Illustration by Rich Hauck.
Each winter, I get to cover one of my favorite annual news stories.
As an old building buff, I look forward to Historic Harrisburg Association’s “Preservation Priorities,” a list of endangered historic properties that the organization updates every year.
First, I watch the presentation then I write a story detailing what’s in, what’s out, what’s old, what’s new for the year.
For 2024, the William Penn building topped the list (natch!), followed by the former Harrisburg State Hospital grounds and then our beloved, if beaten down, Broad Street Market.
The rest of the list reads like a who’s who of our area’s blighted, beleaguered and broken. The 30 or so properties on the “priority” and “watch” lists include everything from 19th-century mansions to historic bridges to old churches, schools and fire houses.
The common thread: all need new love, new life and, often, a new owner—as well as tons of money and vision to go from forlorn to fixed.
As much as I enjoy the presentation, I’m often left feeling empty afterwards, given the tragedy inherent in broken-down buildings and in how many linger on the list from year to year.
Last year, in this space, I expressed some of that frustration by emphasizing the negative—the loss of so many of downtown Harrisburg’s once-beautiful buildings, which has left, in its wake, an abstract jumble of structures, parking garages and empty lots. I did that to contrast our situation with that of Lancaster, a thriving small city whose historic core remains largely intact.
I stand by my opinion that Lancaster’s success can be credited, at least in part, to the retention and restoration of its federal and Victorian-era built environment.
However, this year, in this column, I want to flip that script.
When I arrived in Harrisburg in 2009, I remember my first walk through Midtown.
On a bitter, mid-winter day, I took a stroll up 3rd Street, starting at Forster and ending at Reily, before winding back, mostly to check out this new city I had landed in.
On that walk, I felt a bit like Gary Cooper in “High Noon.” In the climax to that 1952 film, Cooper’s character, Marshall Will Kane, walks down the main street alone, the dusty road deserted of townspeople, who have sealed themselves up inside their homes and businesses.
My walk felt just as forlorn. I wandered the street without encountering a soul, passing one boarded-up building after another. I wouldn’t have been surprised if a tumbleweed or two had come bouncing by.
Had I just waited 15 years, until 2024, I would have had an entirely different experience. Since that first walk, the boards have been ripped off and the buildings brought back, including for all of the landmark structures along that half-mile stretch.
Some of these restorations and adaptive reuses are truly remarkable.
Arguably, the new era dawned when GreenWorks Development turned the enormous Evangelical Press Building into beautiful classroom space. Down the street, Midtown Scholar then remade a forlorn retail strip into one of the best independent bookstores in the country. Two blocks away, H*MAC took on the daunting challenge of reviving the shuttered, sprawling PAL building, resulting in an extraordinary transformation into a live music venue, restaurant and bar.
The list continues: ModernRugs, Susquehanna Art Museum, Pursuit/Union Lofts, Carpets & Draperies, COBA, Millworks. On that day 15 years ago, I walked past all of these buildings, which, at the time, were unused, unloved and falling apart.
Even better—these have all been discrete projects, not done by some mega-developer or large corporation, but, one by one, by local people who have poured their time, dollars and souls into them.
So, yeah, sometimes I need to slap myself out of my funk. Am I upset that, for the nth straight year, the 200-year-old Balsley House downtown continues to deteriorate? I sure am. But we need to celebrate our wins, too—and those wins have been real and substantial.
As he introduced the 2024 version of “Preservation Priorities,” Historic Harrisburg Executive Director David Morrison explained why his organization undertakes this exercise each year.
“By compiling this list and publicizing it, it has played a very significant role in encouraging these important properties to be preserved,” he said. “When we publicize them, sometimes it spurs the owner into doing something about it. Sometimes, it spurs somebody to look into purchasing the property. So, it’s a very effective tool for promoting historic preservation.”
Agreed. Now, let’s take it from here, Harrisburg.
Lawrance Binda is publisher and editor of TheBurg.
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