It’s too easy to “forget” about Forgotten Bottom, even though it sits right on the edge of Center City and University City. For those who aren’t familiar, this neighborhood is located between Grays Ferry Avenue, I-76, the Schuylkill River, and CSX train tracks. It only has housing on about two square blocks, with the rest of the neighborhood consisting of a baseball field, a FedEx building, some parking lots, a bunch of vacant lots, a couple warehouses, and the entrance to the Grays Ferry Crescent section of the Schuylkill River Trail.

A reader reached out recently and gave us the heads up that Forgotten Bottom would soon pick up a small apartment building on the site of a demolished bar/restaurant. Club 121 made its home at the corner of 35th & Wharton for many years, with developers purchasing the property in 2016. They’ve moved pretty slowly over the last few years, demoing the building in 2021 and pulling a zoning permit in 2023 for an 11-unit apartment building. Construction work only started quite recently.

While the new 11-unit apartment building will replace a demoed building, we’re also pleased to share that a long vacant lot is getting filled in around the corner. At 1320-28 Grove St., two small apartment buildings look to be approaching the finish line. To the north is a 4-unit building and to the south is a 5-unit building, adding about twice as much density as we’d be seeing with townhomes. Consider them together with the apartments coming soon at 35th & Wharton, and Forgotten Bottom is poised to pick up 20 residents in the relatively near future.

We’ve been banging the drum for this sliver of the city for years, hoping that developers would eventually fill in all the vacancy here. With the Christian to Crescent section of the Schuylkill River Trail nearing completion, this area is about to get way more accessible and theoretically, more desirable. So it makes sense that we’re starting to see some momentum build for development in Forgotten Bottom, with more surely on the horizon.

All these new residents will need a place to grab breakfast from time to time, so it’s great that Haven Cafe is right at the corner of Grove & Wharton. If you’re thinking about stopping by, the sign outside says there’s a deal on pancakes on Wednesdays. Plan accordingly.