Point Breeze
Nothing here resembles what was when I was growin’ up—but it’s still Point Breeze. It’s the walkway, it’s the neighborhood...there are some things that are unexplainable like you can’t put a word to it. It’s ‘the Breeze.’
- Patricia McClay, lifelong Point Breeze resident and employee at Diversified Community Services
During an unprecedented moment of change in the Point Breeze neighborhood of Philadelphia, the community risks losing that inexplicable essence that binds it together—the Breeze—as well as the knowledge of the neighborhood’s rich and at times troubling history.
As predominantly white homebuyers move into the historically black neighborhood, long-term residents are both welcoming and skeptical of the recent change. While fewer blighted buildings and a safer neighborhood are certainly welcome, the memories of Jim Crow and a historically corrupt police precinct remain fresh in the minds of the neighborhood’s tenured residents.
