Greenbelt Knoll, Philadelphia's First Racially Integrated Neighborhood

Built in the nineteen fifties along the edge of Pennypack Park, Greenbelt Knoll was the first racially integrated housing development in Philadelphia and one of the first in the nation. Its creator was Morris Milgram, a developer who made open housing his cause at a time when restrictive covenants and informal exclusion kept most American neighborhoods strictly segregated. Milgram worked with modernist designers, with input from Louis Kahn, to create houses that were distinctive and carefully sited in the natural setting.

The original residents included Robert Nix, who later served in Congress, and Reverend Leon Sullivan, a civil rights leader who went on to found the Opportunities Industrialization Centers. Greenbelt Knoll demonstrated that integrated neighborhoods could be built, marketed, and sustained, offering a practical model that challenged the assumptions of the postwar real estate industry.