While Bella Vista will always have strong ties to the history of Philadelphia’s Italian community, the neighborhood has historically served as a starting-out point for new Philadelphians since it began to be settled in the 1840s.

The first inhabitants of Moyamensing Township were Irish immigrants and freed African-American slaves who had migrated up from the South. In the later decades of the 19th century, immigrants from Italy began pouring in, and the institutions they established continue to define the neighborhood today, none more so than the historic South 9th Street Market, known to all as the “Italian Market.”