The hill in Drexel Hill climbs from the base of Township Line Road up State Road past Drexeline Shopping Center to Burmont Road, which looks south to the “downtown” business sector, where streetscape improvements are underway per the township and the Aronimink Business Association. To the east and within the rambling real estate of the 90-building apartment complex, the already-sizable facilities of Drexelbrook Catering saw the addition of a corporate events center one decade ago. Now, an adjacent 100-room hotel is on the drawing board.

A locale on the move in the late 18th century, Upper Darby claimed its own identity from Darby Township and, soon after, split from Chester County to help form Delaware County. The advancing years brought less geographic flexibility, but more modern conveniences and the well-to-do. Runnymede, the home of a wealthy investor, was the first in the county to be lit by gas lamps before ownership passed into the hands of Philadelphia financier-philanthropist Anthony J. Drexel, who gave his name to this growing section of Upper Darby and the engineering college in Philadelphia, Drexel University.

That growth continued, reflected by the area’s educational institutions: five elementary schools (public and parochial), Drexel Hill Middle School, and Monsignor Bonner (boys) and Archbishop Prendergast (girls) high schools. Only a trumpet blast away on Lansdowne Avenue, Upper Darby High School (not within the bailiwick of Drexel Hill mail carriers) features a performing arts center jointly funded by the township and school district for the past 35 years and counting.

“It’s an unusual, cooperative effort,” says Thomas J. Judge Jr., the township’s chief administrative officer.