What's wrong with Pittston? (Scranton, Wilkes-Barre: condo, townhouse, landscaping)

[njmike]

Scranton has been getting a lot of negative threads lately so let's start with another town/city. Any comments?

[John From Scranton]

Originally Posted by njmike

Scranton has been getting a lot of negative threads lately so let's start with another town/city. Any comments?

Well for one they waste a lot of food!! There is a lot of people starving in this world and all they care about it throwing tomato’s at each other.

[njmike]

Originally Posted by John From Scranton

Well for one they waste a lot of food!! There is a lot of people starving in this world and all they care about it throwing tomato’s at each other.

Are the tomatos safe to eat with the river being so close and with the flooding carrying the mud into the gardens?

[njmike]

I have to admit I haven't been to Pittston in a number of years but the last time I was there it was negelected and run down and I've had no desire to go back. Maybe the residents and politicians of Pittston should make it a "model city/town" for the rest of the area.

[SteelCityRising]

Pittston is actually starting to make a slow yet noticeable comeback. The city's zoning officer has been much more aggressively tackling urban blight, a portion of the Mohegan Sun gaming tax revenues went to fund the gorgeous new street scape project that is currently underway in Center City (complete with brick crosswalks, Victorian-era streetlights with wreaths, landscaping, underground wiring, etc.), and several new businesses have recently opened or will soon be opening, including Quinn's Shur-Save Supermarket, a Turkey Hill, an Irish pub (Dooley's), a coffee house (City Perk), an antiques store, and several more (That was a LONG run-on sentence, heyna or no?!) Whenever developer Dan Siniawa gets off his lazy rear-end the city's waterfront will be complemented by two large upscale condo towers sandwiched between Kennedy Boulevard and Riverfront Park. A few homes along South Main Street between "the fork in the road" and downtown are being restored. Newer vehicles line the sides of the streets in front of homes on William Street, and a portion of the Stauffer Pointe upscale townhouse community will jut into the city's tax base (although the majority is in my own hometown of Pittston Township). The city also has an IDEAL location equidistant to Scranton or Wilkes-Barre, a riverfront setting, and a mountain backdrop---all right near to I-81, I-476, and the airport.

Pittston's biggest struggle has been with urban sp-r--a---w----l. The city has gone from a peak population of 21,000 to just 7,000 while adjacent suburbs like Laflin, Yatesville, Pittston Township, and Jenkins Township continue to grow. There's so many new housing developments sprouting up around here that I can't keep track of them---our housing market in the Pittston Area School District is apparently bucking the national recession. New big-box stores are coming to Pittston Township in 2009 and 2010. The Center Point project, at full-build out, should be bringing several thousand jobs to Pittston Township. Highway 315 has become increasingly congested with each passing year and is only expected to continue to become gridlocked at rush-hour even more as the new big-box stores, major employers, and housing developments continue to spring up.

You know what's saddest of all? The Greater Pittston Chamber of Commerce has abandoned downtown renewal initiatives in favor of promoting this urban sprawl. The city has decimated much of its historic architecture over the years in favor of fast-food restaurants, drive-thru banks, drive-thru drug stores, etc.---all the results of idiotic leadership of "progress as promised." Why do you think people FLOCK to places like Honesdale, Hawley, Tunkhannock, Wyalusing, Jim Thorpe, Lewisburg, etc.? People ENJOY being able to stroll an old-fashioned Main Street. Pittston SHOULD have seen this as well, but instead present and former mayors turn a blind eye to long-range urban planning. Ex-mayor Michael Lombardo actually did the BEST job out of the city's current mayor and his predecessor; his only blunder was NOT doing more to save the ornate Borr & Casey Building from getting hit with the wrecking ball in favor of "progress as promised" (a muddy parking lot still sits on the same corner where that beautiful building used to be).

[John From Scranton]

Originally Posted by njmike

I have to admit I haven't been to Pittston in a number of years but the last time I was there it was negelected and run down and I've had no desire to go back. Maybe the residents and politicians of Pittston should make it a "model city/town" for the rest of the area.

It's been some time for me also.. I havent been there in a few years. But I did see on the news when they were having the tomato party. They used some kind of a big tarp to cover a whole building they didnt want people that were visting there to see..

[SteelCityRising]

Originally Posted by njmike

Are the tomatos safe to eat with the river being so close and with the flooding carrying the mud into the gardens?

Pittston sits "high and dry." West Pittston always floods. I'm not sure how accurate this is, but I was told that residents actually FOUGHT former plans for a levee because it would ruin their riverfront views in the historic area. Susquehanna Avenue is REPLETE with gorgeous Victorian mansions (please see my Garden Village Photo Tour for evidence of this). Pittston never floods.

[SteelCityRising]

Originally Posted by John From Scranton

It's been some time for me also.. I havent been there in a few years. But I did see on the news when they were having the tomato party. They used some kind of a big tarp to cover a whole building they didnt want people that were visting there to see..

You mean this one?



The building has FINALLY been torn down. They threw up that tarp so as to not draw the attention of tourists to it during the Tomato Festival in what I believe was either 2005 or 2006 when the buildings collapsed into the street. The city was so poor at the time they didn't even have emergency funds to raze them! Now it sits as an empty lot---one of many on our once charming main drag.

[njmike]

Whether it's Pittston or West Pittston, I still have no desire to go back to either. What I've seen makes Scranton look ultra-modern.

[SteelCityRising]

Originally Posted by njmike

I have to admit I haven't been to Pittston in a number of years but the last time I was there it was negelected and run down and I've had no desire to go back. Maybe the residents and politicians of Pittston should make it a "model city/town" for the rest of the area.

Pittston is trying to make a comeback. Hey, the city's residents voted so heavily in favor of Sen. Obama that we were the most heavily-Democratic community out of the 76 in Luzerne County this year!


Looks much better from the air, heyna or no?