What passed for a vacation this summer was a weekend trip to Allentown and Bethlehem. Not, one might say, the most idyllic of vacations, but it was superb all the same.
Underlying the entire weekend is that I got to stay in what must be one of the premier estates of the entire Lehigh Valley, home to friends Richard and Frank. This is the kind of gorgeous ‘20s mansion that sells for a song nowadays, because the people that can afford to live in this sort of thing no longer want to live anywhere except New York or some overpopulated beach. When “Sunset Acres” was finished in 1929, local industrial barons lived in the town that made them wealthy. Now, outside interests just bleed these towns dry and live elsewhere, never seeing the town that makes them rich.
Sunset Acres is something else, though. It’s not too imposing from the outside—it’s meant to look like a grand version of an old Pennsylvania farmhouse—but when you get inside and discover the ballroom, library, morning room and tack room, not to mention the acre-sized dining room-- you realize that you’re on a different plane of existence. And the pool helps. Pennsylvania isn’t supposed to be as steamy as Maryland, but it is, and my God, the pool helps.
Aside from playing Manor House guest, I got to spend a good chunk of Saturday in my beloved Allentown. Like most cities its size, A-town has taken a nasty hit from America’s deindustrialization. And, natch, all the locals think that downtown is dangerous and scary.
I LOVE walking around Allentown. It might be run down and faded, but damnit, I did not see one piece of trash blowing in the street. Baltimore’s most elegant neighborhoods have blue grocery bags drifting down the sidewalks and yesterday’s SUN clogging the gutters. Allentown’s most bombed-out section has flower urns hanging from the streetlights.
After lunch and a few drinks at the Hotel Traylor—my Adresse du Choix in Allentown—I migrated to the nifty old 19th Street Theatre to see “The Jazz Singer”. The theatre management wisely decided that, besides Mr. Jolson’s singing, the Warner soundtrack was crap, and so they turned on the Vitaphone only for Jolson’s singing parts, and used the theatre’s beautiful Moller organ to cue the rest of the picture. An infinite improvement, in my book.
I also found some very stylish houses for sale on Linden street. Hmm—perhaps I could live on that side of the Mason-Dixon line.
Underlying the entire weekend is that I got to stay in what must be one of the premier estates of the entire Lehigh Valley, home to friends Richard and Frank. This is the kind of gorgeous ‘20s mansion that sells for a song nowadays, because the people that can afford to live in this sort of thing no longer want to live anywhere except New York or some overpopulated beach. When “Sunset Acres” was finished in 1929, local industrial barons lived in the town that made them wealthy. Now, outside interests just bleed these towns dry and live elsewhere, never seeing the town that makes them rich.
Sunset Acres is something else, though. It’s not too imposing from the outside—it’s meant to look like a grand version of an old Pennsylvania farmhouse—but when you get inside and discover the ballroom, library, morning room and tack room, not to mention the acre-sized dining room-- you realize that you’re on a different plane of existence. And the pool helps. Pennsylvania isn’t supposed to be as steamy as Maryland, but it is, and my God, the pool helps.
Aside from playing Manor House guest, I got to spend a good chunk of Saturday in my beloved Allentown. Like most cities its size, A-town has taken a nasty hit from America’s deindustrialization. And, natch, all the locals think that downtown is dangerous and scary.
I LOVE walking around Allentown. It might be run down and faded, but damnit, I did not see one piece of trash blowing in the street. Baltimore’s most elegant neighborhoods have blue grocery bags drifting down the sidewalks and yesterday’s SUN clogging the gutters. Allentown’s most bombed-out section has flower urns hanging from the streetlights.
After lunch and a few drinks at the Hotel Traylor—my Adresse du Choix in Allentown—I migrated to the nifty old 19th Street Theatre to see “The Jazz Singer”. The theatre management wisely decided that, besides Mr. Jolson’s singing, the Warner soundtrack was crap, and so they turned on the Vitaphone only for Jolson’s singing parts, and used the theatre’s beautiful Moller organ to cue the rest of the picture. An infinite improvement, in my book.
I also found some very stylish houses for sale on Linden street. Hmm—perhaps I could live on that side of the Mason-Dixon line.
posted by Daniel | 12:00 AM
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