The most prominent landmark in the neighborhood was Martin Luther King Jr. Plaza, a public housing high-rise complex at 13th and Fitzwater Street, originally called Hawthorne Square.

The four MLK towers were imploded on October 17, 1999, and have been slowly replaced with a mix of low-rise public housing, based on New Urbanism ideas, thanks to the HOPE VI program.

Hawthorne is in transition, one of the few neighborhoods contiguous to Center City, Philadelphia that had been left relatively untouched by major upscale development.

It is also sandwiched between gentrifying neighborhoods: Southwest Center City is to its west and Bella Vista is to its east.

A popular African American nightlife spot for jazz musicians, vices, and rowdy bars, it was also a site of poverty and street crime.