What will the future look like?
Recently, New York Times columnist Gail Collins considered that question as she looked back with bemusement to the 1964 World’s Fair, which opened 50 years ago this spring.
It was a hopeful time, she wrote, and many exhibits celebrated American ingenuity and technical can-do. There was a “Tent of Tomorrow,” a “Carousel of Progress” and a “Futurama” exhibit.
The World’s Fair postulated that America’s great cities would be even greater, just different. Architecture would be sleek and soaring; cars would fly; moving walkways would connect buildings.
It didn’t pan out that way.
In truth, the die already had been cast for the rapid decline of the American city. Since the 1940s, government policies had favored the suburban cul-de-sac over the urban neighborhood; the car over mass transit; the highway over the block. By 1964, these patterns were well established, and once-teeming cities were emptying out fast.
I read this column while sitting in the middle of one of the cities most devastated by post-industrial decline, Harrisburg. I was eating lunch in Yellow Bird Café in Midtown when I picked up a copy of the Times, which someone had left in the lounge area near the entrance of the cozy eatery.
Out the window, I saw the open lots across 3rd Street. A hundred years ago, these three large blocks contained dozens of Victorian-era buildings, most commercial—stores, bars, eateries—that made up the heart of Midtown across from the Broad Street Market. After the war, business slowed then slowed more. One by one, the shops closed, with the buildings falling to ruin. Over time, the city razed the properties.
Today, the first empty field is owned by Radnor, Pa.-based Kidder Wilkes LP, which bought it in 2005 and has done nothing with it except mow the grass. Several people own parts of the second. The third is a city parking lot, where the only structure is a big trash dumpster.
No flying machines. No jetpacks. No pneumatic tubes. Nothing but for some squirrels, a few birds, a pile of dumped gravel and a collection of litter.
That’s the city of the present.
But, peering out at this bleak scene, I suddenly felt myself caught in a time warp. I was reading about the past while sitting amid the sad present—but I had a strange sense that I was staring at a much better future.
Marked Improvement
By design, I’m neither an optimist nor a pessimist. I consider myself a realist. So, to me, here’s the reality of where we stand.
It’s not good. It’s not bad, either. Harrisburg is a city in transition.
Now, some old-timers might say that Harrisburg has been a city in transition forever, and they’d have a point. As I’ve written before, my late friend Ronn Fink, the long-time owner of the Bare Wall Gallery, had that opinion and didn’t hesitate to share it with me. Near the end of his life, he clearly was jaded by the struggle, by Harrisburg’s frustrating two-steps-forward, almost-two steps back routine.
That said: If you could time-lapse the city over 40 years, you would see marked improvement from the 1970s low point, when people were fleeing and downtown closed down after dark. Since then, Harrisburg has tried to put itself back together piece by painstaking piece.
So, glancing out the window of Yellow Bird, yes, I saw three large, empty lots. But, in the distance, on the fourth lot, I could see the last surviving building on that long stretch between N. 3rd and 6th streets—the Stokes Millworks building.
Currently, that sprawling former factory, which had fallen into dilapidation, is undergoing a complete renovation and, later this year, will reopen as a farm-to-table restaurant with art space and a beer garden. The artist studios, in fact, have been pre-rented for months already, with demand far outstripping supply.
Down the street, the new Susquehanna Art Museum is rising, and, a few doors from there, Emma Newman recently opened her new salon. Across the street, both a creamery and a brewery are being carved out of the long-empty space at the rear of Midtown Cinema, itself recently upgraded.
These are all substantial businesses run by committed and veteran entrepreneurs, who are making huge investments to bring Harrisburg something more, something better, and to get people into the city. Unlike some past efforts, they’re not wobbly operations built on a framework of hope and bounced checks, something that Ronn had repeatedly seen—and had come to expect whenever a new business opened.
Moreover, this time around, the government isn’t taking the lead. For decades, former Mayor Steve Reed tried to conjure money into existence to fund his favored projects in an economic development strategy based on a bizarre blend of centralized planning and magical realism. The merits of that approach are now being weighed by a grand jury in Pittsburgh.
Leaning Forward
To me, the evidence points to a city slowly reassembling itself after a near-breakdown. The investments—and others not mentioned above—would not be made unless these businesspeople saw Harrisburg as a good place to open.
Furthermore, success breeds success. That’s why I had an eerie sense of gazing at a hopeful future. If these enterprises work, Midtown Harrisburg—the heart of the city—would become more of a destination for foodies and art lovers and beer geeks and tourists. Why would it stop there?
Ultimately, the fate of Harrisburg’s comeback depends on demand. Right now, a few businesspeople are leaning forward, taking considerable risk on major projects amid the fields and battered buildings of Midtown. Once customer demand is established, others will follow. Over the past couple of decades, early entrepreneurs have paved the way for the more risk-averse in cities across America.
So, Harrisburg may never get its googie buildings, underwater hotels or robot waitresses. But, in the course of a few blocks, its about to get a new museum, restaurants, an art center, a brewery and more. Staring out across 3rd Street, I felt that to be a pretty strong case for optimism.
Lawrance Binda is editor-in-chief of TheBurg.
