[citation needed] The neighborhood is predominantly residential, with commercial frontage on Broad Street and Girard Avenue and some industrial facilities to the west of the railroad tracks along Percy St. and 9th St.

The Washington Circus was raised at the eastern end of Spring Garden Street in 1828 and later converted into an amphitheater that could seat up to 1,200 people.

[4] Some of the earliest inhabitants of what is today known as the Poplar neighborhood were affluent Quakers, who built Georgian style townhouses in the vicinity of Spring Garden Street using money they had made in Philadelphia's mid-century industrial boom.

[2] Quaker philanthropy has played a role in the development of the neighborhood, with the Friends Mission Number One being established in 1879 "to provide a moral and spiritual uplift to poor immigrants" in the broader Spring Garden district.

The Philadelphia Transportation Company, formed from the consolidation of several failing streetcar and rail firms, went bankrupt in 1939 and its possessions, including the power substation at 13th and Mount Vernon, were inherited by SEPTA.

[2] FHC consists of semi-detached homes built circa 1850 and reconfigured into a market-rate, gated apartment community in the early 1950s.

In 1959, the city enacted a land acquisition program by which the Department of Licenses & Inspections could acquire vacant or deteriorated properties and turn them over to community groups through the sheriff sale.

During a 10-week work period in the summer of 1961, local high school and college students built a public park out of salvaged materials from nearby dilapidated homes.

In 1962 and 1963, outdoor movie showings were held in the park and games and activities for children were hosted by the Friends Neighborhood Guild.

[8] The Allen Homes complemented Cambridge Plaza, a modernist public housing project comprising two 248-unit, high-rise towers and 124 low-rise townhouses.

Cambridge Plaza was constructed in 1957 and demolished in 2001, when the Philadelphia Housing Authority began to erect suburban-style duplexes and single-family homes.

[8] Some of the neighborhood's original row houses remain, mostly south of Fairmount Avenue and west of the regional rail tracks.

In 2013, the Church of the Nativity at 11th and Mount Vernon was demolished[11] and by 2015, it had been replaced with a row of townhomes and a gated parking lot called Spring Arts Square.