Wishing upon a star: Christmas tourism and urban renewal in Bethlehem, PA

Journal of Planning History

Volumn 12, Issue 2, 2013, Pages 154-178

  Taft, Chloe ^a  

^a YALE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Bethlehem; Heritage tourism; Historic preservation; PA; Urban renewal

Indexed keywords

ECONOMIC ANALYSIS; EIGHTEENTH CENTURY; MANUFACTURING; MARKET SYSTEM; PLANNING HISTORY; TOURISM DEVELOPMENT; URBAN DEVELOPMENT; URBAN RENEWAL;

PENNSYLVANIA; UNITED STATES;

EID: 84875942640     PISSN: 15385132     EISSN: 15526585     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/1538513212471007     Document Type: Article

References (125)

1. "Yule Decorations Turned on During Public Ceremony," Bethlehem Globe-Times, December 8, 1937.
2. Alison Isenberg, Downtown America: A History of the Place and the People Who Made It (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2004)
3. David Schuyler, A City Transformed: Redevelopment, Race, and Suburbanization in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 1940-1980 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002)
4. US Department of Housing and Urban Development, 1974 Statistical Yearbook of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1974), 20.
5. Among the many works that focus on urban renewal and development in big cities are Bernard Frieden and Lynne Sagalyn, Downtown, Inc.: How America Rebuilds Cities (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1989)
6. Jon C. Teaford, The Rough Road to Renaissance: Urban Revitalization in American, 1940-1985 (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990)
7. Thomas J. Sugrue, The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996)
8. Robert M. Fogelson, Downtown: Its Rise and Fall, 1880-1950 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001)
9. Samuel Zipp, Manhattan Projects: The Rise and Fall of Urban Renewal in Cold War New York (Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press, 2010).
10. On the festival marketplace and the tourist city, see Frieden and Sagalyn, Downtown, Inc.
11. Isenberg, Downtown America, 255-311
12. Dennis R. Judd and Susan S. Fainstein, ed., The Tourist City (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999)
13. Howard Gillette, Camden After the Fall: Decline and Renewal in a Postindustrial City (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005).
14. "Description of Bethlehem; in the State of Pennsylvania. In a Letter to a Friend. Dated Philadelphia, Arch Street, June 22d, 1790," The Massachusetts Magazine (June 1791): 365-366.
15. John C. Ogden, An Excursion into Bethlehem & Nazareth, in Pennsylvania, in the Year 1799; with a Succinct History of the Society of United Brethren, Commonly Called Moravians (Philadelphia, PA: Charles Cist, 1800), 11
16. Isaac Weld Jr., Travels through the States of North America and the Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada, during the Years 1795, 1796, and 1797, 4th ed. (London, UK: John Stock-dale, 1800), 542.
17. On the close ties between the Moravians' religious and capitalist endeavors, see Katherine Carte Engel, Religion and Profit: Moravians in Early America (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009).
18. Other communitarian religious groups that have capitalized on tourism include the Shakers and the Amana Inspirationists. See for example, Diane Barthel-Bouchier, "Authenticity and Identity: Theme-parking the Amanas," International Sociology 16, no. 2 (June 2001): 221-239.
19. W. Ross Yates, et al., Bethlehem of Pennsylvania: The Golden Years (Bethlehem, PA: Bethlehem Book Committee, 1976), 13.
20. Manufacturing and Mercantile Resources of the Lehigh Valley including Historical Sketches of the Prominent Towns (Philadelphia, PA: Industrial Publishing Company, 1881), 68.
21. The two larger companies were Standard Oil and U.S. Steel. David Venditta, ed., Forging America: The Story of Bethlehem Steel (Bethlehem, PA: The Morning Call, 2003), 45.
22. For other histories of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, see Kenneth Warren, Bethlehem Steel: Builder and Arsenal of America (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2008)
23. Mark Reutter, Making Steel: Sparrows Point and the Rise and Ruin of American Industrial Might (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2005).
24. Venditta, Forging America, 45.
25. Roger D. Simon, "Bethlehem Social Elites, 'The Steel,' and the Saucon Valley Country Club," in Backcountry Crucibles: The Lehigh Valley from Settlement to Steel, ed. Jean R. Soderlund and Catherine S. Parzynski (Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press, 2008), 316.
26. Not all of these workers were Bethlehem residents, but their employment in town was clearly significant. Venditta, Forging America, 67+91.
27. According to Harry Trend, who became secretary of the Chamber of Commerce the same year that Melhado became president, by the late 1930s the Chamber's membership was roughly 250 members, about 100 of whom were connected to Bethlehem Steel. Trend said Melhado's wealth let him make the Chamber his "plaything." In the Age of Steel: Oral Histories from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania-Harry Trend (Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University, 1975), http://digital.lib.lehigh.edu/beyondsteel/pdf/trend_72_50.pdf.
28. "V. K. Melhado Succumbs to Heart Attack," Bethlehem Globe-Times, August 2, 1938.
29. See City of Bethlehem Council Minutes, May 3, 2005. http://www.bethlehem-pa.gov/city_council/agenda_minutes/archive/2005/minutes/2005-05-03.htm.
30. A Vernon Melhado from Jamaica also appears in the 1918 American Jewish Year Book: Samson D. Oppenheim, ed., The American Jewish Year Book 5679: September 7, 1918 to September 24, 1919 (Philadelphia, PA: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1918), 259.
31. Leigh Eric Schmidt, Consumer Rites: The Buying and Selling of American Holidays (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), 159.
32. "Yule Decorations Turned on During Public Ceremony." Efforts of retailers to attract shoppers downtown during this period are well covered in Isenberg, Downtown America and Fogelson, Downtown: Its Rise and Fall, 218-248.
33. On the Christmas retail season, see Bruce David Forbes, Christmas: A Candid History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), 127-128.
34. Schmidt, Consumer Rites, 167.
35. William S. Worley, J.C. Nichols and the Shaping of Kansas City: Innovation in Planned Residential Communities (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1990), xxii.
36. "Yule Decorations Turned on During Public Ceremony.
37. "Home Lighting Winners Picked," Bethlehem Globe-Times, December 29, 1937.
38. "Christmas Putz Proves Real Yule Attraction," Bethlehem Globe-Times, December 27, 1937.
39. Polk's Bethlehem (Northampton County, Pa.) City Directory Vol. XIV 1937-1938 (Philadelphia, PA: R.L. Polk & Co., 1937)
40. Miller's Official Bethlehem, Pennsylvania City Directory Vol. XI 1929 (Asheville, NC: Piedmont Directory, Co., 1929).
41. Of the eight members of the Women's Advisory Committee, at least half were married to Steel managers and executives, including the committee's chair, Sue Burnett, whose husband Frank was manager of claims at the company. Committee members Marian Daniels and Irene Holton lived just down the street from the Graces off Prospect Avenue. The only member of the committee who lived on the South Side was married to a reporter for the Bethlehem Globe-Times, which had offices south of the river.
42. "Melhado Announces Lighting Donations," Bethlehem Globe-Times, November 26, 1937.
43. "V. K. Melhado Succumbs to Heart Attack.
44. "Steel Company Presents Star to This City," Bethlehem Globe-Times, December 16, 1939.
45. Venditta, Forging America, 90.
46. "Join the Rest of the City," Bethlehem Globe-Times, December 12, 1941
47. "Candles Appear Throughout City," Bethlehem Globe-Times, December 19, 1941.
48. "Yule Lights Affected by 'Blackout Rulings," Bethlehem Globe-Times December 24, 1941
49. "Star Dimmed as Precaution," Bethlehem Globe-Times, December 10, 1941.
50. "City's Yuletide Ushers in Bi-Centennial Celebration," Bethlehem Globe-Times, December 26, 1941.
51. Bethlehem, PA Fine Arts Commission, Christmas City Fair (Bethlehem, PA: Fine Arts Commission, 1972), 29
52. Clarke & Rapuano and Russell Vannest Black, An Interim Report on the City of Bethlehem (Bethlehem, PA: Redevelopment Authority, 1956), n.p.
53. According to Mark Reutter, foreign imports were already on the rise and the strike only widened the gap. Making Steel: Sparrows Point and the Rise and Ruin of American Industrial Might, 423-427.
54. For another account of causes of the Steel's demise, see John Strohmeyer, Crisis in Bethlehem: Big Steel's Struggle to Survive (Bethesda, MD: Adler & Adler, 1986).
55. For more on the 1959 strike, see Judith Stein, Running Steel, Running America: Race, Economic Policy and the Decline of Liberalism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998), 22-26
56. Jack Metzgar, Striking Steel: Solidarity Remembered (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2000)
57. Warren, Bethlehem Steel: Builder and Arsenal of America, 205.
58. On local effects see also Grover H. Stainbrook, Jr. and Polly Beste, Lehigh Valley Industrial Park: A 2002 Perspective, Parks I-VI (Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh Valley Industrial Park, Inc., 2002), 6-7.
59. Pennsylvania's Urban Redevelopment Law of 1945 defined blight, created municipal Redevelopment Authorities, and enabled slum clearance as public good. The 1947 Pennsylvania case Belovsky v. Redevelopment Authority of Philadelphia provided further foundations for urban renewal and eminent domain, upholding private use, or reuse, as public good.
60. Bethlehem, PA Redevelopment Authority, 1966 Annual Report (Bethlehem, PA: Redevelopment Authority, 1966), n.p.
61. Clarke & Rapuano and Black, An Interim Report on the City of Bethlehem, n.p.
62. See for example Arnold Hirsch, Making the Second Industrial Ghetto: Race and Housing in Chicago, 1940-1960 (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1983)
63. Howard Gillette, Between Justice and Beauty: Race, Planning, and the Failure of Urban Policy in Washington, DC (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995)
64. June Manning Thomas, Redevelopment and Race: Planning a Finer City in Postwar Detroit (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997)
65. Schuyler, A City Transformed
66. Robert O. Self, American Babylon: Race and the Struggle for Postwar Oakland (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003), 134-159.
67. Bethlehem, PA Redevelopment Authority, 1966 Annual Report, n.p. The second major intervention on the South Side involved the "blighting" of 230 homes near Packer Ave. and Butler St., the removal of which allowed for Lehigh University's expansion. Half of the $17.5 million projected dollars were designated to the five South Side renewal projects.
68. "City Acts Tonight on Redevelopment For Portion of Northampton Heights," Bethlehem Globe-Times, January 19, 1965
69. "City Heeds Federal Warning, Moves for Heights Renewal," Bethlehem Globe-Times, January 20, 1965.
70. Joint Planning Commission Lehigh-Northampton Counties, Minority Housing Problems (Lehigh Valley, PA: Joint Planning Commission, 1971), 33.
71. The Steel's backstage role in the selection of this renewal site fits the broader pattern of business interests driving redevelopment projects. Fogelson, Downtown: Its Rise and Fall, 365
72. John R. Logan and Harvey L. Molotch, Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987)
73. A Frieden and AS Sagalyn, Downtown, Inc., 17-27.
74. The shift in public perception as reflected in the newspaper is stark. Opposition to the plan to tear down the Heights was significantly quelled when the Steel exerted its corporate clout and announced its modernization plan: "We would like to emphasize that the modernization and expansion program as proposed here will serve to strengthen the competitive position of the Bethlehem plant, contribute to the general economic well-being of the Lehigh Valley area, and make more secure the jobs of our local employees." "Steel Will Build $30 Million Oxygen Unit in Northampton Hts. Renewal Project," Bethlehem Globe-Times, April 1, 1965.
75. "Rooney Sides with Steel, Hints at Low Cost Housing," Bethlehem Globe-Times, April 3, 1965.
76. Interview by author, Bethlehem, PA, July 27, 2011. I have used a pseudonym to protect the interviewee's privacy. The 1965 Pennsylvania case Crawford v. Redevelopment Authority determined that isolated unblighted properties did not prevent a Redevelopment Authority from designating a broader area as blighted. On the purposeful vagueness of "blight," see Fogelson, Downtown: Its Rise and Fall, 346-380
77. Robert A. Beauregard, Voices of Decline: The Postwar Fate of US Cities (Cambridge, MA: B. Blackwell, 1993), 84-90+135-54.
78. Lorna Neil, Christmas in Bethlehem (Bethlehem, PA: Oaks Printing Company, 1983), n.p.
79. Charles Strum "Weekend Excursion: O Little Town Of... You Know," The New York Times, December 8, 2000.
80. Vangie Roby Sweitzer, Christmas in Bethlehem: A Moravian Heritage (Bethlehem, PA: Central Moravian Church, 2000), 82.
81. Interview by author, Bethlehem, PA, April 15, 2011.
82. Winston-Salem was an obvious model for Bethlehem. The city's nonprofit preservation group Old Salem, Inc. began restoring Old Salem, the Moravians' southern colonial settlement, in 1950.
83. Clarke & Rapuano and Black, An Interim Report on the City of Bethlehem, n.p.
84. City of Bethlehem, PA, Bethlehem Historic District Design Guidelines (Bethlehem, PA: City of Bethlehem, 1993), n.p.
85. "Bethlehem the City, Its First 50 Years," Bethlehem Globe-Times, July 15, 1967.
86. On "historic renewal" see: Historic Bethlehem, Inc. "Annual Report to the Membership of Historic Bethlehem, Inc.: Summary of Activities from June 1, 1959-May 31, 1960," n.d. Historic Bethlehem Partnership, Bethlehem, PA
87. "Historic Preservation via Urban Renewal," Journal of Housing 19, no. 6 (August 10, 1962): 314-315.
88. Historic Bethlehem Incorporated, "News Bulletin," January 28, 1963. Historic Bethlehem Partnership, Bethlehem, PA.
89. On the need to complicate this bifurcated narrative, see Max Page and Randall Mason, ed., Giving Preservation a History: Histories of Historic Preservation in the United States (New York, NY: Routledge, 2004).
90. "Mid-City Boundaries Set for Redevelopment Plan," Bethlehem Globe-Times, April 25, 1957.
91. "What's Going on in Bethlehem?" New York Herald Tribune, October 1, 1961.
92. J. Dennis Robinson, Strawbery Banke: A Seaport Museum 400 Years in the Making (Portsmouth, NH: Peter E. Randall Publisher, 2007), 193-251
93. Paige W. Roberts, "The Politics of Preservation: Historical Consciousness and Community Identity in Portsmouth, New Hampshire" (PhD dissertation, George Washington University, 2000), 127-159.
94. "Historic Preservation via Urban Renewal," Journal of Housing, 296-315
95. Historic Preservation through Urban Renewal (Washington, DC: Urban Renewal Administration, Housing and Home Finance Agency, 1963).
96. The other six cities listed in the Journal of Housing were Providence; Monterey, CA; Little Rock; Mobile; York, PA; and San Juan. The URA publication lists in addition: Philadelphia (Society Hill), New Haven (Wooster Square), San Francisco (Western Addition), Washington, DC (Southwest), Norfolk, VA, and Wilmington, NC. URA notes that federal funds can be used to prepare or augment the historic site, but cannot be used to restore historic structures. Actual restoration had to be done through a state or local public agency or private group.
97. Clarke and Rapuano, Inc. Center City Bethlehem: A Report on the Plan for the Central Business District (New York, NY: Clarke and Rapuano, 1969), 22.
98. Clarke and Rapuano, Inc. Sun Inn: An Examination of Four Sites (New York, NY: Clarke and Rapuano, 1970), n.p. Box 61, Clark and Rapuano Records, 1940-1993, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library, Ithaca, NY.
99. This was compounded by the death in 1975 of the project's primary booster, First Valley Bank President Reese Jones, on a fishing trip in Florida. To this point opposition was spearheaded by Citizens for Constructive Renewal, a small group led by Lehigh University professor David Amidon. On Lancaster see Schuyler, A City Transformed.
100. "Tourists Retrace Pathways of History in Glowing City," Bethlehem Globe-Times, December 24, 1966.
101. Bethlehem Area Chamber of Commerce, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, the Christmas City of America: 1741-1958 (Bethlehem, PA: Chamber of Commerce, 1958), 2
102. Weil, Christmas in Bethlehem, n.p.
103. "Shining Star Welcomes Visitors," Bethlehem Globe-Times, December 24, 1966
104. "Community Putz Viewed by 13,201 in 18-Day Stand," Bethlehem Globe-Times, January 2, 1968
105. Dan Church, "Magic of City at Christmas Draws Visitors in Record Numbers," Bethlehem Globe-Times, December 24, 1976.
106. Richard Francaviglia, "Selling Heritage Landscapes," in Preserving Cultural Landscapes in America, ed. Arnold R. Alanen and Robert Z. Melnick (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), 45
107. Catherine M. Cameron and John B. Gatewood, "The Authentic Interior: Questing Gemeinschaft in Post-Industrial Society," Human Organization 53, no. 1 (Spring 1994): 24.
108. Norman Larson, "Historic Group Preserves Heritage," Bethlehem Globe-Times, December 23, 1967.
109. See for example HBI newsletters: Vol. 9, no. 1 (Nov. 1970); no. 8 (Fall 1975); no. 11 (Fall 1976). Historic Bethlehem Partnership, Bethlehem, PA.
110. Clarke & Rapuano and Black, An Interim Report on the City of Bethlehem, n.p.
111. Bethlehem City Center Built in a Proud City by Proud People: Dedicated to All Its Citizens, November 28, 1967 (Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh Litho, Inc., 1967), n.p.
112. Scott Thurm, "Christmas City USA Finds New Tradition in Live Yule Pageant," Bethlehem Globe-Times, December 24, 1980.
113. National Heritage Corporation, Bethlehem's Historic Main Street (West Chester, PA: National Heritage Corporation and Design Group 2, 1976).
114. Urban Land Institute, Recommendations for the Revitalization of the Downtown Business District for the City of Bethlehem, PA. (Washington, DC: The Institute, 1976), 11+20+29.
115. Lil Junas, Historic Bethlehem, Pennsylvania: A Photographic Glimpse (Bethlehem, PA.: Taylor Printing Services, Inc. and Lehigh Litho, Inc., 1985), 6
116. HBI newsletter, no. 23 (Winter 1981). Historic Bethlehem Partnership, Bethlehem, PA.
117. Venditta, Forging America, 131.
118. Jennifer Brown, "Mayor Looks Beyond Decline to Future," Sunday Patriot-News Harrisburg, April 18, 1999.
119. Origins of the plan date to the mid-1990s. On James Rouse, see Frieden and Sagalyn, Downtown, Inc.
120. Nicholas Dagen Bloom, Merchant of Illusion: James Rouse, America's Salesman of the Businessman's Utopia (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2004). On the various Philadelphia waterfront development schemes, see Stephen J. McGovern, "Evolving Visions of Waterfront Development in Postindustrial Philadelphia: the Formative Role of Elite Ideologies," Journal of Planning History 7, no. 4 (November 2008): 295-326.
121. Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, "2006 Public Input Hearing Written Comments Archive," Sands Bethworks 2, 38, http://www.pgcb.state.pa.us/files/hearings/comments/SANDS_BETHWORKS_2.pdf. (James and Marilyn North)
122. Most would agree that gamblers are drawn to Bethlehem's casino by proximity, not its heritage theming. Whether the gamblers spend money outside of the casino is another question, but by law a portion of the hefty taxes the casino pays on its profits and an annual host fee of $10 million return to the city. Like the Steel, Sands also contributes to local charities, organizations, and infrastructure. Matt Assad, "Sands Tops Pennsylvania in Table Games," Morning Call, June 25, 2012.
123. For a comparison of how postindustrial Youngstown has fared versus Allentown-Bethlehem, see Sean Safford, Why the Garden Club Couldn't Save Youngstown: The Transformation of the Rust Belt (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009).
124. The total assessed valuation of taxable property in Bethlehem rebounded to 1994 pre-Steel-closure levels by 2008 and increased most dramatically in 2009 when the casino opened. Data come from the Lehigh and Northampton Counties' assessment offices via author's communication with the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission, July 23, 2012.
125. The North Side is 14 percent Latino compared to 42 percent on the South Side. According to the 2009-2010 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates, household incomes on the North Side are on average roughly $15,000 higher than across the river. The contrast is stark between the city's poorest South Side census tract with a median household income of $25,133 and the wealthiest North Side tract's $92,356. The 2012 report, "In Philadelphia's Shadow," compares thirteen cities along a number of markers of economic health related to housing market, income, employment, and population. The other two top-ranked "rebounding cities" are Lancaster and Wilmington. Bethlehem's neighbor Allentown is ranked seventh on the list as a "coping city." Alan Mallach, "In Philadelphia's Shadow: Small Cities in the Third Federal Reserve District," (Philadelphia: Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, 2012), http://www.philadelphiafed.org/community-development/publications/special-reports/small-cities-in-third-federal-reserve-district.pdf.