Levittown, Bucks County, Pa

Levittown, Pennsylvania is suburban community located in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, within the Philadelphia metropolitan area. As of the 2000 census, the Levittown had a total population of 53,966. It is 40 feet above sea level. Though not a municipality, it is commonly recognized as the largest suburb of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania. Upper Darby Township, Philadelphia's largest suburban township in Pennsylvania, and other suburban townships boast larger populations, yet these municipalities consist of more than one locality. In New Jersey, both Camden (though wholly urban in character) and Cherry Hill have more inhabitants than Levittown.

Homes for Sale in Levittown

Neighorhoods in Levittown

Geography

Levittown lies in the southern end of Bucks County ("Lower Bucks"), between Philadelphia and Trenton, New Jersey; Downtown Philadelphia ("Center City") is approximately 22 miles away. It is part of the Philadelphia metropolitan area (an area also known generally as the Delaware Valley). It is adjacent to and nearly surrounds Fairless Hills, Pennsylvania, a suburban community more modest in scale, but that shares many of Levittown's characteristics.

History

Levittown, Pennsylvania, is a suburban community, planned and built by Levitt & Sons. The majority of the land on which it is built was purchased in 1951. Houses built in Levittown consisted of just six models, including the Levittowner, the Rancher, the Jubilee, the Pennsylvanian, the Colonial and the Country Clubber. Levitt & Sons constructed only single-family dwellings in the community, each surrounded by a lawn, with only modest exterior variations, modern in style, with built-in appliances and landscaping. The homes were moderately priced and required only a low down payment.

Construction of Levittown began in February 1952, soon after completion of Levittown, New York, located on Long Island. Levittown, Pennsylvania, was the second "Levittown" built by William J. Levitt, who is often credited as the creator of the modern American suburb. What set Levittown apart from other developments at the time was that it was built as a complete community. Levitt & Sons designed neighborhoods with traffic-calming curvilinear roads, in which there were no four-way intersections. Each neighborhood had within its boundaries a site donated by Levitt & Sons for a public elementary school. Locations for churches and other public facilities were set aside on main thoroughfares such as the Levittown Parkway, likewise donated by the builder to religious groups and other organizations. Other amenities included Olympic-sized public pools, parks, "greenbelts," baseball fields and playgrounds, and a shopping center located in Tullytown Borough that was considered large and modern at the time of its construction.

The first set of 4 sample homes were put on display in a swatch of land near the future Levittown Shop-a-Rama and an estimated 30,000 people viewed them in that first weekend. Residents (who are sometimes called Levittowners) were first expected to comply with a lengthy list of rules and regulations regarding the upkeep of their homes and use of their property. Two of these "rules" included a prohibition on hanging laundry out to dry on Sunday and not allowing homeowners to fence off their yards. These proved unenforceable over time, particularly when backyard pools became financially accessible to the working class and privacy concerns drove many to fence off their yards.

In the years since Levitt & Sons ended construction, three- and four-story "garden apartments" and a number of non-Levitt owner-occupied houses have been built in Levittown.

The Levittown Shopping Center (known officially as but rarely called the "Levittown Shop-a-Rama"), located in Tullytown Borough, was unusually designed. Two parallel strips of stores faced the parking lot with a courtyard that had green spaces, benches, and entrances to the stores. The center had one large anchor department store (Pomeroys, which was acquired by Bon-Ton) as well as staple stores of a growing suburban demand (JC Penney, Woolworth's, Sears-just hardware). The shopping center began a slow decline in the mid-1970s from which it never recovered with the building of the Oxford Valley Mall. The mall, located just north of Levittown, in Langhorne, Pennsylvania, in Middletown Township, drew shoppers away from the older Levittown facility, given Oxford Valley's much larger size, and enclosed shopping environment. In 2002, the redeveloped site of the Shop-a-rama was reopened as the Levittown Town Center. The completed facility will contain 468,675 square feet of retail space.

Of the five public pools, built by Levitt & Sons and operated by the Levittown Public Recreation Association (LPRA), four were closed in 2002 with the exception of one located in the Pinewood section. LPRA Headquarters (and other landmarks) of this prototypical post-war suburb of sometimes mythic importance have been the focus of historic preservation efforts. Since 2002, studies have been underway to establish the Levittown Historic District.

Municipalities and Neighborhoods

Levittown, Pennsylvania, is not an incorporated place, though efforts in the early 1950s were made to incorporate. Some Levittown residents feared that incorporation would lead to higher taxes, by robbing the prospective municipality of a commercial tax base.

The names of the streets within each section uniformly begin with the same letter that begins the name of the section in question except for the secton of Green Lynn and Sycamore Ridge.

Levittown's 41 neighborhoods are found in parts of four separate municipalities:

Bristol Township, Pennsylvania which serves Bristol Township School District.

Plumbridge	Mill Creek Falls	Indian Creek	Goldenridge	Blue Ridge
Orangewood	Yellowood	Violetwood	Red Cedar	Appletree Hollow
Crabtree Hollow	Oaktree Hollow	Greenbrook	Farmbrook	Dogwood Hollow
Magnolia Hill	Green Lynn	Junewood	Holly Hill	Whitewood
Kenwood (portion)	Birch Valley(portion)	Stonybrook (portion)

Falls Township, Pennsylvania which serves Pennsbury School District.

Vermilion Hills	Thornridge	Elderberry Pond	North Park
Willow Wood	Pinewood (portion)	Lakeside (portion)	Birch Valley (portion)

Middletown Township, Pennsylvania which serves Neshaminy School District

Deep Dale East	Deep Dale West	Highland Park	Twin Oaks
Forsythia Gate	Snowball Gate	Red Rose Gate	Upper Orchard
Lower Orchard	Juniper Hill	Cobalt Ridge	Quincy Hollow

Tullytown, Pennsylvania which serves Pennsbury School District.

Kenwood (portion)

Birch Valley(portion)

Stonybrook (portion)

Birch Valley Portion

Location of Levittown, Pa Neighborhoods and School Districts

Transportation

Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) regional rail serves Levittown to the south at its Levittown-Tullytown station, and to the north at its Langhorne and Woodbourne stations. Interstate 95 runs to the north and west of Levittown (connecting it with Philadelphia and the suburbs north of Trenton); The Pennsylvania Turnpike runs southwest of Levittown (connecting it with the western suburbs and the New Jersey Turnpike), and U.S. 1 runs to the north, carrying traffic directly into downtown Trenton. The nearest international airport is Philadelphia International Airport (Airport Code PHL), approximately 34 miles southwest of Levittown; The nearest Amtrak station is just across the Delaware River in Trenton, just over nine miles to the east.

Though a steel mill once operated by United States Steel Corporation provided employment in nearby Fairless Hills, many Levittowners have historically commuted by automobile or train to Philadelphia, some to Trenton, still others to more distant locales in as many as four states. Just over ten percent of employed Levittowners both live and work in the community. water.

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