by Michael LelloWeekender Editor
In Northeastern Pa., we have a love-hate relationship with our hometown. And sometimes that means we love to hate it. Fair or not, we rag on a lack of things to do, a lack of jobs, empty storefronts, even the backward nature of some of the people that live here. At least I do. But during a recent day spent in a town about an hour down the Pennsylvania Turnpike, I gained a greater appreciation for NEPA than I’ve had in quite some time.
Allentown, behind only Philadelphia and Pittsburgh among the most populous cities in the state, is home to about 107,000 people. That makes it only slightly smaller than Scranton and Wilkes-Barre combined, so comparing NEPA with Allentown is fair, at least statistically.
Driving into town to see a band play at a club, I was disappointed to see burnt-out buildings, dilapidated businesses and shady-looking vagrants. The restaurant I ate at was decent. The courthouse looked really nice. For the show, I parked around the corner of the venue. I wasn’t sure my car would be there when I got back.
Inside the club, the patrons seemed nice enough, but it felt lifeless; the staff seemed like they couldn’t wait to get home, and the general-admission setup — basically a cage — seemed like an afterthought. After the show, my car was still parked where I left it, so maybe I was overreacting a bit. But I was happy to get on the road.
To be fair, I was only in Allentown for about five hours. It was windy and dreary, and that might’ve effected my perception of the town. And, like most cities in the United States, Allentown is battling a recession. But it did feel like a town that had lost its spirit.
My point is not that Allentown is a dump. It’s that things back home aren’t as bad as we sometimes make them out to be. It’s easy to get down on your home, your job — even your friends and your family — when you see them everyday. But it’s hard to have perspective on anything when you’re that close to it. Remove yourself from the situation for a while, even a few hours, and you’ll likely have a fresh opinion on what’s been right in front of your face all along.
My first job after college was in a small town outside of Pittsburgh called Tarentum. The only way you’d know you were 15 miles outside of a major city was by looking at a map. I had to drive into the neighboring town just to buy groceries, and I stopped going to the convenient market down the street from my apartment after a few publicized crack busts. Some of my neighbors flew Confederate flags.
A few years later, I went for a job interview in Greensburg, a larger Pittsburgh suburb. After spending just a few hours in town, I secretly hoped I wouldn’t get the job (mission accomplished — I still haven’t heard back from them, and the interview was about seven years ago). For several years I lived and worked in Pottstown, a formerly industrial town between Philadelphia and Reading. I liked nothing about it. There was hardly anywhere to eat lunch without hitting the fast-food district near the hospital. The general landscape of the town was dominated by the abandoned Mrs. Smith’s Pies building — and its reminder of lost jobs — and stories about the glory days of the Sunnybrook Ballroom and plentiful union jobs at Firestone. The newspaper I worked for, I was told, used to be a great paper and a great place to work. It always sounded like it used to be a nice place to live and work. But the big employers left, the smaller businesses shut down or moved and parasitic drug dealers and absentee landlords moved in.
Things aren’t perfect here. They’re not perfect anywhere, not in New York City, not in Milan, not in Tokyo. But when comparing our area to similar areas, like Allentown or Pottstown, let’s not forget what we have that they don’t: An arena that holds 10,000 people; an amphitheater that holds 18,000; theaters that recently brought Brian Wilson, Alice Cooper and Bill Cosby to town; a casino and entertainment venue that has already expanded once and is considering adding a hotel; down the road from the casino, a hotel/banquet center/dance club and home to restaurants that rivals any such facility I’ve seen in any area like ours; a population of hardworking and fun-loving people and a generation of young people that want more than the towns they’ve inherited.
I am not saying Northeastern Pa. is better than Allentown or even Pottstown. I’m not saying either of those towns are cesspools, and I’m not saying we live in the best place in the world.
I’m just saying that it’s easy to take for granted what we do have here.
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