Mayfair, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

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The intersection of Frankford and Cottman Avenues in Mayfair

Mayfair is a neighborhood located in the Northeast section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Mayfair came to fruition in the years following World War II as a community that provided fresher and more spacious living in an urban environment. It was constructed over farmland in the area around the established neighborhoods of Tacony, Holmesburg and Fox Chase. Mayfair featured several groundbreaking concepts for city dwellers: bigger rowhomes with yards in the front and parking garages in the back. The automobile became the primary mode of transportation and shopping retail centers became available close to home, as shopping districts developed along Roosevelt Boulevard and Cottman Avenue. Development also served to connect the surrounding neighborhoods of the Northeast that had previously been isolated. In these regards, Mayfair was a forerunner to American suburbanization, an early part of the population shift from the inner city to its outer regions. Although Mayfair has long been a white middle class/working class neighborhood somewhat removed from Center City, it has always been decisively urban, and its population has diversified in recent years.

Mayfair is widely known for its association with Irish-American culture and has long been a bastion of the Philadelphia Irish. Like most of the city's Northeast, this has been giving way recently to increased hispanic, black, and especially Asian influxes.

Neighborhoods of the Northeast section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania