Levittown trivia: 12 things you might not know

Staff Writer

Bucks County Courier Times

Customers line up outside the Levitt sales office on Route 13 in Tullytown on Nov. 8, 1951. After paying as little as $100 as a down payment, they were among the first to buy a new home in the planned “Levittown” community and would begin moving in on June 23, 1952.

What was billed by Levitt and Son in June 1952 as the "new adventure of suburban living" in Levittown, Pa. resulted in some interesting statistics about the community by 1972. Here are dozen things you might not know:

1. Before the end of 1951, more than 5,500 acres of farmland was purchased by Levitt for his new city.

2. Between October 1951 and 1955, 97 miles of roadways and main thoroughfares were built to serve Levittown.

3. Levitt and Sons opened its first home sales office on Nov. 8, 1951 at the intersection of Route 13 and what was to become the Levittown Parkway.

4. Ground sites in Levittown were donated and set aside by Levitt for religious institutions, schools and recreation areas.

5. Before April of 1952, a private sewer and water authority was created to be controlled by the community. The Lower Bucks County Joint Municipal Authority now controls over 114,000 miles of water and sewer lines.

6. In 1953, a 60-store shopping center with the nation's largest chain department stores opened as the commercial hub of Levittown at Route 13 and the Levittown Parkway.

7. The Levittown Public Recreation Association was organized in 1953 to provide year-round full service indoor and outdoor recreation and summer swimming programs at nominal cost to residents of Levittown.

8. On Memorial Day of May 30, 1959, the first of five Olympic-sized swimming pools built by Levitt to serve all residents opened at nominal cost to Levittowners.

9. Levittown was laid out in 40 sections of 50 to 940 homes each. All streets were paved and devoid of four-way intersections. Each section has a circumferential drive. With its many green belts and fully landscaped home sites, William Levitt envisioned a "garden community" unspoiled by fences.

10. The main line of the Penn Central Railroad changed the former "Tullytown" stop to "Levittown" in 1956.

11. The first residents moved into Levittown on June 23, 1952 at a time when today's Levittown Parkway as a two-way country road.

12. When United States Steel built at $400 million, state-of-the-art steel mill in Falls in the 1950s, thousands of Levittown residents went to work there as did those in Fairless Hills, a planned residential community built specifically for employes at the Fairless Works steel mill.