I grew up on the West Shore. That’s where I lived all of my life until eight years ago, when my husband and I bought a house in the city. Then we became East Shore people.
Even to this day, though, we think nothing of making the crossing. I’d grown up travelling over the river to visit family, go shopping, work and play.
Since I grew up around here, I know my willingness to make the trip back and forth is not one that everyone shares.
A lot of people on the East Shore scoff at going to the West Shore, and many on the West feel the same about heading to the East. To the opposing view, the other place is alien and confusing except for maybe a few key destinations like Wegman’s or Hersheypark.
To point out that it’s less than a mile from shore to shore is enough to invite scorn. People feel discomfort, distaste and dislike at the mere thought of making the passage. So, unless they have to, they never do.
It’s called the East Shore, West Shore divide.
This is a phenomenon that initially confounds people who are not from around here. For one, they have no inherent understanding of it. Secondly, from the outside looking in, the short distance over the river is really an insignificant interference.
No matter, though. Transplants to this region quickly learn that East Shore, West Shore is a very real thing.
Quite literally, the East Shore is made up of the municipalities located along the east bank of the Susquehanna River, and the West Shore is the boroughs and townships situated along the west.
Sometimes, it’s misunderstood that East Shore means Dauphin County and West Shore means Cumberland County. Yes, technically those territories are correct. But the “East Shore, West Shore thing” isn’t that widespread throughout the counties.
People in the northern tier of Dauphin County and those in Shippensburg (the first settlement in Cumberland County) probably don’t think of themselves as East Shore, West Shore in the same way as people from Derry Township and Hampden Township do.
The farther away you get from the river, the less apt you are to hear the term.
East Shore, West Shore. So what does it mean?
Well, if you’re born and raised in the area like me, you’re expected to innately know what the division means. However, when asked to define the great divide, most people are hard-pressed to articulate the distinctions between the two shores.
If you do press them, though, you may get mumbled responses about the different airs of “those people” over there. There are distinct impressions that one side is better than the other and that the people who live “on that side” are better or less than, too.
The West Shore tends to have a stigma for elitism and conventionalism, newer homes, box stores and chain restaurants built on diminishing farmland. The East Shore is thought to be stagnant and outdated, a network of curved highways and stale malls.
The East Shore has the added dynamic of including the City of Harrisburg.
Regardless of the benefits the city indisputably contains, its recent fiscal woes, continued dramatized politics, and dilapidating infrastructure have tainted the East Shore’s reputation.
The gap of river and county allows the West Shore to act distant from the region’s urban core, and, in several aspects, even pull away from it.
Of course, that has exacerbated the East Shore, West Shore divide.
When I ask my grandparents about the “East Shore, West Shore thing,” they tell me it’s how it’s always been, although not as antagonistic as it came to be today.
They both grew up in the region. They bought their first house on Greenwood Street in Allison Hill in 1953. They lived there with their four children before moving to Susquehanna Township in 1966 in a house they still live in.
They’ve seen a lot of Harrisburg in their time. They’ve seen the city’s evolution over 70 years. They’ve seen the area expand and the region grow.
They talk about living in the city so long ago. They talk about the neighborhoods, businesses and people who used to be here. They talk about the development of the suburbs.
They also talk about racial tensions, Hurricane Agnes devastation and the blight of a neglected city.
They say it has all exacerbated the East Shore, West Shore divide.
“The East Shore, West Shore thing has a lot to do with the city more than anything else,” my grandfather says.
He may be right about the divide that exists today.
But, at one time, more people thought nothing of travelling east to west and west to east, coming and going through the city. The relationship of the sides of the river was one of fluid reciprocity.
If it was like that once, it can happen again.
In fact, it seems the reconstruction of Harrisburg could help make that occur. If we focused positively on the city again, we’d probably see a good bit of the “East Shore, West Shore thing” disappear.
Tara Leo Auchey is creator and editor of today’s the day Harrisburg, www.todaysthedayhbg.com.
