by Nikki M. MascaliStaff Writer
Bob Dylan once sang “I’ll just sit here so contentedly/ And watch the river flow.”
For various reasons, Northeastern Pennsylvania residents have been less content to watch our Susquehanna River flow. Perhaps they think its color means it’s filthy, or maybe they’ve lived through too many evacuations when it rages dangerously close to the tops of its levees.
It didn’t used to be that way. Since Wilkes-Barre’s founding, local residents strolled along the Susquehanna’s banks from the Luzerne County Courthouse to Market Street and beyond, and Luzerne County Flood Protection Authority Director Jim Brozena wants to see those days return.
This weekend he hopes to reintroduce the Susquehanna to NEPA while unveiling a project that’s been his labor of love for the past 11 years: The RiverCommon.
“We started out this thing as flood protection,” Brozena begins on a recent Friday as he stands on a new walkway between the river and a stretch of purple, white and blue wildflowers. “We realized back in the late 1990s that the river common was someplace special and has always been someplace special since this community was founded in the 1700s. We wanted to bring it back.”
And bring it back they may: The $24 million project — funded by Luzerne County, the federal government and money from the state’s Growing Greener II program — consists of more than seven acres of walking paths, a fishing pier, 10 20-feet-tall LED sail lights, 72 old-fashioned light poles, Wi-Fi, the Millennium Circle fountain and a 750-seat amphitheater which will be the setting for Friday’s dedication and grand opening ceremony. The evening includes live music, kayaking, a fishing demonstration and the Third Friday art walk.
“I remember as a kid, the riverfront was being used a lot more,” says Wilkes-Barre Mayor Tom Leighton. “This is a great opportunity to use natural resources — and it’s a beautiful river.”
At our fingertips
RiverCommon continues the tradition of high-profile designers creating NEPA landmarks, three of which are a stone’s throw away from it. Kirby Park was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, famous for New York City’s Central Park. Market Street Bridge was built by Carrere and Hastings, the team behind the New York Public Library, and the Luzerne County Courthouse was built by Joseph C. Wells, one of the founders of the American Institute of Architects. (The RiverCommon’s portal walls are made of sandstone from the same quarry used to build the courthouse.) Sasaki & Associates of Watertown, Mass., which designed RiverCommon, is known for its waterfront designs — and also creating the main site of the 2008 Summer Olympics site in Beijing.
Construction on RiverCommon began in 2006, and some of the area will still be under construction at the time of the unveiling. Before two portals were cut into the levee system — one at Northampton Street, the other between Market Street and the courthouse — more than 100 trees were cut down. Now, 19 different species of trees, 250 trees in total, dot the landscape.
“Something most people around here don’t realize is that we’ve got publicly accessible land on both sides of the river,” says Vincent Cotrone, president of Wilkes-Barre Riverfront Parks Committee. “Many other cities are so industrialized they have to spend millions reclaiming that, like along the Hudson River in New York. Now if you go there any day of the week, there’s people rollerblading, biking, jogging, and there’s economic development happening with it. Here we’ve got both sides, no need for acquisition, monies, just build it, program it, use it. We really need people to use it.”
Safety first
Brozena looked to other cities’ riverfront properties for inspiration for RiverCommon, from St. Paul, Minn., to Augusta, Ga., and Hartford, Conn.
“Augusta was neat with an amphitheater on the water, a hole in the levee, but they don’t get icebergs floating down, that’s why we went to Hartford and the other places,” Brozena explains. “Hartford is really the model we are trying to emulate.”
While the 60-foot portals offer a view of the Susquehanna not visible since the levee was built in the 1930s, those entrances to RiverCommon might raise the question “What happens when the river rises?”
“Basically we’ve got giant pocket doors, and the flood doors are stored within them,” Brozena says. “We pull them closed, bolt them down and hopefully we don’t have water that high, but if we do, they form flood protection. When it’s over, we open them back up, bring the hoses out, clean it up and we’re back in business.
“Everything on this side is designed to get beat up by the ravages of a flooding river,” he adds. “The biggest problem you have with flooding is going to be the sediment that we have to shovel up and wash off, and we haven’t had a whole lot (of rising water) during construction.”
Rolling on the RiverFest
Friday’s RiverCommon dedication kicks off a weekend honoring the Susquehanna. The 10th annual RiverFest will take place Saturday, June 20 from 12:30-9 p.m. at the RiverCommon and at Nesbitt Park on the Kingston side of the river. The day includes live music, demonstrations, live birds of prey and other nature-oriented activities. All events are rain or shine, including Friday’s dedication.
RiverFest also includes Sojourn on the River, when an expected group of 200 kayakers and canoers will paddle from Harding to Wilkes-Barre on Saturday and from Wilkes-Barre to Hunlock Creek Sunday. Some kayaks will be on the water Friday, and Cotrone thinks that seeing people on the water will help the river’s image.
“The mission of RiverFest is getting the people using the river, respecting the river,” says Cotrone. “Whether you paddle or not, this is going to have the same impact. You’re going to have people walking along the river, and there’s going to be more care and concern for the river.
“Otherwise you’ve got a levee wall that disconnects them, and what’s over there is just this flood menace nobody cares about or looks at until the water’s coming up. Now they’ll be able to sit here, eat their lunch and watch the ducks, herons and water flow by.”
“This is the first part,” Brozena says, gesturing to the RiverCommon around him. “We have a whole other side of the river we’re going to continue on. We replaced the boat launches (in Nesbitt Park) earlier this year, we’ve got a 90-acre forest communities would die to have, and now we’re going to take advantage of that.”
While there are no events planned for the RiverCommon area past this weekend’s festivities, Brozena and those in attendance that Friday — Cotrone, John Maday of the Greater Wilkes-Barre Chamber of Commerce and Karl Borton, RiverCommon events coordinator — think that will change quickly and that the public will dictate what they want to see there.
When asked what they’d like to see at the site in the future, all four immediately began tossing around ideas like ethnic festivals, perhaps an expansion of the Fine Arts Fiesta, theater in the park productions and winter ice sculptures.
“It’s almost like we’ve got a paper bag over the top because you really can’t see it,” Brozena says. “No one has a real feel for how big it is down here, what it’s like and what the amenities are. Once we open it, it’s a bad term, but that’s when the floodgates are going to open to a whole host of options for this.”
Leighton hopes to see those “floodgates” affect not just the view of the river, but the city beyond its banks.
“It’ll be an opportunity for people to come down and enjoy nature’s beauty. It’ll have a ripple effect with the economy downtown because they can take a stroll in downtown Wilkes-Barre — it’ll be an asset to enhance the image of Wilkes-Barre.”
Potential hotspot?
“I think what’s going to happen during RiverFest is people are going to be able to look back and forth across the river and think, ‘I have to go over there.’ This is a venue,” says Maday, standing under the Market Street Bridge looking toward the River Landing.
The landing/fishing pier is a venue that could potentially seat thousands should plans for a floating stage get finalized. Borton has a vision of the RiverCommon helping the area grow beyond its borders.
“We’d love to see this blow up into a hotspot, like ‘This is the place to go’ in the daytime, and at night, go downtown. Eventually, we want to see this be the stop-off point to Philadelphia and New York, a cool venue every artist around the country will want to play at.”
Borton also hopes to have a 100-foot screen at the RiverCommon to broadcast Kirby Park’s Fourth of July celebration, but nothing is confirmed at press time.
Looking forward, and back
Future plans for the areas along the Susquehanna near RiverCommon include a multi-functional nature center on the Nesbitt Park side, upgrading Kirby Park’s trails, a permanent stage at the amphitheater and the creation of Luzerne County Tomorrow, a non-profit entity that will manage the RiverCommon.
Perhaps before looking to the future, we should remember the past. Not the devastating floods of 1936 and 1972 and the near-misses in between, but to those Susquehanna banks that were once a lively part of local life.
Brozena looks up the RiverCommon toward the majestic courthouse at its end.
“This is where people used to come when they wanted to go someplace in the old days,” he says.
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For complete schedule of events and performers for this weekend’s RiverCommon dedication and RiverFest, see page 46 or visit www.rivercommon.org. Volunteers are needed for both events. To take part, contact Cathy Faatz at 570.829.6711 ext. 222 or cfaatz@unitedwaywb.org.
