page_title: Mayfair, Philadelphia
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Mayfair, Philadelphia / History
caption_attribution_description: Mayfair Diner, 7373 Frankford Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19136, built by Jerry O'Mahony, Inc., of Elizabeth, NJ in the 1950’s, but the diner has operated since 1932. One of the longest manufactured diners anywhere. Exterior looking east.
context_page_description: Mayfair is a neighborhood in Northeast Philadelphia, centered on the intersection of Cottman and Frankford Avenues. It is bordered by Tacony and Wissinoming to the south and east, Holmesburg to the east, Pennypack Park to the north, and Oxford Circle and Rhawnhurst to the west. Mayfair is home to a large Irish American population.
context_section_description: Before development in the 1920s, Mayfair was essentially farmland and home to The Edwin Forrest Home for Children (near present-day Frankford and Shelmire Avenue) and The Oxford and Lower Dublin Poor House (west of present-day Rowland and Sheffield Aves). First established in 1929, 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 surrounded by 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.
caption: Mayfair Diner
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