the United States in subsequent wars until the shipyard at Philadelphia became dominant after World War II. Two ships of the United States Navy have been named USS Chester in honor of the city. The Sun Shipyard and Dry Dock Company, later Pennsylvania Shipyard & Dry Dock Company, was also located in Chester, but was closed in 1990. A state corrections facility now occupies the former commercial shipyard. Construction began on Harrah's Casino and Racetrack where the former Sun Shipyard was in the spring of 2005. The casino and racetrack are set to open in the summer of 2006.
The 1950 census counted more than 65,000 residents, but subsequent decades saw decline. The naval shipyard and automobile manufacturing plants that had contributed to the war effort started pulling out of the city in the 1960s.
The site Penn's Landing, which marks Penn's first landing in the Province, had to sell their naming rights to the waterfront maintenance corporation in Philadelphia, whose memorial marks William Penn's first landing in that city.
A CityTeam Ministries center was established in the city in 1988, with the financial assistance of Kimberly-Clark (formerly the Scott Paper Corporation), in order to combat the growing poverty through drug addiction recovery houses, churchplanting efforts, workforce development, and vocational training.
Poverty made the city eligible for Pennsylvania's Keystone Opportunity Zones * program, which offers local and state tax breaks for firms that invest in a designated area. In 2005, the program brought a wharf, a racetrack, and some 5,000 jobs to the town. Few were filled by Chester residents, a phenomenon some blamed on the city's poor schools.
The city had several years earlier placed last in a ranking of the state's 501 districts. In 2001, the poor condition of the city's schools led the state of Pennsylvania to hire the for-profit Edison Schools to run the city's school district for three years. By 2005, local charter schools had been closed, afterschool programs had diminished drastically in number and quality, and public schools were overcrowded, understaffed, and undersupplied. [http://interversity.org/lists/arn-l/archives/Jan2003/msg00857.html
Although not often recognized as such, Chester is considered an important location in the development of rock and roll music. Bill Haley & His Comets, the pioneering rock and roll band, was based in Chester and maintained their corporate headquarters in Chester into the 1960s. Many members of this band either came from Chester itself, or from small towns in the immediate area.
Geography
Chester is located at 39°50'50" North, 75°22'22" West (39.847112, -75.372672).
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 15.6 km² (6.0 mi²). 12.6 km² (4.8 mi²) of it is land and 3.0 km² (1.2 mi²) of it (19.47%) is water.
Demographics
As of the census of 2000, there were 36,854 people, 12,814 households, and 8,124 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,933.9/km² (7,605.4/mi²). There were 14,976 housing units at an average density of 1,192.2/km² (3,090.5/mi²). The racial makeup of the city was 18.94% White, 75.70% African American, 0.20% Native American, 0.61% Asian, 0.01% Pacific Islander, 3.03% from other races, and 1.51% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 5.39% of the population.
There were 12,814 households out of which 32.7% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 24.8% were married couples living together, 32.1% had a female householder with no husband present, and 36.6% were non-families. 31.2% of all households were made up of individuals and 11.2% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.64 and the average family size was 3.34.
In the city the population was spread out with 29.8% under the age of 18, 13.0% from 18 to 24, 26.8% from 25 to 44, 18.6% from 45 to 64, and 11.8% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 31 years. For every 100 females there were 89.1 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 84.7 males.
The median income for a household in the city was $25,703, and the median income for a family was $30,336. Males had a median income of $29,528 versus $23,705 for females. The per capita income for the city was $13,052. About 22.8% of families and 27.2% of the population were below the poverty line, including 36.9% of those under age 18 and 21.8% of those age 65 or over.
Transportation
General Overview
In Chester, east-west streets are numbered, while north-south streets carry names. The main bisecting street, known as The Avenue of the States, is signed as both Pennsylvania State Route 320 and Pennsylvania State Route 352. Between 1993 and 2006, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) widened State Rt. 291 between the Chester-Trainer line and Concord Avenue from a two-lane road to a five lane (2 travel lanes in each direction with a center left-turn lane) configuration, while Rt. 291 between Concord Avenue and the Chester-Eddystone line was realigned in the city's business district. This allowed the bypassing of trucks around the Kimberly Clark (formerly Scott Paper) paper-processing facility, and allowing Rt. 291 to maintain at least four travel lanes between Philadelphia and major oil refineries in Marcus Hook.Major Highways & Bridges
In addition to State Rt. 291, Chester is served by two Interstate Highways – Interstate 95 and Interstate 476, which meet together in nearby Eddystone. I-95 was built in the 1960's and originally terminated just north of the Chester/Eddystone line at the present-day I-95/I-476 junction. It was extended north in the 1970's with the section around Philadelphia International Airport being completed in 1985. Three exits on I-95 allows access to Highland Avenue, Kerlin Street, and Rts. 320 & 352, with access to Widener University, via State Rt. 320. Of the three, only Kerlin Street is a partial exit. I-476, planned as an alternative route to State Rt. 320 since the 1920's and was an original planned extension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike in the 1950's (as part of the 1,000-mile Turnpike network), was finally opened to traffic in 1992. An exit at MacDade Boulevard (which becomes 22nd Street in Chester) allows access to I-476 without having to use I-95.Two federal highway routes, U.S. Route 13 and U.S. Route 322, also run through Chester. U.S. Rt. 13 enters Chester from Trainer on W. 4th Street, becomes part of Highland Avenue between W. 4th St. and W. 9th Street, and then continues on 9th Street to Morton Avenue. U.S. Rt. 13 follows Morton Ave. until it crosses the Ridley Creek and becomes Chester Pike in Eddystone.
U.S. Rt. 322 enters Chester as a part of I-95 (merging on at Highland Avenue) and then departs I-95 at the Commodore Barry Bridge exit. Prior to the bridge's opening in 1974, U.S. Rt. 322 would cross the Delaware River on the Chester-Bridgeport Ferry, via Flower Street, causing major backups due to limited space on the ferries. With the expansion of State Rt. 291 and the redevelopment of the Chester Waterfront, both the Delaware River Port Authority and PennDOT will start construction of a new exit/entrance ramp from the bridge to Rt. 291, providing an alternate route to the Chester Waterfront.
In addition, talks have been in place for the reconstruction of both U.S. Rt. 322 from a two-lane road to a four-lane road between Chester and U.S. Route 1 in Concordville, Pennsylvania and the Highland Avenue exit, which currently requires traffic to merge onto I-95 in the left lane and requiring the changing of lanes three times to the Commodore Barry Bridge exit ramp in less than a mile.
Public Transportation
Chester is served by SEPTA via seven bus routes, all of which either terminate at or pass through Chester Transportation Center, a transportation hub in the Business District that also serves as a stop on the SEPTA R2 Marcus Hook/Wilmington/Newark rail line using Amtrak's Northeast Corridor. The R2 also makes a stop at the Highland Avenue station and prior to 2003, also stopped at Lamokin Street at the junction of the NEC and the abandoned Penn Central's Chester Creek Secondary Branch.Education
External links
"Chester, Pennsylvania"