Learning from Lewisburg
7. Downtown
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At the corner of Market and Second St.: |
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Note how the curbs and store-fronts take a step back
from the street. |
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The next two blocks of Market St. were the original
market area of town – a widening of the main street to permit weekly
occupation by local farmers and craftspersons. Typical of a Pennsylvania
town, the market block or market square in its different forms brought
commerce into the middle of the town. The market section is visible
on the ground here, as in many towns, by a shift from parallel-parked
cars to diagonally parked cars |
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The "market" section of widened
street on Market St., seen here looking east from 4th toward the commercial
— in a postcard from a more mundane time when "real"
stores dominated, and three Ford Pintos could meet on a corner. |
| 16 |
At the corner of Market and Third Sts.: |
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Here the two main avenues of Lewisburg intersect.
Market and Third Streets are wider than the other streets of town
and were designed as the principal east/west and north/south routes
through town. For residents of Lewisburg, this is the main intersection
of town – although students identify the main intersection of town
as the highway intersection at Rt. 15 & Market St, or the traffic
light at 7th & Market as the main intersection Note the Doric
architecture (and pronounced entasis of the columns) on the
Sovereign Bank, the Doric porches on the Post Office, and the Ionic
architecture of the Mellon Bank. |
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Classical Greek architectural elements
on stolid public buildings in the middle of town; Greek Revival is
the architecture of customer confidence. |
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Detour south (left) one block to the intersection of
Third and St. Louis Sts.: |
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Churches stand at three of four corners. What is the
apparent importance of religion in the urban fabric of the Pennsylvania
town, compared to the centrality of commerce? |
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Looking south from Market & Third
from the commercial center of town to the 3-church Holy Corner a block
away. |
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On the way back to Market St. note: |
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-- the pier of the old Opera House (1869) at the entrance
to the town parking lot on the left (west) side of the street. This
parking lot preserves the footprint of this important communal entertainment
structure which burned early in the 20th Century. |
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-- the dramatically ugly, squat structure which now houses
the CVS, built to replace a four-story department store structure
which burned a few decades ago. |
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Cross Market St. and walk up the north side of Market;
stop at the corner of Market and Fourth Sts.: |
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Note the end to the widened market blocks. The periodic
market continues to be healthy in Lewisburg, it's just not here. Two
miles west of here is Farmers' Market, a weekly Wednesday assembly
of local farmers, bakers, flower growers, bulk-food purveyors, flea-market
vendors, and related small merchants. Scenic, fresh, and tasty, the
merchandise attracts community members for shopping. This is a good
place to get a sense of the cultural variety of the region, as Old
Order Mennonites operate a number of the stalls |
| Rural landscape at Lewisburg. |
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The Wednesday market reminds us that the essential
central-Pennsylvania character of the region continues in spite of
the island of "gentility" that is downtown Lewisburg. Union
County presents a well-isolated example of rural development in Pennsylvania.
The county we see is the product of a long history of conflicting
demands on the landscape, between farms, non-farm residences, businesses,
and recreation. Farmers value prime soil, flat land, water, and contiguity
to other farm land. Much of the center of the valley fits this requirement,
and is in dairy farms. Within and around that region are clusters
of Old Order families. Needing to be together because the difficulty
in traveling by buggy or bicycle, these families are arrayed around
a church or a school. With more hand labor, they can exploit more
diverse areas with smaller farms, especially, hilly land). |
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Hot sausage sandwich stand at Wednesday
market, on Fairground Road. |
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Fresh produce in season is irresistable. |
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Agriculture is important to the economy
of the county, although it directly only employs a couple percent
of the population. |
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Note the Ionic architecture of the M&T bank. |
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Note the orange and blue tiled, Art-Deco “Campus Theatre”
where you can still see first runs in a spacious old time theater
at small town prices, and walk home at 11 PM feeling reasonably safe.
It’s recently under new management and showing more interesting films
while retaining — exploiting? — its small town feel. |
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Façade of Campus Theatre. |
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