Strollin' On An April Afternoon ...

“Spring won’t let me stay in this house any longer! I must get out and breathe the air deeply again.”

~ Gustav Mahler

~ 1860-1911

~ Austro-Bohemian Romantic composer

This late April afternoon sings of spring as a girl and her dog stroll down a path at Lehigh Parkway, Allentown, Pennsylvania, about to walk under the Interstate 78 bridge that drapes above the peaceful parkway in this HDR image.

The busy interstate that drives above the bucolic setting is an interesting juxtaposition, but the bridge does nothing to detract from the serene paths, natural scenery and the Little Lehigh Creek, seen at right, that flows through the length of the parkway.

Interstate 78 is an east-west highway running 144 miles from northeast of Harrisburg through Allentown in Pennsylvania, and western and northern New Jersey to the Holland Tunnel and Lower Manhattan in New York City.

 

 

 

History Hops ...

“I love the nostalgic myself. I hope we never lose some of the things of the past.”

            ~ Walt Disney

             ~1901-1966

The historic Neuweiler Brewery is soaked in spring sunshine on an April afternoon in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

 

I presented the image in sepia to enhance the nostalgic mood.

 

Also known as Germania Brewery, Neuweiler’s is an historic brewery complex built between 1911 & 1913, and consists of the office building, brew house, stock house, pump house, wash house, chemistry lab building, boiler room, bottling house, garage, fermenting cellar and smokestack with the name “Neuweiler” on it. The office building is a two-story, brick and granite building. The remaining buildings in the complex are built of brick. The brew house stands six-stories, and has a copper hipped roof with cupola. The stock house is a long, narrow four-story building. The brewery closed in 1968.

 

Today, although the buildings have been vacant and/or underutilized since the brewery’s closing, the towering structure and copper cupola atop the brew house has been an iconic part of the city’s skyline for nearly 100 years, symbolizing Allentown’s rich industrial history.

Neuweiler’s was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. The site is currently listed on Preservation Pennsylvania’s “Pennsylvania at Risk” list.

 

Unfortunately, the structure has fallen into disrepair and has been vandalized with graffiti. Hopefully, it will be redeveloped and returned to its former glory.

 

Thanks to Neuweiler’s, history really “hops” in Allentown!

 

Summertime At Geiger's Covered Bridge ...

“Summertime, and the livin’ is easy ...

 ~ “Summertime”

 ~ composed by George Gershwin in 1934

 for the 1935 opera “Porgy & Bess”

~ performed by such jazz greats as

 Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong,

 Sarah Vaughan & Billie Holiday

It’s summertime and the livin’ is easy at Geiger’s Covered Bridge on the warm, lazy and lush July evening – quintessential summer – I captured this HDR scene that beckons you to stop and soak in the splendor of my most favorite of seasons in this picturesque postcard of summer’s beauty.

 

Geiger’s Covered Bridge is an historic wooden covered bridge in North Whitehall Township. It is a 112-foot-long Burr Truss bridge, constructed in 1860. It has vertical plank siding and an entry portal of stepped square planks. It crosses the Jordan Creek and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. It can be accessed from The Covered Bridge Trail of Trexler Nature Preserve, Schnecksville, Pennsylvania.