Change came quietly to Port Richmond, and it came before dawn. A year ago, four residents began taking early morning walks through streets lined with 100-year-old brick rowhouses in the working-class, mostly White community on the Delaware River north of Fishtown. Before the sun came up, Angie Carrión, Claribel Nuñez, Kristen Scalise, and Jen Michaels, often with rescue dogs in tow, were exploring their neighborhood together.

They’d walk for maybe half an hour, in no particular direction, take some photos to share on social media, and end up chatting at a table at Reanimator Coffee on Richmond Street. Gradually, their foursome expanded to six, then eight, and walks expanded into street clean-ups, book exchanges, a community garden, a running club, potlucks …

The group gave themselves a name — “United Neighbors of Port Richmond” (UNPR) — and made an unofficial vow to be radically friendly, progressive (as in, Democratic) and be open to many different neighbors and their projects. “We purposely kept it loose,” says Scalise, a driving force behind the organizing, who was born in Mayfair and lived in New York and Colorado before moving to Port Richmond in 2021 and buying a house there in 2024.

Being kind and neighborly is key to belonging in UNPR. Also, if you can, do a little (or a lot) of work to make the neighborhood safer and more civically engaged.

Today, the group of four has increased fiftyfold; members of the now-200-person UNPR have been instrumental in transforming a 3-acre park, have joined a fight with a major utility, and are front-and-center in the effort to increase Democratic voter participation in a ward with even-terrible-for-Philadelphia turnout.

What’s more, they’ve established a resilient community of friendly, likeminded neighbors, and frequently build connections with folks who have lived there for generations. This is no small feat. Port Richmond is the rumored home of the city’s leader of the Proud Boys. But Port Richmond is also part of Philadelphia, a city where neighbors may not always be nice, but they are almost always kind.

The appeal of Port Richmond

Port Richmond hits a rare Philadelphia sweet spot: It’s safe, affordable and culturally about as Philly as it gets. House lights are lit according to whichever team is playing at the moment (red for the Phillies, green for the Eagles, blue for the police). Conversations end with “Go Birds” as though it were “aloha.” Men far too young to have attended North Catholic High School for Boys (shuttered in 2010) proudly sport tattoos of the school’s falcon.

Longtime neighbors are mostly of proud Polish, Irish, or Italian heritage. Port Richmond is home to Czerw’s, the famed kielbasa and pierogi shop, part of “Little Poland;” the original Tacconelli’s pizzeria, where customers still phone ahead to reserve their dough; and a seemingly endless number of Polish, Irish, and Italian corner bars.

A house in Fishtown costs twice as much as the same house in Port Richmond. Mercedes Murphy, a neurophysiologist, resident since 2023 and active UNPR member, says she “moved here because Port Richmond seemed affordable and approachable. I saw neighbors talking to neighbors on their front porches, and I liked the look of that.”

 “I just promised myself, when I moved to Philadelphia, that I would try and create the kind of community that I’ve always really wanted.” —Claribel Nuñez

Port Richmond’s population — around 15,300 at last count — is also slowly changing, becoming increasingly Latino, and adding residents who are Black, Asian, openly LGBTQ. UNPR co-founder Claribel Nuñez is a PhD chemist originally from New York who works at a biotech startup and fosters rescue dogs in her spare time. She’s also a karaoke regular at Donna’s Bar, where her picture hangs on the wall and her go-to bangers are What’s Up? by 4 Non Blondes and Selena’s Como La Flor.

“I like to do a lot of Spanish songs because it’s easy to hide your culture with everything that’s happening in the world right now, but I think it’s a time we have to be brave and not hide who we are,” says Nuñez. “I just promised myself, when I moved to Philadelphia, that I would try and create the kind of community that I’ve always really wanted.”

The social life of a neighborhood

When Ashley Thomas moved to Port Richmond 11 years ago, “there was almost nothing walkable,” she recalls. “The only person I knew in the neighborhood was [late owner] John from Czerws, so once a week me and my baby walked over and got pierogies.” Thomas lived near playgrounds, but not, she says, near a “playground community” of parents looking to make friends while pushing their kids on swings. To find that, she’d drive to Fishtown.

Today, plenty of community-minded neighbors come to events in nearby Campbell Square Park, a 3-acre space that, resident Carol Robinson, says, “people used to be afraid to go in.” Over the past year, UNPR, spearheaded by Scalise, has hosted regular cleanups, native flower plantings, an arts festival, potlucks, and a teachers’ school supply giveaway there. UNPR also sold t-shirts to pay for the park’s new mural of native moths by local artist, scientist, influencer, seed sharer Sarah McAnulty.

The neighborhood’s largest park is far from an outlier. UNPR has started a community garden on Chatham Street, and a small group has formed to work with Francine Rozich, a resident who has been tending to nearby Powers Park for over 20 years. There are even monthly Spanish and French clubs now — the French group was recently spotted learning to play pétanque (French bocce) in Powers Park.

All of this is fine with Matt McIntyre, whose family first moved to the River Wards from Ireland 75 years ago. As incoming president of the neighborhood’s Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH), an Irish Catholic fraternal organization, he appreciates UNPR’s technical acumen (nonstop social media, giant group chats), its organizational skills, and its willingness to help with neighborhood cleanups (AOH has partnered with UNPR on several of them).

McIntyre says, “I plan to live in this neighborhood with my family for the next 30 years. Doing positive things, bringing in community gardens — who the hell am I to say that that is a bad thing?”

Eric Stack, a fundraiser for humanitarian groups, moved to the neighborhood in 2023. He has felt welcome there ever since, once again, local hero John Czerw wouldn’t let him pay for $150 worth of Polish food for his family’s housewarming party.

Stack tries to patronize local businesses, Port Richmond Savings Bank, for example, and marvels not just at the closeness and protectiveness he feels among his immediate neighbors, but also at their ideological diversity.

“We made an effort to try to be a part of the community, and even though we have ‘Free Palestine’ in our windows and stuff like that, everybody’s just welcomed us and treated us like we’ve lived here forever,” he says. “My neighbor dyes his beard red, white, and blue. It’s very different than our vibe, but he’s a great neighbor.”

That said, this crop of Port Richmond newcomers does not shy away from politics.

Organizing

Port Richmond’s political mix is about 54 percent Democrats, 30 percent Republicans, and 17 percent other. Residents there haven’t exactly been packing the polls recently. In the 2025 general election, turnout was below 26 percent, 10 points lower than Philadelphia’s already-dismal average. Turnout in the 2025 primary was even worse: 10 percent.

The reason? Could be that longer time neighbors feel neglected by the powers that be. Lifer Kenny Frankiewicz is a 62-year old Gulf War veteran who works with his wife, Jen, at Kitty’s Luncheonette. He notes that he’s never once seen Mark Squilla, his City Council representative, in the neighborhood.

He has, however, gotten help repairing a sinkhole on his street from constituent services rep Ben McGee, who works in the office of State Representative Joe Hohenstein, despite not agreeing with the Democrat’s politics. Frankiewicz was surprised to learn Hohenstein holds regular hours to meet with constituents at the nearby Richmond Library.

Among progressive newcomers, voter disaffection is another opportunity to get involved.

This spring, a number of neighborhood progressives decided to run for Democratic Committeeperson after learning about the political wards systems through Wards that Work, a Philadelphia coalition of progressive political orgs that encourages neighbors to become civically involved, beginning with the most local elected level.

“Doing positive things, bringing in community gardens — who the hell am I to say that that is a bad thing?” — Matt McIntyre

Realizing that many of the committeeperson slots were empty, some neighbors ran for them unopposed. Ward 25, which covers much of Port Richmond, is now led by Murphy, an African American woman in her 30s, after progressives scored an unexpected sweep in this spring’s Ward 25 elections — there are 28 out of 48 in the ward now.

Murphy sees her mandate as simply getting out the vote. “Right now, I’m not trying to hit people over the head with a particular issue, I just want to have a well functioning, stable ward that does the job it’s supposed to do, which is to help with Democratic turnout,” she says. “Engage voters, listen to what they care about, and connect those concerns with elected officials so that we are an aligned Democratic Party.”

Well, maybe one issue: This year, for the first time, the Ward’s committeepeople voted to convert 25 to an “open ward,” allowing members to collectively decide on candidate endorsements, policy positions, and how ward resources or funds are spent, independent of the city’s Democratic leadership. Bottom up, not top down. (Ward 25 is now one of about 18 out of 66 wards that have chosen to become open, six of which opened in the last election cycle.)

State Representative Joe Hohenstein calls the political newcomers and the conversion to an open ward, “a product of people who were seeing less action out of the Democratic Party than they wanted to see” and believes the changes are “definitely part of a larger movement.”

“But,” he continues, “the reality is that the individual people in the 25th Ward who did this work were doing it because they cared about their neighborhood. And for people who are looking at this in larger terms, what I think they will see is an important lesson: These actions, these political movements, have to be directly coming from the neighborhoods and the communities. They can’t come from the outside, they can’t be instigated by other people.”

Bringing neighbors together

There are several issues that cut across political boundaries. One is endemic to just about all of Philadelphia: pedestrian safety. In the past year, traffic accidents in Port Richmond caused the deaths of an elderly Polish woman crossing Allegheny Avenue and a young father riding a bicycle on Aramingo Avenue, and injured two children who were crossing Allegheny.

The other is unique to the area: PGW, the City-owned gas utility, has asked the City for $182 million to expand their storage facility on East Venango Street on the Delaware River, reportedly to sell liquified natural gas (LNG) to other markets. Funding for the project would come from Philadelphia residents’ gas payments.

In 2023, residents blamed — and sued — the utility over an explosion that sent five occupants to the hospital, leveled three rowhouses, and damaged 43 other homes and the Samuel recreation center. One man died 16 months after the blast.

Liquified natural gas, which creates a nearly unstoppable conflagration if it explodes, could be even more dangerous. Residents have been speaking out against the plan at Gas Commission meetings since February, and in May, the Commission put the project on hold, pending an engineering study. However, PGW recently issued a request for proposal for the study that made no mention of safety or pollution.

Many long-time residents recall what they consider PGW’s historic disregard for their interests. In 2004, the company tried to build a massive, $600 million LNG terminal on their section of the Delaware; residents successfully fought back and the plan was scuttled over worries about LNG tanker safety and terrorism.

About PGW’s new plans, resident Sara Baier says, “Community concern about this project cuts across party, age, and how long you’ve lived here. This is still a decision in progress. Neighbors who show up and ask questions now can shape what happens.”

This, says lifelong resident Frankiewicz, is the kind of thing that makes Port Richmond Port Richmond. “In the past, the differences were if you were Polish or Irish. Now, it’s whether you are a Democrat or Republican, liberal, progressive,” he says. “I don’t think anything changed. I live near some of the newer neighbors; they’re good people like anybody else.”

CITIZENS OF PORT RICHMOND