A neighbor in Lehigh Valley
Walt
Bethlehem · Lehigh Valley Buzz · 44 years
Walt retired from the steel office and never left the South Side. He can still point to the window he used to sit under. The stacks are a park now. He is not bitter about that. He just likes it when a new kitchen goes into an old building without pretending the building was always a kitchen.
He walks the creek when the leaves start to turn. He knows which mill street still has its brick and which one lost it. People ask him for directions as if he works here. In a way he still does.
The letters are how he keeps the South Side from becoming a postcard. One reader at a time, the real version.
What Walt likes to do
Creek walks in October, sitting at SteelStacks with a notebook, and watching old buildings get a second life without losing the first one.
Favorites around Bethlehem
Personal picks, not partners. None of these places asked to be here.
- Coffee
- The ArtsQuest cafe at SteelStacks. He likes the view of the stacks with a paper cup and no agenda.
- A walk
- Sand Island and the Monocacy, the loop that still smells like leaves in October.
- The market
- The Saturday market on the South Side, the one in the old mill buildings where he still sees people from the plant.
- A diner booth
- The diner on Third Street. Same booth. He does not need a menu.
- An event they never miss
- Christkindlmarkt. He goes at opening, says hello to two people, and leaves before the tour buses.
What Walt loves writing about
- Local history
- What's being built
- Out and about
The stacks are still the landmark. What changed is who walks toward them.
Walt, Bethlehem