The tip of Cedar shot from Catherine Street looking east in 1955, a few years before the founding of Cedar Park Neighbors. Photo from Phillyhistory.org

Family, friends and neighbors are celebrating the life of Gerald McHugh Sr., the 80-year resident of Cedar Park and a co-founder, more than 50 years ago, of the civic association Cedar Park Neighbors, who died last week.

A viewing for McHugh, who was 92, will be held at Saint Francis de Sales (4625 Springfield Ave.) this evening at 6 p.m. and again tomorrow (Friday) at 10 a.m.

The son of Irish immigrants, McHugh lived in the Cedar Park neighborhood for the first 80 years of his life. He operated a real estate business for many years out of a storefront office at 48th and Baltimore (now the  Gold Standard Cafe).

McHugh founded Cedar Park Neighbors in 1960 in part to help foster racial diversity and harmony in the neighborhood. Many white residents in Cedar Park and across Philadelphia fled the city for the suburbs in the 1960s and 70s. Cedar Park Neighbors remains a vital force in the civic life of residents in that part of West Philadelphia.

McHugh passed away in his daughter’s home in Cedar Park.