‘The Women of Delancey Street’ have made their block feel like a friendly small town amid Center City

It was the year 2000, and the Tennessee Titans were taking on the St. Louis Rams in Super Bowl XXXIV. Center City resident Dawn Burke Sena wasn’t especially interested in watching the game, so she decided to host a gathering for the women on her block.

In preparation, she went to a ceramic pottery place and painted the words, “The Women of Delancey Street,” on about 25 cream-colored, handmade plates.

Neighbors who had been hibernating inside their rowhomes in the 500 block of Delancey showed up in force. Everyone had such a good time that Sena suggested they make it an annual event hosted in a different home on the block each year. She presented each attendee with a souvenir plate and told them, “Going forward, bring this with you.”

Sena might not have realized it back then, but with that one small but significant gesture, she helped create a sense of membership — and of collective identity — for the block’s female residents.

Owning one of those plates has become something of a badge of honor. Each year, residents fill them with treats — something from an old family recipe or maybe something that’s a distinctive part of their ethnic heritage — and take them with them to the home of that year’s host.

“They’re meant to stay with the house. That was the whole plan,” said Joan Rollins Tropp, the block captain. “So if you sell your house, the plate stays so the next owners get it.”

“But I’d say half the people take the plates because it’s a memory,” she said, adding that additional plates had to be made over the years to welcome newcomers.

Along the way, the women have become more than just people who live near each other. Theirs is a community that watches each other’s children grow up, protects deliveries from porch pirates, safeguards spare house keys, and, of course, hosts fabulous block parties, including a recent one for residents who had turned 80.

As a result, their narrow block — nestled between Fifth and Sixth Streets and lined with replica Victorian streetlamps — has the feel of a small town even though it’s located in the heart of Center City.

On April 27, the Women of Delancey Street celebrated their 25th anniversary with a brunch at Sena’s residence, which she decorated with several balloons and a 25th anniversary sign.

Beginning at 11 a.m., ladies wandered throughout her well-appointed first level. Some ventured into her backyard where they enjoyed the bright sunshine and the light tinkling of wind chimes.

“A lot of new, young homeowners came,” Sena told me. “It was really nice to get to know the new ladies, and to have everybody collectively together — that’s what’s special. I was excited to see all of the new faces, and also to have some of the OG there, as well.”

For Melinda Champion, a Haddonfield resident who bought a house on the block in December but hasn’t moved in yet, it was a chance to get to know people.

“When we were looking in Philadelphia for our next home, my primary goal was to join a neighborhood, to be part of something,” she said. “I just couldn’t have asked for more. It’s such a warm and welcoming block.”

As I listened to the women talk about their annual gathering, I thought about how valuable these meetings have been as a way to help forge the bonds of sisterhood and community.

We spend too much time in our little silos. Most of us don’t really know our neighbors, much less spend time with them. A study published last year revealed that 65% of us actually hide from them. Those of us who do know our neighbors admit to knowing only a few. But most people don’t socialize with them.

It wasn’t like that when I was growing up in the Brookland neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Back then, our neighbors dropped by all the time to sit on the porch or play basketball in our backyard. A woman a few doors down from us used to be our babysitter. We were in and out of her house so much, it felt like she was a family member.

I miss those casual interactions. They’re what give urban areas a sense of community and make inner-city streets safer places to live.

“It’s a cultural shift that has happened,” said David Burton, a scholar at the University of Missouri who has studied neighborhood dynamics. “We see that even in some of the research from the 1950s, where people, when they talked about their neighbors, they talked about social connection. Neighbors were people that they had dinner with and who they played cards with, and they watched each other’s kids, and they did all of these things that were social interaction.”

Burton said that in recent years, researchers have found the top two attributes people consider key to being a good neighbor are: “someone who is quiet” and someone who “respects my privacy.”

The emergence of homes with no front porches, smartphones, privacy fences, busier work schedules, longer commutes, and more home entertainment options are factors that keep us more disconnected from each other than we used to be. During a time of so much politically infused divisiveness, there’s a real need to bring people together.

That’s why I think that what the female residents do on this close-knit stretch is so special.

Even when they‘re not having their annual get-together, the women stay in touch. They maintain a list of who is in what house.

But they really do it up for their annual get-together. Last week, about 25 women attended the brunch at Sena’s. Tropp brought curried egg salad tartlets topped with bacon bits.

And she served them on her prized plate.