Wilkes Barre/ Ashley area - looking to purchase a home (Scranton: appointed, for sale)

[hanni1077]

Hello,

My husband and I are looking into purchasing a property close to the intersection of Ashley St and N Main St - also close to Ashley's Firemen Memorial Park.
We live in NYC and the only data we have of the area for now is what we found on the net.
We would like to know how safe that specific neighborhood is, also if it would be easy to find renters for the property. We would appreciate any info on the area and the town of Ashley and Wilkes Barre.
Thank you for your time!

[SteelCityRising]

Originally Posted by hanni1077

Hello,

My husband and I are looking into purchasing a property close to the intersection of Ashley St and N Main St - also close to Ashley's Firemen Memorial Park.
We live in NYC and the only data we have of the area for now is what we found on the net.
We would like to know how safe that specific neighborhood is, also if it would be easy to find renters for the property. We would appreciate any info on the area and the town of Ashley and Wilkes Barre.
Thank you for your time!

Good morning!

Ashley is a very economically-depressed old coal mining town just to the south of Wilkes-Barre. Crime is rather uncommon here, although there was just a tire-slashing vandalism spree a couple of weeks ago on streets very near to the intersection you cited. Ashley has a very high concentration of elderly people who have lived in the same homesteads for generations. The middle-aged folks are mostly blue-collars, many of whom work at the nearby Hanover Industrial Park. They may certainly be a bit rough around the edges, but they'd be the first to have you over to their SuperBowl parties while offering you a few beers or to throw a charity bike ride for you if a relative was diagnosed with an expensive illness. Most younger people move out of Ashley after high school, with some first attending college locally at either the nearby community college or a four-year university before high-tailing it out. The population has been declining very steadily as a result.

You should probably come visit and make your own judgments. The town looks very depressing, but overall it's not a bad place to live. A lot of people in Ashley have simply fallen on hard economic times and can't afford to upkeep their homes as they should to keep the community looking vibrant. There is also a hulking old coal breaker (the Huber Breaker to be precise) along Main Street at the end of town. There were plans to convert this into some sort of museum/tourist trap that might have helped to draw some vitality back into the borough, but I don't know the status of that project.

Member ashley19 has been enduring some personal battles of her own, for which we have all kept her and her husband in our prayers, but I think she lives in adjacent Hanover Township and could probably fill you in on Ashley much better than I could, as she still does scan the boards. I'm most certainly not going to dissuade you from moving to that area, but you may be disappointed by what you see. A lot of homes are in need of exterior overhauls.

As far as neighboring Wilkes-Barre is concerned, a new mayor has been bringing positive change to the Diamond City (pop. 40,000). A few years ago the local media was all abuzz when Mayor Thomas Leighton said that he'd soon be making one of the largest announcements in the city's history. He kicked it off with a public press conference, and it was breaking news all over the places. Some thought he was going to announce that a Hard Rock Cafe was coming or that Wilkes-Barre would be hosting The Olympics. Others thought that a generous benefactor had pumped millions into the city's treasury to be spent on capital improvement projects. Instead he merely unveiled his new "I Believe" campaign, in which he aimed to transform the embittered Wilkes-Barre residents into once again having hope that their city could rise from the ashes like the Phoenix. Initially people were disappointed by the lackluster announcement, but now seemingly everyone is embracing it. I see "I Believe" posters in windows all over town, on bumper stickers all over cars, and even in some residential front lawns.

Wilkes-Barre's rebirth has been largely focused in its downtown area, which, by my estimation, will become a much nicer environment overall than Downtown Scranton over the course of the next five years (unless Scranton's officials and developers get off their duffs and kick some of their long-stalled projects into gear). The new Riverfront Park will be completed in under a year, featuring two portals in the levee wall that will permit downtown visitors to stroll right up to the riverbanks. It was just announced that the stalled Hotel Sterling and Murray Complex mixed-use projects are now going to be heading forwards. King's College and Wilkes University continue to accept record enrollments and continue to expand---King's is so desperate for new space that they house some overflow students in downtown hotels and shuttle them back and forth, and a half-block of blighted buildings along North Main Street will soon be torn down to make way for a new mixed-use project. Victorian-era streetlights grace city streets. A new movie theater downtown is now turning a good profit margin. As the city's downtown continues to blossom, its adjacent neighborhoods will likewise become much more attractive and will begin to become gentrified. As of right now there are trouble spots for crime in parts of The Heights and South Wilkes-Barre, but over the next 5-10 years as the mayor continues to beef up the police force a lot of the riffraff should continue to head out (likely to Scranton, where their mayor licks his lips at the prospect of cutting public safety to balance the budget).

As far as finding renters is concerned, you can always put up an ad on the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre CraigsList featuring your property.

Here is an image I snapped from MSN Virtual Earth of the neighborhood in question:



As you can see it is your typical small PA town.

[W-B proud]

Yah I agree. Ashley is a sleepy old coal mining town that borders Wilkes-Barre. Alot of the homes are outdated, but that's where people like yopu come in, and fix em up, and rent em out. If you are from NYC, then prepare for a drastic change, because Ashley has nothing in common with NYC. If you are looking for a quiet laid back small town atmosphere, I think Ashley will do the job. You should'nt have any problems finding renters, but make sure you screen them first (we don't need anymore riff-raff) for your own good and the town's good. Anyway, good luck with your endevour. Keep us posted on the progress.

[Southwb]

There is not much there, cute but boring in a sense, kinda like Nanticoke and Shickshinny, if you want a little more to do try Wilkes-Barre like some part of South Wilkes-Barre are lovely. Or try Pittston or Kingston. They are also very nice, there are lots of abandoned buildings wrecked by fires in Ashley which is pretty close in some parts to a noisy I-81. its overall a nice place to visit not live.

[ashley19]

I do live in Ashley almost in the spot that you are looking for. Ashley is a boring little town with a lot of foul mouth kids running around. Most do not take pride in their properties. I am set in the back, surrounded by woods so I do not really see what is going around in the town or do not know the best streets. My friend just moved to West Hartford Street about a year ago and she seems to like it. I believe that there are a few houses there for sale. One is only a 2 bedroom and the other is very cheap but needs a lot of work. The houses are usually very close together. Luckily, I am not very close to anyone. There is one house in front of me but we do not even go out the front to see them. The streets down towards Newtown seem a little more quieter. It gets worse as you get closer to Wilkes-Barre. You may want to look into Carey's Patch but there are kids running all around the streets there. You are always going to have some bad neighbors no matter where you go. I looked at a house on cook Street about 3 years ago and that seems like a pretty nice street. If there is anything specific I can help you with, you can leave me a message and I can try to find you the answers. Good luck.