Ridley Park Borough offices are located at 105 East Ward St, Ridley Park, PA 19078.
Phone: 610‑532‑2100.
Neighborhoods
Ridley Park [†] is a remarkable place. Unlike many modern suburbs which have been described as faceless and bland and their buildings unin.spired, the planners and developers of Ridley Park had nobler aspirations for this 19th-century suburban community.
Happily, Ridley Park survives today as a prime example of exemplary early suburban goals. It is still conveniently connected to Philadelphia by commuter railroad, the reason for its development in the first place. I ts streets are attractively laid out according to an 1870 plan that overlaid curved and winding roads with a more traditional grid. Interspersed are parks, a lake, and greenways. It is compact: from anywhere in the borough, one can walk to school, church, the small business district, Borough Hall, and cultural institutions like the Barnstormers.
Unlike many of its modern suburban counterparts, Ridley Park presents a friendly face to resident and visitor alike, and walking in Ridley Park can be a pleasure. Sidewalks and paths are abundant. Mature trees and well-kept lawns and gardens provide the Borough with a park-like setting. Houses have been sited on their lots to provide enough breath.ing room between neighbors, yet maintain sufficient cohesion and rhythm to the streetscape that cre.ate a comfortable sense of habitation and community.
The Victorian-era and early 20th.century houses of Ridley Park are a visual treat. Good examples of Queen Anne, Shingle, and Colonial and English Revival styles abound. Turrets, balconies, Victorian "gingerbread", and a great variety of windows, doors and chimneys delight passersby. Many homeowners have, in a sense, presented a gift to the public by painting their homes in lively and evocative colors. The pride of home ownership is evident by the fact that almost all properties are well-maintained; the message is, "We like living in Ridley Park!"
Perhaps the best testimony to Ridley Park's character is the nearly universal presence of front porches on its older homes. One senses that these porches are not merely ornamental, but used as originally in.
A Short History
tended, as a transitional zone between the public space of the sidewalks and streets and the private interior spaces of the homes. The porches in Ridley Park are places where neighbor can still interact with neighbor. Contrast this with the typical modern suburban house which has no front porch, and the most prominent feature presented to the passerby is a large and faceless garage door!
Just the fact that so much survives in Ridley Park that represents the best of the early suburban ideal, is commendable. Community pride is evident everywhere; but its citizens should not take the borough's qualities for granted. What was originally planned -and has been subsequently maintained, either consciously or unconsciously-can be lost! The character and attractiveness of a place can disappear over time, usually imperceptibly, piece by piece; The original planners and founders of Ridley Park have presented today's residents with a wonderful place, and it is the present generation's responsibility to protect that inherit.ance.
To appreciate what Ridley Park is today, one should understand its origins: it is fundamentally a planned railroad suburb. The idea of a suburb is fairly recent. Until the last century, virtually everyone lived in a city, a small town or a rural area. By the mid 1800s, a new notion arose, namely a residential community built at the edge of an industrial city on which it was economically dependent and connected by convenient public transportation, usually a railroad. The first suburbs in America were refuges for the rich wishing to escape urban grime, crime and, truth be told, the masses of people of lower social status.
By the late 1800s, though, American suburbs were developed for a different population, the middle class which consisted of bankers, retailers, teachers, and a host of middle-management professionals. Ridley Park is such a suburb.
The developers and investors who planned Philadelphia suburbs were often associated with one of the railroads: the Pennsylvania, the Read.ing, the B & O or, as in the case of Ridley Park, the Philadelphia, Wilmington&Baltimore Railroad. Towns such as Wayne, Chestnut Hill, Overbrook Farms, Prospect Park and Sharon Hill were developed along railroad lines as real-estate ventures. Their investors made money by selling building lots or ready-to-move-in houses. They often acted as mortgage lenders as well.
Ridley Park's original investors formed the Ridley Park Association in 1870 and hired a Boston team to design the town: landscape architect Robert Morris Copeland and architect Theophilus Chandler. Al.though Copeland's 1870 plan for Ridley Park was later revised, and many of the particulars never built, much of the original scheme was carried out and survives to this day:
The Borough centers around the Ridley Park railroad stop that connects the town to Philadelphia.
The streets were ultimately laid out in a manner that com.bines a traditional grid-like pattern with others which are picturesquely curved and winding. Some of the early streets are Sellers and Swarthmore Avenues; East and West Ridley Avenues; East and West Hinckley Avenues; Poplar Walk; Dupont Street (originally called Darby Street); and Ward, Cresswell, Felton, Nevin and Harrison Streets.
Manmade landscape amenities were built such as Ridley Park Lake, Ridley Green and mini-parks on Nevin Street and along the north side of the rail stop.
Although primarily residential, the Borough was designed to integrate other necessary property uses for the convenience of residents:
-A small central business district on East Hinckley Avenue just south of the rail station. -A civic center on Ward Street just north of the rail station which includes the borough hall (originally the firehouse), a Carnegie library, the Barnstormers Theater (originally the Community Hall), and a park on a site now shared with the fire station). -Religious properties: the Ridley Park Association enticed churches to build in the town with offers of free land and financial assistance. Surviving from the borough's early days are the Ridley Park Baptist and Presbyterian churches, and Christ Episcopal Church.
This development did not occur haphazardly. For many years, it was planned and controlled by the Ridley Park Association. Although property buyers could, and often did, build a house of their choosing, the lot sizes and building set-backs were determined by the town planners. In some cases, someone would develop an entire block on speculation. Perhaps the most notable example of this is the row of Queen Anne.style houses along West Hinckley Avenue with their parade of towers and turrets which define this attractive street.
Ridley Park was incorporated as a Borough in 1887, and thereafter the influence of the Ridley Park Association gradually declined until all the building lots were sold. But the vision of these early developers, planners and architects remains visible at every hand, in the town's parks and lake, the placing of commercial and civic centers the layout of the streets, and the subdivision of the building lots.
There is a saying, "The whole is greater than the sum of the parts." Ridley Park certainly has many noteworthy "parts" -especially its individual homes. But it is the whole ensemble, which captures the spirit of an ideal planned suburb, that is perhaps most worth appreciating.
Much of Ridley Park is composed of single-family homes. This was the original intent of the Borough's developers, for it would promote stable, well-kept neighborhoods and community pride. The wisdom of this original purpose is evident today, for one of Ridley Park's chief assets is its wonderful collection of comfortable and architecturally pleasing houses.
In two ways the houses of Ridley Park stand out: the extensive use of architectural styles and natural building materials, primarily wood. Unlike Philadelphia and most of its suburbs whose older residences were almost always built of brick or stone, Ridley Park's homes of the late 1800s and early 1900s are predominantly wood frame, covered with wood shingle or clapboard siding, and decorated with wooden porches, bay windows, turrets, gable ornament and so on. In this respect, the houses of Ridley Park are more like those of the same era as found in New England or the Midwest.
Think of architectural style as fashion for buildings. In the same way that automobiles or clothes are intentionally designed to be fashionable, so too were houses. Buildings of the same style share certain characteristics: similar shapes, materials, colors, ornamentation or size, for example. When combined in a distinguishable way, all these factors add up to a certain look.
Many buildings are not pure examples of one style, but often.combine different styles into an unique design. This is the case for many houses in Ridley Park. Nonetheless, there are several easily discernible styles that are prevalent in Ridley Park, and they fall into two eras: the Victorian era (generally, in Ridley Park, from the 1880s to just after the turn of the century), and the Post-Victorian era (from about 1900 to the 1930s). Most Victorian styles tend to be fanciful and heavily ornamented -"gingerbread" is a word sometimes used. .een Anne and Shingle are two predominant Victorian styles in Ridley Park. Post.Victorian styles are generally more restrained and often are modeled after earlier, historical styles, those of colonial America or medieval England, for example.
The Queen Anne Style (circa 1880 to 1900) This style is, by far, the most prevalent Victorian style in Ridley Park. Although loosely based on late-Medieval English houses, "uninhibited exuberance" is perhaps a more apt description that captures the spirit of a Queen Anne house. An explosive celebration of tex.ture, ornament, and color is a hallmark. The composition of a .een Anne house is irregular and asymmetrical: all kinds of dormers, bay windows, porches and balconies, towers and turrets, roof shapes, tall decorative chimneys, and projecting gables are combined into an energetic whole.
The Queen Anne style (406 East Ridley}. Queen Anne houses sport a variety of materi.als. In Ridley Park a .een Anne house might be brick or stone on the first floor, combined with upper stories of wood clapboard or fanciful wood shingle siding, topped by a slate roof. Machine-turned wood spindles might decorate the porch, or jigsawn brackets adorn the eaves and cornices. Windows come in all varieties, often on the same house: leaded glass, small panes surrounding a central large pane, arched, or banded into pairs or threes.
Traditionally Queen Anne houses were painted in a rich palette of several colors that emphasized the variety of materials and ornament. This tradition is being kept alive by numerous homeowners in Ridley Park. Queen Anne houses are scattered throughout the borough, but there are several notable concentrations. The turreted "sisters" along West Hinckley Avenue is one good example. So too are the large Queen Annes along both sides of East and West Ridley Avenues.
The Shingle Style (circa 1880 to 1900). As its name implies, the most defining characteristic of a Shingle-styled house is its "skin" of wood shingles that covers most exterior surfaces, although in Rid.ley Park, as elsewhere, the first story might be stone. Shingle-style houses are contemporary with Queen Anne houses, and share some characteristics, but are generally more restrained in their ornament and composition. Broad expanses of wall surfaces are emphasized, and roof lines are sweeping and broad. A balcony or porch of a Shingle house might be recessed into the main body of the house, in contrast to the projecting balconies or porches of a Queen Anne house. The use of exterior color was more restrained as well: Shingle-style houses were typically stained deep, rustic colors such as dark brown or green.
The Shingle style originated and flourished in New England, and spread to the Midwest and west coast. It was never as popular in the Philadelphia area, however, although examples are seen in such suburbs as Swarthmore or Bryn Mawr. Thus Ridley Park's concentration of Shingle-styled houses are unusual and significant. It might be that the style was brought to Ridley Park by its original New England designers, architect Theophilus Chandler and landscape planner Robert Copeland.
Many of the borough's Shingle houses stand on, or near Morton Avenue, with scattered examples elsewhere. The broad roof lines and wide gables of this style can be seen at 507 North Swarthmore Avenue. The shingles cladding these homes are almost exclusively straight.edged (flat butt), unlike the more ornamental fancy-butted shingles of the .een Anne style. For decorative effect, sometimes the courses of shingles followed the curves of an arched window.
While Victorian-era houses predominate in Ridley Park's Historic District, Post-Victorian houses (circa 1900 to the 1930s) are abundant elsewhere in the borough, and include some wonderful examples of certain styles, including:
The Colonial Revival style (circa 1895 to 1930s) is a reinterpretation of the types of homes built in the American colonies during the 18th century and during the time of the early republic, that is, from about 1790 to the 1820s. Colonial Revival houses often combine various colo.nial styles, mixed with contemporary features, and are almost always larger than their historical proto.types.
The Colonial Revival houses in Ridley Park follow national trends for the style: many are symmetrically arranged, with a central entry and a balanced window arrangement. The massing of the houses is often a rectangular box topped by simple gable or hipped roofs, often with dormers. Here, as in other Philadelphia suburbs, these rectangularly shaped homes were often turned sideways to the street, so that they would fit in a standard 40-to-50-foot wide building lot.
Typical ornamentation includes a decorative pediment over the door, a cornice (eave) embellished with teeth-like lentil blocks, and columned entry porticoes or porches. The porches are as likely to be on the sides of the house as in front. Siding is usually clapboard or wood shingles.
Excellent examples of the style are Borough Hall (1896) and 21 West Sellers Avenue. A subset of the Colonial Revival style is commonly known as the Dutch Colonial, which is distinguished by a gambrel roof. Among examples in Ridley Park is 102 Poplar Walk.
The English Revival style (circa 1900 to 1940) is a catch-all term that describes houses loosely based on rural, medieval English houses. Other terms for the style are Tudor or Half-Timbered. The latter refers to the common effect of an exposed timber skeleton (which is non-structural) infilled with stucco. In Ridley Park, as elsewhere, half-timbering is often combined with wood-shingle siding, as at 3 East Ridley Avenue, or with first stories of stone.
Other distinguishing features of English Revival houses are steeply pitched gable roofs, prominent chimneys, and tall, narrow windows that are usually banded together in pairs or threes. A nickname for this type of house was "Stockbroker Tudor", since it was a favorite of business.men commuting between the bustling city and the quiet suburbs, certainly an apt description for Ridley Park's examples.
The American Four Square (circa 1900 to 1925) is a term that describes a house form, of which Ridley Park has many examples. As its name implies, the distinguishing characteristic of a Four Square house is its almost cubical mass topped by a hipped roof These two-story, four.rooms-per floor homes have restrained exterior ornament. In Ridley Park, some Four Squares have stone first floors topped by wood.shingled second stories. The ornament might relate to the Colonial Revival style (202 Cresswell) or the Shingle Style (408 Morton).
It should be reemphasized that the use of particular building materials contribute much to the character of the architectural styles found in Rid.ley Park, as much as architectural ornament. Ridley Park is fortunate to have many homes which retain their original siding materials, particularly wood shingle, which adds significantly to the character of the borough's Queen Anne and Shingle-style homes. Numerous original slate roofs also survive in serviceable condition, and add to the authenticity of individual buildings.
A great variety of original window sash, porch details, spindlework and jigsawn ornament also survive on homes throughout the borough. Not only do these elements give each home character but, taken as a whole, give Ridley Park a visual richness and variety that cannot be recreated.
A final observation: scattered throughout the borough are "architectural accessories" which contribute to the historical authenticity of Ridley Park. These include numerous original and early garages and carriage houses, brick driveways, iron fences and stone retaining walls. Are these worth preserving? Certainly, especially since these reminders of an earlier time are rapidly disappearing from the American scene. Ridley Park residents have an opportunity to maintain and protect these rare surviving amenities.
"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure," goes the old adage. Nowhere is this wisdom as true as when providing consistent and conscientious ongoing maintenance to older properties.
† Adapted from Ridley Park Design Guidelines, 2009, prepared with Certified Local Government Grants from the Pennsylvania Historic and Museum Commission, and the 1995 Philadelphia Historic Preservation Corporation.
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