During the summer of 1952, Lehigh Valley Transit rode and pulled it's trolley stock over to Bethlehem Steel, to be chopped up and fed to the blast furnaces. The furnaces themselves ceased operation in 1995, and are now a visual backdrop for young artists, most of whom never saw those flames that lit up that skyline. Allentown will now salvage some architectural items documented on this blog, and begin tearing down it's shopping district, which was serviced by those trolleys. As young toothless athletes from Canada, entertain people from Catasauqua, on the ice maintained by a Philadelphia company, Allentown begins another chapter in it's history of cannibalism.
photo from August 1952, showing last run on St. John Street to Bethlehem Steel
I lived in Bloomsbury NJ in the 1970's an remember very well the 7:00 PM horn and seeing the red glow over Bethlehem when the coke ovens were opened.
ReplyDeleteThese are sad times when a very small handful of people are able to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a project nobody can afford and the great majority of citizens clearly don't want.
Something Is Rotten in the State of Pennsylvania.
Rotten indeed. And now one of the 'backers' of this project is leaving 'public service' to set herself up to run the arena. Now watch the musical chair move around this once-great city. Schlossberg to H-burg...or will it be Schweyer? Heck, they can't both be the next mayor, right?
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