News Details (Posted: February 21, 2008):

A Brief History of Levittown, PA

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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 (and in fact was the largest east of the Mississippi). 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.

Initially Levitt & Sons would not sell homes to African Americans. However, pressure on Levitt led to a change in the company's policy. Levittown's first black couple, Bill and Daisy Myers, bought a home in the Dogwood Hollow section in 1957. Their move to Levittown was not entirely peaceful, and required intervention by state authorities. The community's otherwise placid exterior was again disturbed during days of so-called "middle-class" gas riots in June 1979 in the wake of the Camp David Peace Accords that resulted in a second embargo by Arab oil-producing nations. The unrest occurred June 24-25, 1979 as lines swelled and tempers flared in the heart of Levittown at an intersection known as Five Points, a location surrounded by six service stations, two of which were severely damaged by vandalism in those riots. The two days of riots made national headlines and even was to be mentioned (although not by name directly) in an address by President Jimmy Carter to the nation that was to be delivered on July 5, 1979.

A baseball team from Levittown, Pennsylvania, won the Little League World Series in 1960. Levittown American beat an opponent from Fort Worth, Texas to win the honor.

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 an 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 (43,541 square meters) 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.