In the 1880s during the first wave of immigrants from Abruzzo and Sicily, the South Philly Italian Market was born. During this time many immigrants landed at the Philadelphia piers and quickly boarded trains bound for either the coal country in northeast Pennsylvania where work was readily available, or chose to take a shorter train ride to North Philly to work in the textile mills. Finally, a third option for these immigrants was to choose to begin their lives in the New World in South Philly.
These immigrants settled into row houses that were formerly owned by the Irish, Germans and Jewish immigrants who settled in Philadelphia during the previous generation. These new immigrants began to work in the street using pushcarts to sell meat, produce and dry goods all along Ninth Street.
