Mar 9, 2015

Visiting Easton


Being one of the last warm days of the year, I thought we would visit Easton. I thought perhaps it would be more interesting to do the trip circa 1948. Lehigh Valley Transit had a trolley that went from 8th and Hamilton, through Bethlehem, to the circle in Easton. In the photo above, we're coming down Northampton Street, just entering the Circle. The Transit Company was using both trolleys and buses, until they discontinued trolleys completely, in 1953. At this time, Hamilton, Broad and Northampton Streets were the shopping malls of the era, and public transportation serviced the customers. The Transit Company, now Lanta, currently serves the Allentown population from a prison like facility at 6th and Linden Streets; It just needs a fence. Easton mayor Sal Panto is now also abandoning the merchants for a remote transportation/correction facility, which will entertain the inmates with the Al Bundy High School Dropout Museum. Hope you enjoyed the trip.
reprinted from November of 2011

UPDATE: The above post was written in 2011, but it's taken Sal Panto longer than expected to build the Lanta Transfer/Parking Deck. The planned Al Bundy Museum is now being replaced instead by Easton City Hall, where Sal is expected to wear his high school football uniform. As it turns out, Sal and I have something in common, we both worked at our fathers' meat markets in Easton. My father's market was called Melbern, and was on S. 4th Street, catty corner the Mohican Market. During the early 1960's, on my way to lunch in the circle, I would stop and visit a friend who worked at Iannelli's chicken and coldcut counter in the 5&10 on Northampton Street. The meat markets and commerce on Northampton Street are long gone, but Easton's Center Square is having a revival as the place to dine.

3 comments:

  1. MM, I have to give you credit for resisting the urge to say, "I told you so."

    Not that I would have listened.

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  2. bernie@1:48, actually, i wouldn't say that. our issues with sal are quite different.

    i feel lanta's transportation centers are a mistake, taking potential shoppers further away from the merchants. the al bundy museum was a fruit too low hanging for me to resist.

    as for your issues with the panto administration, i have no knowledge or familiarity. i'm sure your insights are not appreciated, nor are mine in allentown.

    ReplyDelete
  3. MM, thanx for the facts of a history lesson¿ Your analagy of the perception of what the lehighvalley has become is dead on and a sorry fact of life for many inhabitants of the here and now of the area¿ This being said is not very much of an accomplisment of all political parasite in power¿

    The public has become just as your perception poortrayed in this pictorial piece¿



    redd
    patent pending

    ReplyDelete

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