Old Maps of Bethlehem, PA - Part 2: What Used To Be (Northampton Heights)

Following my post about Clearfield Village, I heard a lot about another former neighborhood: Northampton Heights. 

Formerly located along E 4th Street (Southside Bethlehem), Northampton Heights was originally part of Lower Saucon Township. It was incorporated as a borough in 1901 (population 650) [1], and then incorporated into the city of Bethlehem in 1920 (population 4000) [2]. 

Since the neighborhood was demolished by the Bethlehem Steel Company in the mid 1960s, there is nothing left of Northampton Heights. There were two schools, a number of businesses, several churches, and many homes: gone. Fortunately for us, we can re-create some of the neighborhood using historic maps and Google Earth. 

The 1912 Sanborn fire insurance maps [3] proved to be a good starting place. Sheets 55 and 56 show the neighborhood in detail. This helped me understand the street layout, east to west: Emery, Diamond, Carbon, Bessemer, Anthracite.

As with Clearfield Village, I used the USGS Historical Topographic Map Explorer. In particular, I used the Hellertown 1965 and 1972 maps, showing the neighborhood just before and after the demolition.

These maps helped me pinpoint a few things: 

• Emery Street still exists and the historic map aligns to modern roads best at the northern end of the street. 
• Anthracite Street aligns north/south with today's Redfield St, albeit on the opposite side of E 4th Street in South Terrace.
  
• The Lynn Avenue bridge (south of E 4th St) is between Bessemer and Carbon, but slightly closer to Bessemer. 

From there I estimated the locations of the other north-south streets based on the nearest aligned street in South Terrace. I estimated the locations of 1st through 6th Streets by drawing a straight line from their current existence (hence the long lines in the map you're about to see).

Here is the resulting neighborhood, recreated:

I also took the 1912 Sanborn map images and overlaid them in Google Earth. This confirmed street locations and allowed me to begin plotting points of interest, businesses, churches, etc. The file is huge so I can't post it here; contact me if you'd like a copy of the file. I plotted additional places on the map based on information from articles, Facebook posts, books, etc. Using many sources I was able to create a fairly complete view of the former Northampton Heights neighborhood.

 

Pictures of Northampton Heights:

My map gives you an idea of where things were, and I embedded some pictures I found along the way. Here are some additional pictures to give you a better sense of the neighborhood. 

  The original St Josaphat's Ukrainian Byzantine Catholic Church  

Scroll down a bit to see the Saucona Hotel 

(scroll down in the frame to see)

There's a bit more information about the hotel, including details on the architect, Albert Wolfring Leh, here: https://www.philadelphiabuildings.org/pab/app/pj_display.cfm/106440 

 

McIlvain Fire Co, which was also used as the Borough Hall
before Northampton Heights was incorporated into Bethlehem.

There is a longer article on that same page if you click through.

Example of rowhomes in Northampton Heights in 1964

This photo was used to claim that the neighborhood was 'in too much disrepair to save'. The City, HUD, and Bethlehem Steel worked together on an "Urban Renewal" project to demolish the neighborhood so the Steel could build the BOF.

 

Demolition in progress, 1967

 

 

"A trolley crosses Fourth Street at Anthracite Street in 1950" 

(scroll down in the frame to see)

 

Louis Polack & Sons Brickote Company 

1604 E 2nd St

Louis Polack's family home being demolished in October 1968

Today

Northampton Heights was demolished by the Bethlehem Steel Company in the mid-1960s to build the Basic Oxygen Furnace (BOF), the latest in steelmaking technology at the time. Since then of course, Bethlehem Steel went bankrupt and the BOF was also demolished in 1998 [4]. The site sat vacant for a number of years but has since been redeveloped into an Industrial Park, which includes some office buildings, a hotel, and several giant warehouses. 

More information

Bethlehem has a strong presence of its past. Here, traditions of many immigrant groups are still alive in the form of festivals, bazaars, and church groups. While Northampton Heights may be gone, there is still a lot of information being preserved about the area. To learn more about the history of Northampton Heights, here are some resources:

• "Preserving a piece of Bethlehem's Black history: 'These oracles are a vital, accessible but aging population'" in The Morning Call, 03 Feb 2019. https://www.mcall.com/news/local/bethlehem/mc-nws-bethlehem-black-experience-oral-history-20190103-story.html
• "Can anything good come from Northampton Heights?" http://southbethhistsoc.org/can-any-good-thing-come-from-northampton-heights/
• "How Bethlehem Steel Fought A War and Pestilence" https://venditta.blog/2020/04/19/1918-how-bethlehem-steel-fought-a-war-and-pestilence/ 
• "Read up on Three Lehigh Valley Legends" https://lehighvalleystyle.com/people/features/three-local-legends/
  

Facebook posts are also a wealth of information: 

• Baby Health Station: https://www.facebook.com/SouthBethlehem/posts/3845721458824571
• Mechanic Street in the Heights in 1961: https://www.facebook.com/SouthBethlehem/posts/3123220141074710
• Kids on overturned cars during the Strike of 1941: https://www.facebook.com/SouthBethlehem/posts/3251680041562052
• Various aerial views of the neighborhood:
• https://www.facebook.com/groups/1278836242479737/permalink/1344691332560894/
• https://www.facebook.com/SouthBethlehem/posts/2855150414548352
• https://www.facebook.com/SouthBethlehem/posts/3902527499810633
• https://www.facebook.com/SouthBethlehem/posts/2551667968229933
• https://www.facebook.com/SouthBethlehem/posts/2561599683903428

 Additional resources:

• "This Week in Bethlehem History: The Heights - Declaration of doom" in the Bethlehem Press, 05 Sept 2013.
  
• http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:HreOTs0zskIJ:bethlehem.thelehighvalleypress.com/2013/09/05/week-bethlehm-history-heights-declaration-doom+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-b-1-d (as of 2021 this link no longer works)
  
• St Mark's Evangelical Lutheran Church in The Heights 
• https://www.facebook.com/notes/the-lehigh-valley-historical-archive/st-marks-evangelical-church-northampton-heights/1305478092925499
• "Furnace Launched Steel Into Modern Age, Basic Oxygen Unit Replaced A Neighborhood" in The Morning Call, 16 Jan 1989. 
• https://www.mcall.com/news/mc-xpm-1989-01-16-2681293-story.html
• "Heights Renewal Official" in The Morning Call, 22 Dec 1965. 
• https://www.newspapers.com/clip/58724221/northampton-heights-urban-renewal/ 
• Two photos from the Sigal Museum in Easton, PA:
• 1905 picture of students at Northampton Heights School: https://sigalmuseum.pastperfectonline.com/archive/14F1B1B4-6145-4356-BC99-528553319524
• Undated picture of students at Northampton Heights School: https://sigalmuseum.pastperfectonline.com/archive/7E799C0D-153F-40E4-BEC3-149980737824
  

Sources: 

1. "The Fifth Borough. Judge Scott issues a decree incorporating Northampton Heights" in The Allentown Leader, 18 Feb 1901. https://www.newspapers.com/clip/4537366/judge-issues-decree-incorporating/ 
2. "Bethlehem Swallows Northampton Heights" in The Morning Call, 04 Mar 1920. https://www.newspapers.com/clip/12904219/bethlehem-swallows-northampton-heights/
3. Sanborn 1912 Maps of Northampton Heights (Pg 55, 56, 77): https://digital.libraries.psu.edu/digital/collection/maps1/id/4178 
4. "Steel Demolition Continues" in The Morning Call, 22 Mar 1998. https://www.mcall.com/news/mc-xpm-1998-03-22-3180927-story.html 

• 1929 map of Bethlehem, from the Bethlehem Area Public Library: https://bapl.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/1929-map.jpg
• See additional links/sources/photos in my Google Map: https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=1p8mvsw7i0QT1NExL6IE6C8A6XP2wrCYe&usp=sharing 
• Special thanks to local historians who have researched this neighborhood before me, especially Nancy Rutman and Karen Samuels whose work I found very helpful!
  

 

Old Maps of Bethlehem, PA - Part 1: What Used To Be (Clearfield Village)

Like many people in Bethlehem after WWII, several of my family members lived in Clearfield Village. Not much information about this former housing development can be found online, but its 250 single-story homes were built to house those returning from war and starting families¹.

Formerly located south of Pembroke Rd and east of Bethlehem Drive, Clearfield Village had 50 5-unit residential buildings and a community center. All buildings were constructed of cinderblock². The homes had coal stoves and furnaces and an icebox³ (No refrigerators?! Talk about ‘essentials only’!).

To get a sense of the neighborhood I overlayed the Sanborn map of the neighborhood in Google Earth, and then drew the streets and buildings as they used to be. The result provides a good overview of the neighborhood.

Hint: Click on the buildings for addresses. 
This is helpful if you're curious where your relatives 
lived, since the streets are gone!

It's interesting that the streets in "the Village" (as the locals call it -- and several other housing developments) didn't line up with the streets in Freemansburg. You can tell where the city/borough line is located by looking at the ends of Tolstoy, Karoly, Kossuth, and Monroe Streets (all in Freemansburg). But why not make them connect? Simply because Clearfield Village was intended to be temporary?

Timeline
Clearfield Village was created as temporary housing and was demolished after some time, though I can’t find much information about the demolition (or when it was built, for that matter). I turned to the USGS’ awesome historical map site for a timeline. The faint red crosshairs in each map denote the location of Clearfield Village.

The 1939 Allentown map shows vacant land (under Freemansburg):

1939 Nazareth Map - USGS

That hashed red line is the city/borough boundary. Remember that for later!
Side note: did you know that Pembroke Rd used to be Alternate US-22?

The 1959 Allentown map shows Clearfield Village’s major streets:

1959 Nazareth Map - USGS

The 1964 Nazareth map only shows a few remaining roads (Bristol Rd, part of Nelson Rd, Spencer Rd, and most of Salem Rd). Also note that Missouri Ave (today called Bethlehem Dr) is missing, but was missing in some earlier maps as well.

1964 Nazareth Map - USGS

Sorry for the weird way the historic map is truncated... 

the rest of these do the same thing.

The 1992 Nazareth map shows the same layout, but with more industrial buildings moving in to the west:

1992 Nazareth Map - USGS

And by the 1999 Nazareth map, the entire area had been redeveloped, with Win Dr cutting through where Clearfield Village used to be.

1999 Nazareth Map - USGS

In 2018, nothing remains to give any indication of the vibrant neighborhood that used be there. Do you have pictures or stories of Clearfield Village or the neighborhood reunions? Let me know!

Sources

1. Newspapers.com: https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/280040098/
• “When veterans returned home after the war, he declared, Bethlehem faced another housing shortage, and Clearfield Village, a 250 unit project, was built.”
2. Sanborn Fire Insurance Map via Lehigh’s Beyond Steel project: http://gisweb2.cc.lehigh.edu/beyondsteel/
3. Klugh In America (genealogy report): http://www.klugh.com/pdf/butler-genealogy-report.pdf
• “During this time the family lived in low-cost G.I. housing ... that had coal stoves and furnaces, and an icebox in lieu of a refrigerator. Clearfield Village consisted of long concrete block single story row houses."

Additional Resources:

• Bethlehem Housing Authority – History Page: http://bha645.homestead.com/BHAhistory.html

Map Tour of the former Lehigh Valley Railroad (LVRR)

I love love love love love love love PDFs of old books on sites like Archive.org, Google Books, and the Library of Congress. A while back I found one called “Seen from the Train on the Picturesque Lehigh Valley Railroad”. Published in 1895, this book was intended to keep riders informed of their whereabouts as they took the train from NYC (well, Jersey City) to Buffalo and Niagara Falls.

I’ve spent most of my life living along this former railroad (in New Jersey and Pennsylvania), and I really enjoyed reading the 1895 description of several places I lived in/near. While this book is an interesting read, it just isn’t as fun without a train ride. (Soapbox: we need more passenger rail service!!!) But these trains don’t run anymore. And some (most?) of the rail segments are totally gone.

Someday I’d like to make a road trip out of this, and include a present-day photo of each stop. For now, I created a Google Map to act as a guide and provide some context. You can click on any point and read the that town’s description from the book. I hope you enjoy it!



Legend:

• Blue binoculars: Points of interest along or near the route
• Red train engine: Major transfers or junctions with other railroads
• Green circle with a square inside: The western route through the Finger Lakes
• Yellow circle with a diamond inside: The eastern route through the Finger Lakes

PS: If you happen to be a train nerd (I mean that affectionately) and I got something wrong, please let me know!

An Interesting House in Bethlehem, PA or I'M BACK!

Hellooooooooo. I’ve been away from my blog for a while (about a year?), but I finally found a topic that has inspired me to post once more!

What’s this all about?

There’s a house on Linden St in Bethlehem, PA that I’ve always been curious about. Have a look:


Pretty unique, right?  That giant stained glass window, the stone porch beams carved to look like trees, that crazy looking peaked roof on the back part of the building: it doesn’t look like any other house in the area. Since the outside is so ornate, I’ve always wondered what the interior looks like. Well we are in luck - the house is currently for sale, and several real estate companies have photos!

Links to real estate listings:

• http://www.weichert.com/65126340
• http://www.trulia.com/property/3239906425-3300-Linden-St-Bethlehem-PA-18017

Note: If the photos are taken down from the real estate websites, just leave a comment and I’ll try to get in touch with you.

The realtor’s (Weichert) description of the home provides more information (emphasis mine):

“This stone gingerbread house with walls of old mosaics, carved stone porch columns and stained glass windows has tremendous historical and artistic value and is listed by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. It was built by Tilghman Fogel from 1899 to 1906 and every exterior wall is a work of art. The hand-crafted blocks have a menagerie of story telling and each are an artistic expression, with blown glass, Chinaware, and many artifacts built by hand in an artistic tale. This is a large estate style property with what was a stable attached in the rear, which is now a 4+ car garage and workshop, with a 3 bedroom apartment on the top. This is surrounded by almost 3 acres of prime, flat, partially wooded land. Originally designed all 29 rooms for active air flow and natural light for most of the day. Much of the 100 year old architecture has been preserved. This house must be valued as "artwork" and it will captivate your artistic imagination immediately.”

Who was Tilghman Fogel?  Google Books to the rescue!  Tilghman Fogel (1850-1935) was a member of a seemingly prominent agricultural family in Lower Nazareth Township, Northampton County, PA.  If you’d like to learn about his family, check out pages 413-414 in this Google Book:

Historic Homes and Institutions and Genealogical  and Personal Memoirs of the Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania

Fun fact: I also found another Tilghman Fogel (1842 - 1915), from Lehigh County, who was a well-known blind musician.  The two men do not appear to be immediately related.

But what about the house?!

Now that we know a little about the family, let’s talk about the house.  Why would a prominent farmer decide to build such an eccentric home?  Google Books comes to the rescue again, with two articles containing details about the home itself:

Technical World Magazine, Volume 10

Sketch: A Journal of Art and Actuality, Volume 66

In summary, Tilghman Fogel built the home after he traveled around the United States, collecting souvenir rocks, broken glass, and other scraps along the way.  He decided to incorporate his plethora of souvenirs into the facade of his new home, embedding his creativity into the house itself. 

While looking for information on Tilgman Fogel and his “Souvenir House”, I came across a photo of some unknown young men on the home’s porch:

As such a unique home with an interesting history, I hope someone buys this home and really makes it shine.

Photo Phriday - 2015 02 27

Train bridge over the Delaware River, between Easton PA and Phillipsburg NJ. Taken from the trail under the Free Bridge on the Easton side of the river.

Also, happy 100th blog post to me! :)

Symbol of Progress

I've spent a lot of time at the Bethlehem Area Public Library (BAPL).  Summer reading programs when I was a kid, seemingly endless stacks of books, and an incredible Local History room full of old maps and records.  BAPL is a great place.

Of all of the time I spent there, I never knew anything about the sculpture in the plaza.  You know the one:


Yeah, that thing.  What is it called?  What does it symbolize?  Who made it?  When was it installed?  Why is it covered in spiders and their webs every summer?  So many questions.  Finally, here are some answers, brought to you by a long holiday weekend with no travel plans*!

The sculpture, called "Symbol of Progress", was installed in 1967 as part of Bethlehem's new City Center Plaza.  It was created by Joseph J Greenberg, Jr of Philadelphia, and is made of Bethlehem Steel.  According to Lehigh Valley Style, "His intent was to symbolize the diversity of ethnic groups living in Bethlehem. Greenberg’s vision features three tapered steel arcs that are joined in the middle, denoting the fusion of these different ethnicities. The arcs continue skyward, calling on the strength of the integration."  Pretty cool!

I can't answer my last question from above, regarding why spiders love this sculpture so much, but I'm going to guess they just really enjoy public art.


Photo by Munkeyspasm via Flickr
*No travel plans?  How did that happen?!  It worked out pretty well considering how icy the roads were!

Sources:

• "Steel Sculpture for City Center" from the Gettysburg Times, Aug 16, 1967.  
• Link: http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2202&dat=19670816&id=52UmAAAAIBAJ&sjid=bP8FAAAAIBAJ&pg=829,1354496 
• "Lehigh Valley Icon" from the Lehigh Valley Style blog.  
• Link: http://www.lehighvalleystyle.com/January-2014/Lehigh-Valley-Icon/ 
• "Symbol of Progress, (sculpture)" from The Smithsonian.
• Link: http://collections.si.edu/search/results.htm?q=record_ID:siris_ari_340711
•  "Depth of Field" photo by Munkeyspasm on Flickr
• Link: https://www.flickr.com/photos/13259574@N05/3169655682 

Photo Phriday - 2014 10 03

An old photo from 2008, but it seems to capture the mood: autumn is coming quickly!

Bethlehems!

Today a friend inquired about where the city of Bethlehem ends and Bethlehem Township begins. Naturally, I went to census.gov, found an applicable shapefile, and pulled out the information I needed. Census.gov has some pretty great data, such as the shapefile I used for this, which was a breakdown of every municipality in the state. Woo!

So, here's the map:

View The Bethlehems of Pennsylvania in a larger map


Also note that the city is spread across two counties, so it gets two entries here.

And another thing, I'm doing this on my phone, so if it doesn't work, give me a few hours and I'll fix it tonight. :)

Lehigh Valley Bike Trails!

Remember June of last year, when I posted a map I made of bike trails in the Lehigh Valley? Well, I finally got around to mapping bike trails at Jacobsburg Park, Lake Nockamixon and Lock Ridge Park!

Updated Map!

View Bike Trails [Lehigh Valley] in a larger map

I based the trails at Nockamixon and Lock Ridge off of my GPS tracks from recent rides there. My GPS isn't the most accurate device ever, but it does a decent job, especially considering its price tag.

Anyone know of any cool trails in the LV that I'm missing?

Kim's Kitchen

Since I like to eat and I can't seem to decide what to write about lately, I have decided to do some restaurant reviews! Fantastic, right?!

Last Thursday night I was in the area, so I figured I'd stop by:
Kim's Kitchen
5842 Main St (Rt 309)
Center Valley, PA
[map]
[One source told me this was Coopersburg, but it's really Center Valley.]

Oh, and I first heard of this restaurant via Beyond Scrapple.

I stopped in and asked what kind of Korean food she had on the menu. I was pleasantly greeted with several options and samples! My samples included:

• bean sprout soup (verdict: TASTY!)


• homemade dumplings [the sauce was great, and I normally don't even like dumplings!]


• some fresh honeydew melon and strawberries


• a cookie!

I ordered a wrap version of bulgogi (marinated beef and onions), brown rice, kimchi, and she threw in some kind of scallions. All of it was delicious! There are various non-Korean options available for the less adventurous, but I'll definitely be returning to try her other Korean dishes. She also does catering for events and such.

Also, aside from the awesome homemade food, you can't beat the service: helpful and friendly!

And here is the cover of the Korean menu.

Doesn't it make you hungry?!

More Local Map Excitement

I'm sure you're all thrilled that, yet again, I'll be blogging about some random maps and local stuff I find interesting. Heh. Sure. Anyway, I was going to blog about some really good tea I recently purchased, but I don't have the photo with me at the moment, so I'm going to blog about that later. Stay tuned! For now: local geographic features!

If you Google something about movie tickets and your zip code the first couple of sites listed are probably hello[yourtown].com. Judging based on the mass-produced [not to mention shady looking] URL, I've always refrained from clicking on these links. What could a site called hellobethlehem.com contain that I could possibly care about? Oddly enough, today I stumbled across some cool map mashups on that site. Who knew there would be something interesting on a site called hellobethlehem.com?! WHO KNEW?! I think this slightly interesting find is much more interesting when considering the source!

Onward.
Here are my favorite mashups they have:
Lehigh Valley Islands
Lehigh Valley Dams
Lehigh Valley Lakes
Lehigh Valley Gaps
I realize a lot of the points on these maps are outside of the Lehigh Valley, but what are you going to do? I'm a bit surprised/impressed that they show the names of some of those random islands in the Lehigh River!

In closing, hellobethlehem.com is apparently not the virus-laden website-o-death I assumed it to be. And yet I wouldn't be surprised if tomorrow the site fulfilled it's spammy destiny.

Ward Maps [Allentown and Bethlehem]

One of my job functions requires me to know which ward of a city an address falls within. After obtaining a few paper maps I decided that there might be some random other person in the universe looking for a ward map for Allentown, PA... so I mapped it all out in Google Maps! Now I can easily search for an address, load my custom map overlay, and find the ward. :) While this originated because of my job, it very quickly became more hobby-related than work-related. :-P


View Larger Map

Notice the odd shape of Ward 17! Crazy!
And I'd really like to know what is the deal with Ward 0, which is one triangular block within Ward 8. Any ideas?

Here's one I put together for Bethlehem:


View Larger Map

Yay :)

Maps & Bikes

I like maps and bike rides, so why not combine the two? This is the beginning of a probably too detailed project! :)

Check out my map below, featuring bike/walking trails in the Lehigh Valley! You can click on any trail and it'll show you my comments and maybe some links. I'm also including lots of landmarks and other such notes, which will display some photos I've taken along the trail when you click the icon.

There are only a few trails right now, but that will change. Once I have this a bit more detailed and polished it will go into the forthcoming maps section of my website... but for now... it's blog time!


View Larger Map

I might expand this to include trails in Jacobsburg Park and Lake Nockamixon if I'm feeling ambitious! ...but we'll see about that later.

//EDIT//
08/26/09 - Updated to include Jacobsburg, Nockamixon, and Lock Ridge Park!

Nearly Forgotten: Calypso Island

I was looking at Google Earth today and noticed something labeled Calypso Island in the Fountain Hill-ish area (zip code 18015). I found this interesting because Calypso Island was removed a long time ago. Anyway, the label is on Brighton St, the particular location for Pennsylvania Lines LLC, according to public records. This is the company that owns the railroad lines through there.

So, a little bit about the mostly forgotten Calypso Island! I found this on a few older maps, as well as in a book or two. LV History sums things up pretty well:

• Calypso Island was a beautiful resort located on an island in the Lehigh River near Fountain Hill. The island was named for the beautiful sea nymph in Greek Mythology by State Representative George Henry Goundie during a Fourth of July celebration in 1869. Pleasure-seekers enjoyed the thirteen acres of natural grounds and the pleasure boats of every variety which surrounded it. Illuminated water carnivals took place on summer evenings. Transportation to the island was provided by the Calypso Transportation Line. The Lehigh Valley Railroad purchased the island in 1902 and removed most of the island to use as filler for construction of its rail line.

Here is a photo of a painting from 1832, and another from 1850. These photos represent the island before the so-called 'resort' was put there.

According to the following map* from 1855, the island was referred to as Upper Island.

To aid railroad construction, the company 'removed' this island just to fill in the area between the island and its main land, thus making a more direct path for the railroad tracks. This can be seen on the following maps:

1892 Map*:

2008 2019 Map:

The island was just West of the tip of Sand Island, and is likely the reason Brighton St is so curved. In comparing the historic maps and the current map you'll also notice that almost all of the street names have been changed considerably. But the railroad track junction and Hill to Hill Bridge are the same! It is also interesting to note that the smaller islands to the East noted on the historic maps are still visible in satellite images, though apparently not notable enough to make it to most maps.

I'm sure that wasn't nearly as fun for you to read as it was for me to write. Oh well!

*These maps were found at the Bethlehem Area Public Library.