Port Richmond is a neighborhood in the River Wards section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States.

Adjacent neighborhoods are Bridesburg to the northeast, Juniata to the north, Harrowgate to the northwest and Kensington to the south.

In colonial times, most of today's Port Richmond was owned by Anthony Palmer, the founder of Philadelphia's Kensington neighborhood.

Palmer then purchased the old Fairman Mansion estate which bordered on the south of "Hope Farm" and built his town of Kensington.

[2] Port Richmond, at the beginning of the century, was a working-class neighborhood, and most workers simply walked to their nearby workplaces with lunch pail in hand.

Streets—unlike now—were generally free of parked vehicles, allowing hucksters and other vendors space to easily proceed down the narrow side streets with their horse and wagon on a daily basis.

[3] European immigrants arrived in large numbers and lost no time in scrimping and working long hours to earn sufficient money to purchase modest row homes, such as those along Chatham Street.

Some comfort could be had in the fact that these homes contained tiny rooms, generally two downstairs and two upstairs, and were easy to keep warm from the heat of the kitchen range.

)[3] Port Richmond residents were frugal and bought produce from the many street vendors who came by daily with their horse-drawn carts, loaded with fresh vegetables from nearby farms, located not very far away.

Housewives could buy cabbage, cucumbers, potatoes, apples, and other vegetables by the bushel and store or preserve them for the winter.

During each evening a lamplighter would come by to light the street lamps by igniting them with a very long device he held up in his hands.

The old Orinoka Mills in Richmond, was used as a training and wartime production facility in association with Mastbaum during the war.

On September 6, 1943, the northbound Congressional Limited, a nonstop Pennsylvania Railroad passenger train, bound from Washington, D.C., to New York City, derailed near Port Richmond, killing 79 people and injuring 117 others.

Port Richmond is a vibrant neighborhood with a deep and proud cultural history encompassing several centuries.

Many Port Richmond homes have been refurbished and are now occupied increasingly by younger people, who no longer walk to work at the once bustling Port Richmond docks or to the tanneries and looms of their predecessors, but are employed in various parts of the city of Philadelphia, returning home in the evenings to the comfort of their picturesque neighborhood.

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries when immigration was at its peak in Philadelphia, Polish people settled on farms in Port Richmond.

Today, there are a number of restaurants and stores in the area of Richmond Street and Allegheny Avenue that cater to the Polish-American community.

A half-dozen blocks west on Allegheny from Richmond Street, there is an ancient park, Campbell's Square, where neighborhood children play and where special community events are sometimes held.

Despite its strong Polish roots, where even now, many still speak the language in ordinary conversation, the area has also served other nationalities, such as the Lithuanians.

In Port Richmond, as in every old ethnic enclave in Philadelphia, demographic change is occurring at a rapid pace.

On the other hand, to see the dynamic structures of Old City, Philadelphia, a drive to center city could be made south on Richmond Street and continuing on south on Delaware Avenue, providing a wonderful view of what remains of the ship terminals that once made the Port of Philadelphia a bustling seaport.