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