Wilkes-Barre: Return to Glory Iii: The City’s Return to Glory Begins with Dreams and Ideas

Copyright © 2022 by Brian Kelly.

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Rev. date: 09/08/2022

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CONTENTS

Dedication

Preface

About the Author

Chapter 1 Good Things Begin with Dreams and Ideas!

Chapter 2 The Glory Days of Yesteryear

Chapter 3 Tell me about Public Square in Wilkes-Barre, PA

Chapter 4 The Great Places Uptown in the Old Glory Days

Chapter 5 The Place to Be in the Glory Days

Chapter 6 Places to Go; Things to Do; People to See

Chapter 7 A Great City for a Young Adult

Chapter 8 Is Wilkes-Barre Doomed to Failure?

Chapter 9 A 26" Bike Can Take a Kid Anywhere!

Chapter 10 Four Dollars and Sixty-Two Cents

Chapter 11 The Young Had Many Choices in WB Glory Days

Chapter 12 The Miners & the Importance of Coal for Wilkes-Barre

Chapter 13 Rolling Mill Hill– Lots of Choices in the Glory days

Chapter 14 A Town with Many Sections

Chapter 15 Wilkes-Barre Sections: The Heights & Iron Triangle

Chapter 16 Wilkes-Barre Section: North End

Chapter 17 Wilkes-Barre Section: Parsons

Chapter 18 Wilkes-Barre Section: Miners Mills

Chapter 19 Wilkes-Barre Section: South Wilkes-Barre

Chapter 20 Wilkes-Barre Section: East End

Chapter 21 Wilkes-Barre Section: Mayflower

Chapter 22 Wilkes-Barre Section: Goose Island

Chapter 23 Wilkes-Barre Section: Central City

Chapter 24 East Market to the Square from Genetti’s

Chapter 25 The Commercial Square & Other Commercial sites Part I

Chapter 26 The Commercial Square & Other Commercial Sites Part II

Chapter 27 The Commercial Square & Other Commercial Sites Part III

Chapter 28 Walking Down South Main Street—the Real Uptown

Chapter 29 1972 Flood– As the Glory Days Were about to End

Chapter 30 Wilkes-Barre Lives on Both Sides of the Susquehanna

Chapter 31 Sports in Kirby Park & Wilkes-Barre

Chapter 32 The Road to Glory Must Be Built

Chapter 33 Stop the Axe Man—Demolish Three City High Schools?

Chapter 34 Working in Wilkes-Barre

Chapter 35 Safe Biking, Jogging, & Walking

Other LETS GO PUBLISH! Books by Brian Kelly

Dedication

To all the people that I have ever mentioned in the Acknowledgments of any book. Please check out www.letsgopublish.com to read the latest version.

Special Dedication to My wife Pat & children --Brian P, Mike P, and Katie P Kelly

Additionally,

Dennis Grimes and Gerry Rodski.

Thank you for all of your support in my Writing and publishing efforts.

You all are the best.

Special Thanks to Joe Kelly, Ann Flannery, Jim Flannery (RIP), Patrick Kelly (RIP),

Paul Radzavicz, + John & Carol Anstett, John Rose & Bernie Hummer

For your excellent research for this book.

Thank you to Irene Jachimiak, RIP and George Elias, my buddies From High Street for the inspiration

Preface

I have two styles when I write a book. The original book was my fifty-ninth. In its 2nd revision, some might call it my 71st but I am rereleasing this book now in 2022 with some new facts and corrections. This is book # 304

When I write tech books, I figure out what I am going to say and then I outline the book and then I write the book from the outline. The outline is often mental, When I write a patriotic book or a book about trains, such as Take the Train to Myrtle Beach, which I wrote several years ago, I start out like I am writing a piece for a newspaper or for one of the online papers for which I write frequently.

When I get past a page or two, I know that what I am saying is too big for a newspaper and I know that my online papers to which I submit material, do not want more than five pages. So, I go where my thoughts take me and I don’t stop until I think I have exhausted my material.

In writing this book, I wanted to talk about my home city and its neighborhoods along with a few dreams that I have for Wilkes-Barre City as well as the notion of dreams and ideas, followed by plans and actions being in many ways the definition of leadership. I first wrote this book when I was running for Mayor.

Unlike other writing ventures of mine, I stopped before I was done because as I wrote I had more and more ideas, and I knew this was going to be a book about the glory days of Wilkes-Barre and how dreams, ideas, plans, and actions can help bring back those days of glory to my fair city.

But, at the same time, I felt that I already had something that should interest the two Newspapers that we have in our town. So, I took the beginning in which I talk about dreams, and the end at the time in which I talked about a dream about making Wilkes-Barre a safe city for bicycling, and I put the two pieces together

On January 13, 2015, I submitted the piece to both papers suggesting they might want to run it as a commentary, rather than a letter to the editor. They print much less than half of what I submit to them, and the long ones are the ones that they often don’t even bother taking to the cutting room. They just do not call me and ask for permission to print it to assure I sent it. So far, from January 13, 2015, I have received no call. A year and a half later, I expect that I will get no call from either paper. That’s OK I got the book out.

In the last week from when I submitted the article, I transferred all of what I had written in unformatted prose to book format at twelve point type and I was surprised that I had already written ninety pages. When I was still checking book size back in 2015, I looked at the page count on the bottom of the screen I was at 182 and most of what I had written was about Wilkes-Barre’s wonderful past, not about its future.

So, my guess at the time when all was said and done would be 250 or more pages. When I completed the book, I was surprised at all I had written, the first cut was actually 384 pages in total. The book dimensions then were 5.25 X 8.25. I made this book bigger at 6 X 9 so it has less pages but many more words.

I loved writing this book so much that I could not stop. Even when I was in final edit, trying to clean the book up of typos and oversights, I added more material about Gerry’s Pizza, a mainstay in South Wilkes-Barre, which operates out of the old Luna Rosa site, with a bit of Sable’s Music Center being acquired recently for parking and possible expansion. My kids played on Gerry’s sponsored baseball team in the little league. Gerry was always a standup guy with the kids, sponsoring a team every year.

I still like writing this book. It is fun. Here I am seven years later fiddling with it. I don’t like not having my trusty keyboard with me at all times as I get all kinds of ideas for things that I need in this book. I use a desktop with a great keyboard with tactile and audio feedback so I am spoiled.

In addition to the focus of a return to glory, using dreams, ideas, plans, and actions, I decided to take a tour around my original neighborhood, the Rolling Mill Hill, and I started the verbal tour at the South Wilkes-Barre Colliery. Because of places like the South Wilkes-Barre Colliery and others in the City, there are lots of family stores of all kinds and there are a lot of places where the miners would stop to whet their whistles in the morning and the evening.

After doing a verbal walk of my neighborhood in the Rolling Mill Hill, I decided to enlist the help of some friends who lived in other neighborhoods so I could verbally walk in their shoes through their old neighborhoods. And, so I toured every section of the city. Those sections where I had more material are longer than those in which the material was light. Some, such as Brookside, are actually subsections and not really full sections. But, I got them all.

I also took a walk from the CYC and/or the YMCA Canteen (they were only several blocks apart) downtown to the spots as teenagers, we would visit at halftime of the dances. I took a trip to the center of the Public Square to visit the site of the magical mystical fountain and investigate the disappearance of the stature of Kankakee, the Indian maiden that was once centered there on top of the fountain.

I also walked the business routes of Central City, including the Public Square. I explored many of the important businesses and landmarks in the "business district. My last look at the Square in this book is when I attended the last movie showing at the Paramount Theatre, and just several days after that I was driving an Army jeep in flood mud helping officially with the Agnes cleanup in 1972.

To lighten up some of the stories, I use humor. I hope you find it as much fun as I did writing it. I also tell a story that always gets to my heart. It’s about what it was like as a kid in the nineteen-fifties with a twenty-six inch bike, being able to go anywhere in the city. I show how delightful it was to visit the downtown area around Christmas time, and I discuss one of the most extraordinarily wonderful things that happened to me as a nine or ten year old. My friends were asking me for years for me to write a children’s book about the incident. Now, it exists as a chapter in this book. Right now, the chapter title is Four Dollars and Sixty-Two Cents.

So, after I got finished with the book’s first take, (I was about 95% complete when I touched this preface last) I created a list of the articles that I had written over the last year or so about my plans for a safe city, affordable city, and a clean city. These are included in the last Chapter of the book, right before the Index.

This book is not political, though I had announced my intentions the prior November to run for Mayor of Wilkes-Barre. The things in this book are true to the best of my knowledge, and the things that I think are good for Wilkes-Barre may very well be things that you think are good. I have a sneaking suspicion that I may have made some mistakes on some things. Bernie Hummer, a good friend for years, sent me a note which is included below to help smarten me up a bit. I hope there are not many mistakes. If I am wrong, I would be pleased to correct this book in future editions as Wilkes-Barre moves from stagnation to glory.

I have a standard set of acknowledgments that I have posted on the Internet for the people who have helped me do anything regarding my book projects over the years. All their help keeps me writing. The help of all these people was instrumental in my being able to write 59 books. And, by the way, I had already created a PowerPoint Presentation about a topic that is very important today. I presented to Congressman Lou Barletta earlier this year and he gave the OK to produce the book.

The PowerPoint outline was the basis of my 60th book, which was published in mid-2015. Since then, I have written eleven more books. My 65th book is titled. Great Moments in Notre Dame Football. I completed it in April of 2016 and I wrote four more books while I was putting together a 650-page book titled Great Moments in Penn State Football. The PSU book is my 70th and I just finished it this past Friday July 1. I have dual citizenship with Notre Dame and Penn State as my favorite teams. My book total with this revision is at 304.

I want to especially thank my brother Joseph Kelly, cousin Patrick Kelly (RIP), William Kustas, Paul Radzavicz, Dennis Grimes, nephew James Flannery Jr (RIP), John Anstett, and Carol Anstett for their help in figuring out our great neighborhoods of Wilkes-Barre,

As I have said a few times in this preface, I sure hope that you enjoy this book as much as I have enjoyed writing it.

Sincerely,

Brian W. Kelly, Author.

About the Author

Brian W. Kelly retired as an Assistant Professor in the Business Information Technology (BIT) program at Marywood University, where he also served as the IBM i and midrange systems technical advisor to the IT faculty. Kelly has designed, developed, and taught many college and professional courses. He is also a contributing technical editor to a number of IT industry magazines, including The Four Hundred and Four Hundred Guru published by IT Jungle.

Kelly is a former IBM Senior Systems Engineer and he has been a candidate for US Congress and the US Senate from Pennsylvania. He has an active information technology consultancy. He is the author of 58 books and numerous articles. Kelly has been a frequent speaker at COMMON, IBM conferences, and other technical conferences.

In 2010, Kelly ran for Congress as a Democrat against a 13-term Democrat and, took no campaign contributions, spent enough to buy signs and T-shirts, and as a virtual unknown, he captured 17% of the vote.

Brian Kelly ran for Mayor and lost in the 2016 primary to the prior Mayor of Wilkes-Barre, Anthony George. George Brown beat Anthony George in the last election and now serves as hizzonner in Wilkes-Barre. George is a fine Mayor. Brian Kelly would like you to buy this book for your family.

Chapter 1

Good Things Begin with Dreams and Ideas!

All that’s left of the great Europa Lounge

Positive change is important

I have a recurring dream about Wilkes-Barre PA. I dream that our fair City can stop its rapid downward spiral and return to some level of the wonderment and the wonderful things that gave us its glory years. I hope you feel the same way. Those of us, who were here before the 1972 Flood might be able to get in the mood for a brand new Wilkes-Barre just by thinking about the great Chile at the Europa Lounge. Mmmm Mmmm! It was on South Main Street right next door on the left side by Fowler Dick & Walker, The Boston Store, now Boscov’s Boston Store.

The Classic Front of the Boston Store in Wilkes-Barre pre Boscov’s

Wilkes-Barre was quite a town from its birth even before the Constitution was written, through the nineteenth and most of the 20th century. Most of our good fortune in these times came from the hard work of coal miners, and the long-suffering of their families. Mining brought with it a thriving economy that in the 1940’s brought our city to its maximum population level of 88,000. Businesses were springing up everywhere as were marvelous theatres, restaurants, taverns, parks and even zoos. We examine these vestiges in this book in our preparation for a rebirth.

Things were so busy in Wilkes-Barre that officials adopted the honey bee as the main focus of the City seal. Wilkes-Barre was busier than a hive of honeybees, and all of the people were the beneficiaries.

There were a lot of dreamers and just as many doers. They are well documented in early Wilkes-Barry history. The doing often began with the dreaming. The look and feel of Wilkes-Barre is still here but there are a lot of holes such as vacant lots that need to be filled to get things moving again. I would encourage Wilkes-Barre residents to begin dreaming again and for former residents of this great city to dream right along with us as we return to glory. Come visit us often.

This book will remind us of the power of the dream by reliving some of the past so that we can prepare well for our glorious future. Let’s begin with a dream.

Big ideas and little ideas begin with dreams

Can the Sans Souci Tumble Bug fit in your yard?

Ideas are the first part of positive change. Ideas begin most often as dreams. When in our most quiet moments some of us may begin to think of what it would be like if, say, the moon were actually made of green cheese. This is a dream that may become an idea. The young and young at heart might envision the rides from the old Sans Souci Park operating in our own back yard. I loved the Tumble Bug! This too is a dream that may become an idea. Can there really be better dreams?

Perhaps there are still others, and please include me in the list, who have at one time in their lives, dreamt about a set of train tracks, about the gauge of the old Hanson’s train at Harvey’s Lake, or the original choo choo at Sans Souci, by the Spook House, built around our very own homes. Why not find a small locomotive to pull a few cars around the front and back yards?

Can you envision when the tracks hit the front and back porches, the underside of the porches could serve as tunnels, and of course, there would always be light at the end of these tunnels! This is both a dream and an idea.

For some, the idea may be impractical and even goofy; but for others, it may be the motivation to bring on something entirely new that has never been done before--ever. If not Hanson’s size, how about the train below? All aboard!

I have been dreaming all my life about great things in life. In most of my adult work, I had the privilege of dreaming as to how to make things better for businesses that happen to use IBM’s largest computer systems. I hope to have the opportunity to bring to life some of my most practical dreams, and perhaps some dreams that may not at first seem practical to life in Wilkes-Barre City. I not only have some dreams. I’ve got some ideas and I’ve got some plans.

How about the train on this page for around the house? Literally?

In my career with IBM, my peers would often give me a problem and I would give them a solution. I was a problem-solver. I would then work with them so they got the credit. Management sometimes thought my recommendations went beyond a mere solution and sometimes they were phenomenally pleased. IBM made Systems Engineers such as myself, available to our business clients for no charge and we were worth a lot more than the charge. For me, that was when the real fun began.

All my life from when I made my own bikes out of junk-yard parts, I have been a designer and a problem solver, and I do not quit until I get it right. In my client IT shops, there are no marble edifices or ornate decorations standing as the result of my work. Yet, when a client is first able to write a check to pay a bill or develop a new marketing strategy with the help of software that I designed, I smile inside an awful lot. Along the way to my unique solutions in all I do in life, I have lots of dreams and so I have lots of ideas that just the day before did not even exist. There is always a solution to a problem.

Chapter 2

The Glory Days of Yesteryear

Wilkes-Barre City

Fort Durkee was the City’s original name

Originally, Wilkes-Barre was named Fort Durkee after Major John Durkee, a Connecticut militia officer, who was instrumental in its settling. Connecticut believed it owned a good part of Pennsylvania and so the Yankee (Connecticut) v Pennamite (Wilkes-Barre) Wars ensued. Fort Durkee had been built by New England settlers in the spring of 1769, on the site of present-day Wilkes-Barre.

And, so the History of Wilkes-Barre shows its founding as 1769, seven years before the Nation’s Declaration of Independence. Please note that these were not quite the glory days of Wilkes-Barre. Things were a bit rough in the really early days. The City was eventually incorporated in 1806 after Major Durkee’s death but the Major had a lot to do with Wilkes-Barre, its structure, and its beautiful river banks.

Wilkes-Barre had everything a city needed, with a bounty of water from the Susquehanna and numerous springs, and great soil for farming. The city grew even more rapidly after the discovery of nearby coal reserves and the arrival of hundreds of thousands looking to find peace and well-being in the New World.

The city reached the height of its prosperity in the first half of the 20th century when its population reached just over 88,000. It was never as big as Scranton, its twin city to the North; but it was always a dandy place to live, and until the Agnes flood of 1972, it had many periods of glory.

NEPA tycoons and business barons jealously guarded the labor supply

The focus of this book is primarily post 1900 to 1972 as Wilkes-Barre had its climb to the top and the beginning of its fall. No factor was more the cause of the decline than the cause of its rise to prominence, King Coal. It has been said that the Coal Kings in Northeastern PA purposely kept out any industry that was not needed locally. And so, great national corporations were assured by local leaders that with coal flourishing as it was in NEPA; there would be no labor for their plants if they insisted on building them in this area.

In fact, it is rumored that local officials convinced Thomas Watson Sr., the head of IBM at the time, to build his huge plant in Endicott, so it would not be a drain on the labor supply for the mines in the Valley. It was not the first time that officials and dignitaries feathered their own nests rather than help the people they represented, and it certainly shall not be the last.

Regardless of Wilkes-Barre’s storied past and what might have been for the people here, I know that I found the city a marvelous place in which to grow up. I did not even know my family was poor until Grade School. I read about the median income in a Weekly Reader and went home and asked my dad about it. He made little of it. Then, I knew we were poor but I sure never felt it. Heck, in grade school, I was about 15 pounds or more overweight.

Reflecting on Wilkes-Barre, PA, many of us have fond memories of our youth spent in some of the finest public and private schools in the country. We were taught by some of the most dedicated teachers in the world. In grade school, the Nuns at St. Boniface made sure I knew the three R’s including Algebra, and I admit I was very impressed with the teaching when I went to Meyers for four years after graduation from St. Boniface. I was surely a lucky guy.

Since we are all of different ages, our vision of the greatest Wilkes-Barre there ever is affected most assuredly by our own experiences. It is also affected by the many recollections about our City that were passed down from our parents and grandparents. From all of this, we know that Wilkes-Barre is not at its best right now. Don’t we all wish we could begin a process to return our city back to its glory days? Perhaps we could even save taxpayers a few dimes while we do it.

Would it not be nice if together, we could bring Wilkes-Barre back to its proper place in our dreams? The City surely has had some fine years of glory, and they were not all continuous. I am not just talking about the Hotel Sterling, which was a symbol of Wilkes-Barre’s glory for many years. (http://citizensvoice.com/news/sterling-s-glory-days-1.1523588). There were many other great things that many of us remember.

Picture was taken from the traffic lanes of the glorious Market Street Bridge

Two blocks straight ahead from this corner of River Street & West Market Streets was the major attraction of Wilkes-Barre PA for many years—its magnificent Public Square. This picture shows the trolley tracks going from the river to the Public Square.

Another look at the greatest structure in Wilkes-Barre which opened in 1929.

The bridge took pedestrian, horse & buggy, and motor vehicle traffic from Kingston on the left to Wilkes-Barre on the right.

Chapter 3

Tell me about Public Square in Wilkes-Barre, PA

Aerial Photo circa 1940 from the Susquehanna River to the Public Square

Still pristine after many close calls

Let me ask us all to recall our most magnificent Public Square. You may know that over the years, many a business person tried to convince City Officials to commercialize this most valuable piece of Wilkes-Barre real estate. Some wanted to put buildings on the Square and others wanted street traffic to go right through its center.

Thankfully, we still have a Square and none of these destructive notions were permitted by our City Forebears. In 1786, less than twenty years after Wilkes-Barre was founded, Luzerne County was established. Until 1909 or so, you may know that the Square was the home of the Luzerne County Court House. From then on, it was a small diamond-shaped plot of land in the center of town remade for public use. Its use was intended to be a park.

Luzerne County Courthouse on Public Square circa 1905

Famous Novelist Theodore Dreiser, over ninety-nine years ago offered a great compliment to Wilkes-Barre planners on his visit to the city in 1916. He said that the newly furbished Public Square was one of the most pleasing small parks I have ever seen. Me too!

Dreiser would later become famous as an author with his timeless work, An American Tragedy. This now famous man was just one of many people to fall under the spell of the four-acre diamond of grass and trees in the middle of Wilkes-Barre. Some of