page_title: Center City East, Philadelphia
section_title: Neighborhood
hierarchical_section_title: Center City East, Philadelphia / Neighborhood
caption_attribution_description: English: Pennsylvania Convention Center, northeast corner 13th &amp; Arch Streets, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
context_page_description: Center City East is part of the downtown district known as Center City, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. The area is generally bounded by Arch Street to the north, Chestnut Street to the south, Juniper Street to the west, and 6th Street to the east. The area serves as one of the major retail centers in the city as well as the home of the Pennsylvania Convention Center.
context_section_description: The Center City East area has served as one of Philadelphia’s retail hubs since at least the early 19th century, when groups of merchants, farmers, and fisherman set up shops and stalls along Market Street, then known as High Street, west of the Independence Hall area. Many of these merchants, driven by profitseeking or city regulations, began to seek more permanent facilities. Among these were Philadelphia's flagship department stores: John Wanamaker's Wanamaker's and Justus Clayton Strawbridge and Isaac Hallowell Clothier's Strawbridge and Clothier, both opened in the earliest days of the American Civil War. Along with Lit Brothers, Snellenburg's, Gimbels and Frank & Seder, the six block corridor was once home to six major department stores.  Other merchants set up shop along Market Street, and Chestnut street, one block parallel to the south.  Many grocers moved their stalls from the median of Market Street to the two main markets at 12th and Market Streets, known as the Farmers' Market and the Franklin Market.
  The area also served as a transportation hub for Philadelphia’s two largest rail operators, the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Reading Railroad. The Pennsylvania moved in first, building a freight depot at 13th and Market Streets. But the company abandoned the site by 1875 for locations at Broad Street Station and part of the western bank of the Schuylkill River, leaving the site to become the home of Wanamaker’s.
  In 1889, the Reading moved its headquarters and main Philadelphia train depot to a new facility, Reading Terminal, at 12th and Market Streets. The railroad bought out the Farmers' Market and Franklin Market and built a new facility for the markets underneath the trainshed called the Reading Terminal Market.
  Several trolley lines and the Market Street Subway also served the area.
  Besides the transportation and retail business, the East Market Street area also attracted business, one of the most notable being the Philadelphia Savings Fund Society (PSFS), who opened their signature headquarters on the southwest corner of 12th and Market Streets, the PSFS Building, in 1932. The federal government also established a presence on the parcel bounded by 9th, Market, Chestnut, and 10th Streets, with a Federal Reserve regional headquarters, United States Courthouse, and postal facilities, as well as other government agencies, all mainly built during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The building is called the Nix Federal Building.
caption: Pennsylvania Convention Center
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