16. Mt. Zion

A middle-class neighborhood designed architecturally with an Old World feel, Mt. Zion is Named for both the city’s largest Jewish synagogue and the enormous clothier that has its headquarters in the neighborhood. The architectural style of the neighborhood is one that favors high buildings, built tall and near row for mixed-use purposes. The neighborhood’s streets are spaced widely, but the whole place is a crisscross of alleys that don’t show up readily on city maps. It’s as if the neighborhood were designed to confuse outsiders as much as possible. Indeed, several of the streets and alleys have the same name, split into two differently named thoroughfares, or terminate abruptly only to begin again eight blocks over. Mt. Zion is predominantly lower middle class, with many residents working at the clothing factory or light industrial employers of similar output.

Background

Firebrands and exclusionists have labeled Mt. Zion a “harbor for the Jewish element” since the late 1940s when Mt. Zion Synagogue was first built, but that’s not exactly accurate. The Jewish population of Mt. Zion isn’t any more numerous than it is anywhere else in the city. Indeed, more disturbing is that the architectural firm responsible for the designs of many of the building seems to have favored the most convoluted designs possible and even exercised a significant amount of sway over the planning committee that established the neighborhood’s infrastructure. It seems as if the architects wanted people to get lost among their designs.

Alternative Name(s)

Synagogue

Type

District

Location under

New Castle