Published in The Philadelphia Inquirer on August 9, 2009
The magic of Scranton
By Anne Supsic
For The Inquirer
SCRANTON - These days, it's best known as the setting of the quirky TV sitcom The Office, or as Electric City, because it operated the first electric trolley system.
But it was daredevil Harry Houdini who lured me here - and he's been dead for 83 years. Now, that's a magic trick.
It started as a day trip for my husband, Frank, and myself to explore the Houdini Museum - touted as the only building in the world devoted to the famous escapologist - with our grandson, Christopher, 12.
And it expanded to a Weekend Journey a few weeks later, to tour this city of more than 70,000 that's enjoying a cultural renaissance, with historic sites that celebrate the industrial past; glorious, restored buildings; and a vibrant ethnic diversity.
The inside of the Houdini Museum looks like a dusty antique store, but the jumble of exciting memorabilia lining the walls includes a milk can large enough to hide a magician, a collection of locks and handcuffs, and a well-worn straitjacket.
Houdini's legacy is kept alive by devoted proprietors Dick Brooks, who performs as Bravo the Great, and Dorothy Dietrich, billed as one of the world's leading female magicians. Brooks provides a detailed biography of the magician, from his birth as Ehrich Weiss in Budapest, Hungary, in 1874 to his mysterious death on Halloween in 1926 at age 52. And he injects little-known facts, such as that during World War I, Houdini taught U.S. soldiers how to escape from German handcuffs. As Houdini liked to say, "My brain is the key that sets me free."
Brooks leads us into the high-ceilinged theater, where we watch rare film footage of Houdini freeing himself from a straitjacket and surviving the famous Chinese Water Torture Cell. Exciting stuff, priming us for some live magic.
My husband and I do not expect much, but Bravo the Great and Dorothy put on a top-notch show, using doves, a rabbit, a duck, and two poodles. And they pull a boy out of the audience for an amazing levitation trick that my husband is still pondering.
Only one nagging question remains: What was Houdini's connection to Scranton? It turns out the Poli Theater was a popular stop on the vaudeville circuit, where Houdini joined such stars as Fred Astaire and Groucho Marx. In fact, Scranton supposedly was one of Houdini's favorite venues, so maybe he knew something about Scranton that was worth our making a return trip.
Mary Ann Moran Savakinus, director of the Lackawanna Historical Society, gives us the city's history in a nutshell: "The industrial boom was fueled by the holy trinity of iron, rail, and coal." In 1847, brothers Selden T. and George W. Scranton were the first to mass-produce iron rails in America. Their iron-manufacturing business was short-lived, but coal stayed hot. With local fields containing 85 percent of the world's anthracite coal, the family shifted to railroading to transport those "black diamonds" around the country.
By 1900, Scranton had grown into the 38th-largest city in the country, with a population of more than 100,000, and families such as the Scrantons had joined the so-called robber barons of the era.
But the city's story is not just about the wealthy. Industrial growth required labor, and immigrants poured into the city to fill the jobs. The Irish and the Welsh were among the earliest arrivals, followed by Eastern Europeans and Italians.
"Having mined anthracite coal in their native country, the Welsh were a perfect match for the Pennsylvania mines," Moran Savakinus says. "Back then, Scranton had the largest Welsh population outside of Wales itself."
After World War II, coal was displaced by cheaper fuels - oil and natural gas - and the city's fortunes faded.
The city boomed as a major rail hub in the late 1800s, with the most railroad tracks per square mile in the country. So we start our Weekend Journey at Steamtown, a national historic site.
Anchoring the heart of the compact downtown (about six square blocks), Steamtown is dedicated to preserving the era of the steam locomotive. It's a working roundhouse, where restored steam engines are serviced and prepared so tourists can ride authentic steam-powered trains.
On the one-hour Locomotive Workshop tour, a park ranger leads us into a restricted area - the workshop where these monster machines are maintained. My husband and a group of Boy Scouts are in grease-monkey heaven.
After the tour, we drop by one of Scranton's oldest lunch spots: Coney Island Lunch, serving Texas Wieners since 1923. The walls are covered with baseball paraphernalia, much of it devoted to the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees and their predecessors, the Red Barons, who were the top minor-league farm team for the Phillies until 2006. (For hockey fans, there are the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, affectionately called the Baby Penguins.)
The tiny Coney Island booths have seen a lot of action, and nothing much has changed since the 1950s. Prices are in a time warp, too - the yummy wieners, topped with spicy chili, are only $1.95.
We are staying at the Radisson Lackawanna Station Hotel, a charmingly renovated train station that was once the pride of the Scranton family's Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad.
The 1908 French Renaissance-style building was once described as one of the most beautiful train stations in the country. T he graceful lobby retains the classic train clock, a barrel-vaulted stained-glass ceiling, and Italian marble walls decorated with ceramic tiles depicting sites along the train routes.
This former train station is just one of the city's architectural gems. The coal and rail magnates left a legacy of impressive buildings, in styles from elaborate Gothic Revival to the clean lines of art deco. On summer Saturdays, the Lackawanna Historical Society offers walking tours for visitors to gaze at the grandeur.
Dining options reflect the city's immigrant past with lots of ethnic choices, including Italian restaurants and a fine selection of Irish pubs. For dinner, we stroll past the dramatic Courthouse Square and a towering neon sign that blares "Scranton the Electric City" over the skyline, to Thai Rak Thai. The nua nam tok (beef salad) and pad prik khing (spicy stir-fry) are as good as anything we've eaten in Thailand. And a woman sitting near us likes her red-curry dish enough to order a second bowl.
We top off the night at Kildare's, a hopping Irish pub that also has locations in Manayunk, West Chester, King of Prussia, and Newark, Del. Our cozy table is in an alcove appropriately called "the snug" - a spot where women and children used to wait while the menfolk downed a pint or two at the bar. Live music is due to start at 10 p.m., but after a Guinness-on-tap nightcap, we are ready to curl up in our Sleep Number adjustable bed, a first-time hotel amenity for us.
A train whistle wakes me up. I think I must be dreaming, but a look out the window confirms that trains still roll on these rails.
On this bright, sunny day, we are headed underground. At the Lackawanna Coal Mine, we board a low-slung, yellow coal car and descend into the dark - about 300 feet down Lackawanna Slope 190. After a ride that feels like a slow, creaky roller coaster, a former coal miner guides us through a small portion of the 40 miles of dank tunnels.
I find myself humming that old favorite, Working in a Coal Mine ("Goin' down, down, down"). But coal mining was no day at the beach. It was backbreaking work - dirty, dark, and dangerous. Miners crawled into "monkey veins," only two to three feet high, where they shoveled coal for 12 hours a day. Ten-year-old boys worked in the shafts from sunup to sundown, tending to mules and coal cars. We emerge into the welcome sunlight with a new appreciation for those who powered our modern age.
Not wanting our Weekend Journey to end, we stop at Old Forge, about five miles southwest of Scranton. The pizzeria-filled neighborhood is known as "the Pizza Capital of the World," and we enjoy a few "cuts" of the savory, rectangular pies at Revello's Cafe.
There's so much more that we didn't get to see or do in Scranton and the surrounding Lackawanna County countryside: the city's Trolley Museum and the Lion Brewery in Wilkes-Barre; hiking in Nay Aug Park, fishing in 198-acre Lackawanna Lake; and skiing and snowboarding at Elk and Snö mountains.
I guess Harry Houdini was right - Scranton really is a black diamond in the rough.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Scranton: From Magic to Mines
Things to do
For magical thrills, check out the Houdini Museum (1433 N. Main Ave.). Admission: $14.95. Information: 570-342-5555, www.houdini.org. Call for reservations.
Exhibits at Steamtown National Historic Site (Lackawanna and Cliff Avenues) re-create the era of steam engines. Plan to spend at least two to three hours. Admission: $6 (free for children 16 and under), plus $3 for a short train ride. Information: 570-340-5200; 570-340-5204 for train-ride reservations; www.nps.gov/stea/index.htm.
Also at Steamtown, take a trolley ride at the Electric City Trolley Museum between May and October. Information: 570-963-6590, www.ectma.org.
The Lackawanna Coal Mine (on Bald Mountain Road in McDade Park) will make you appreciate your above-ground job. Bundle up - it's about 53 degrees year-round. Admission: $10, adults; $7.50, children 3-12. Information: 570-963-6463, www.lackawannacounty.org/attractions_coal.asp.
For a better understanding of immigrant life in Scranton, visit the Pennsylvania Anthracite Heritage Museum (next to the Lackawanna Coal Mine). Admission: $6, adults; $4, children 3-11. Information: 570-963-4804, www.anthracitemuseum.org.
Sports fans can catch a minor-league baseball game with the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees in Moosic (570-969-2255, www.swbyankees.com) and a minor-league hockey game with the Baby Penguins in Wilkes-Barre (570-208-7367, www.wbspenguins.com).
Satisfy your thirst and tour the Lion Brewery (700 N. Pennsylvania Ave., Wilkes-Barre). Information: 1-800-233-8327, www.lionbrewery.com.
Grab your fishing rod or hiking boots and head to Lackawanna State Park, 10 miles north of the city. Information: 1-888-727-2757, www.dcnr.state.pa.us/stateparks/parks/lackawanna.aspx.
Gaze into a gorge or swim and try the water slides ($5 per person) at Nay Aug Park (1901 Mulberry St.). Information: 570-348-4186, www.scrantonpa.gov/nayaug_park.html.
During the winter, hit the slopes at Elk Mountain (570-679-4400, www.elkskier.com) and Snö Mountain (570-969-7669, www.snomtn.com).
Places to stay
We stayed in a lovely room at the Radisson Lackawanna Station Hotel (700 Lackawanna Ave., 1-888-201-1718, www.radisson.com/scrantonpa.
Another downtown option is the Hilton Scranton & Conference Center (100 Adams Ave., 1-866-539-0036, www.hilton.com).
Places to eat
Breakfast in the Radisson's elegant former train-station lobby is a must. The hotel's Carmen's Ristorante offers a breakfast buffet ($10.95) and a legendary Sunday brunch ($25.95).
Good lunch options include Coney Island Lunch (515 Lackawanna Ave., 570-961-9004, www.texas-wiener.com); the Glider, a classic diner not far from the Houdini Museum, (890 Providence Rd., 570-343-8036, www.gliderdiner.com); and the pizzerias of the Old Forge neighborhood, particularly Revello's Café (502 S. Main St., 570-457-9843).
For dinner, bring a bottle of gewurztraminer to Thai Rak Thai (349 Adams Ave., 570-344-2240, www.thairakthaiusa.com), since it's BYOB. Reservations suggested.
More Information
Lackawanna County Convention and Visitor's Bureau
1-800-229-3526
www.visitnepa.org
Lackawanna Historical Society
The Caitlin House
232 Monroe Ave.
570-344-3841
www.lackawannahistory.org
- Anne Supsic
The magic of Scranton
By Anne Supsic
For The Inquirer
SCRANTON - These days, it's best known as the setting of the quirky TV sitcom The Office, or as Electric City, because it operated the first electric trolley system.
It started as a day trip for my husband, Frank, and myself to explore the Houdini Museum - touted as the only building in the world devoted to the famous escapologist - with our grandson, Christopher, 12.
And it expanded to a Weekend Journey a few weeks later, to tour this city of more than 70,000 that's enjoying a cultural renaissance, with historic sites that celebrate the industrial past; glorious, restored buildings; and a vibrant ethnic diversity.
The inside of the Houdini Museum looks like a dusty antique store, but the jumble of exciting memorabilia lining the walls includes a milk can large enough to hide a magician, a collection of locks and handcuffs, and a well-worn straitjacket.
Houdini's legacy is kept alive by devoted proprietors Dick Brooks, who performs as Bravo the Great, and Dorothy Dietrich, billed as one of the world's leading female magicians. Brooks provides a detailed biography of the magician, from his birth as Ehrich Weiss in Budapest, Hungary, in 1874 to his mysterious death on Halloween in 1926 at age 52. And he injects little-known facts, such as that during World War I, Houdini taught U.S. soldiers how to escape from German handcuffs. As Houdini liked to say, "My brain is the key that sets me free."
Brooks leads us into the high-ceilinged theater, where we watch rare film footage of Houdini freeing himself from a straitjacket and surviving the famous Chinese Water Torture Cell. Exciting stuff, priming us for some live magic.
My husband and I do not expect much, but Bravo the Great and Dorothy put on a top-notch show, using doves, a rabbit, a duck, and two poodles. And they pull a boy out of the audience for an amazing levitation trick that my husband is still pondering.
Only one nagging question remains: What was Houdini's connection to Scranton? It turns out the Poli Theater was a popular stop on the vaudeville circuit, where Houdini joined such stars as Fred Astaire and Groucho Marx. In fact, Scranton supposedly was one of Houdini's favorite venues, so maybe he knew something about Scranton that was worth our making a return trip.
Mary Ann Moran Savakinus, director of the Lackawanna Historical Society, gives us the city's history in a nutshell: "The industrial boom was fueled by the holy trinity of iron, rail, and coal." In 1847, brothers Selden T. and George W. Scranton were the first to mass-produce iron rails in America. Their iron-manufacturing business was short-lived, but coal stayed hot. With local fields containing 85 percent of the world's anthracite coal, the family shifted to railroading to transport those "black diamonds" around the country.
By 1900, Scranton had grown into the 38th-largest city in the country, with a population of more than 100,000, and families such as the Scrantons had joined the so-called robber barons of the era.
But the city's story is not just about the wealthy. Industrial growth required labor, and immigrants poured into the city to fill the jobs. The Irish and the Welsh were among the earliest arrivals, followed by Eastern Europeans and Italians.
"Having mined anthracite coal in their native country, the Welsh were a perfect match for the Pennsylvania mines," Moran Savakinus says. "Back then, Scranton had the largest Welsh population outside of Wales itself."
After World War II, coal was displaced by cheaper fuels - oil and natural gas - and the city's fortunes faded.
The city boomed as a major rail hub in the late 1800s, with the most railroad tracks per square mile in the country. So we start our Weekend Journey at Steamtown, a national historic site.
Anchoring the heart of the compact downtown (about six square blocks), Steamtown is dedicated to preserving the era of the steam locomotive. It's a working roundhouse, where restored steam engines are serviced and prepared so tourists can ride authentic steam-powered trains.
On the one-hour Locomotive Workshop tour, a park ranger leads us into a restricted area - the workshop where these monster machines are maintained. My husband and a group of Boy Scouts are in grease-monkey heaven.
After the tour, we drop by one of Scranton's oldest lunch spots: Coney Island Lunch, serving Texas Wieners since 1923. The walls are covered with baseball paraphernalia, much of it devoted to the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees and their predecessors, the Red Barons, who were the top minor-league farm team for the Phillies until 2006. (For hockey fans, there are the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, affectionately called the Baby Penguins.)
The tiny Coney Island booths have seen a lot of action, and nothing much has changed since the 1950s. Prices are in a time warp, too - the yummy wieners, topped with spicy chili, are only $1.95.
We are staying at the Radisson Lackawanna Station Hotel, a charmingly renovated train station that was once the pride of the Scranton family's Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad.
The 1908 French Renaissance-style building was once described as one of the most beautiful train stations in the country. T he graceful lobby retains the classic train clock, a barrel-vaulted stained-glass ceiling, and Italian marble walls decorated with ceramic tiles depicting sites along the train routes.
This former train station is just one of the city's architectural gems. The coal and rail magnates left a legacy of impressive buildings, in styles from elaborate Gothic Revival to the clean lines of art deco. On summer Saturdays, the Lackawanna Historical Society offers walking tours for visitors to gaze at the grandeur.
Dining options reflect the city's immigrant past with lots of ethnic choices, including Italian restaurants and a fine selection of Irish pubs. For dinner, we stroll past the dramatic Courthouse Square and a towering neon sign that blares "Scranton the Electric City" over the skyline, to Thai Rak Thai. The nua nam tok (beef salad) and pad prik khing (spicy stir-fry) are as good as anything we've eaten in Thailand. And a woman sitting near us likes her red-curry dish enough to order a second bowl.
We top off the night at Kildare's, a hopping Irish pub that also has locations in Manayunk, West Chester, King of Prussia, and Newark, Del. Our cozy table is in an alcove appropriately called "the snug" - a spot where women and children used to wait while the menfolk downed a pint or two at the bar. Live music is due to start at 10 p.m., but after a Guinness-on-tap nightcap, we are ready to curl up in our Sleep Number adjustable bed, a first-time hotel amenity for us.
A train whistle wakes me up. I think I must be dreaming, but a look out the window confirms that trains still roll on these rails.
On this bright, sunny day, we are headed underground. At the Lackawanna Coal Mine, we board a low-slung, yellow coal car and descend into the dark - about 300 feet down Lackawanna Slope 190. After a ride that feels like a slow, creaky roller coaster, a former coal miner guides us through a small portion of the 40 miles of dank tunnels.
I find myself humming that old favorite, Working in a Coal Mine ("Goin' down, down, down"). But coal mining was no day at the beach. It was backbreaking work - dirty, dark, and dangerous. Miners crawled into "monkey veins," only two to three feet high, where they shoveled coal for 12 hours a day. Ten-year-old boys worked in the shafts from sunup to sundown, tending to mules and coal cars. We emerge into the welcome sunlight with a new appreciation for those who powered our modern age.
Not wanting our Weekend Journey to end, we stop at Old Forge, about five miles southwest of Scranton. The pizzeria-filled neighborhood is known as "the Pizza Capital of the World," and we enjoy a few "cuts" of the savory, rectangular pies at Revello's Cafe.
There's so much more that we didn't get to see or do in Scranton and the surrounding Lackawanna County countryside: the city's Trolley Museum and the Lion Brewery in Wilkes-Barre; hiking in Nay Aug Park, fishing in 198-acre Lackawanna Lake; and skiing and snowboarding at Elk and Snö mountains.
I guess Harry Houdini was right - Scranton really is a black diamond in the rough.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Scranton: From Magic to Mines
Things to do
For magical thrills, check out the Houdini Museum (1433 N. Main Ave.). Admission: $14.95. Information: 570-342-5555, www.houdini.org. Call for reservations.
Exhibits at Steamtown National Historic Site (Lackawanna and Cliff Avenues) re-create the era of steam engines. Plan to spend at least two to three hours. Admission: $6 (free for children 16 and under), plus $3 for a short train ride. Information: 570-340-5200; 570-340-5204 for train-ride reservations; www.nps.gov/stea/index.htm.
Also at Steamtown, take a trolley ride at the Electric City Trolley Museum between May and October. Information: 570-963-6590, www.ectma.org.
The Lackawanna Coal Mine (on Bald Mountain Road in McDade Park) will make you appreciate your above-ground job. Bundle up - it's about 53 degrees year-round. Admission: $10, adults; $7.50, children 3-12. Information: 570-963-6463, www.lackawannacounty.org/attractions_coal.asp.
For a better understanding of immigrant life in Scranton, visit the Pennsylvania Anthracite Heritage Museum (next to the Lackawanna Coal Mine). Admission: $6, adults; $4, children 3-11. Information: 570-963-4804, www.anthracitemuseum.org.
Sports fans can catch a minor-league baseball game with the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees in Moosic (570-969-2255, www.swbyankees.com) and a minor-league hockey game with the Baby Penguins in Wilkes-Barre (570-208-7367, www.wbspenguins.com).
Satisfy your thirst and tour the Lion Brewery (700 N. Pennsylvania Ave., Wilkes-Barre). Information: 1-800-233-8327, www.lionbrewery.com.
Grab your fishing rod or hiking boots and head to Lackawanna State Park, 10 miles north of the city. Information: 1-888-727-2757, www.dcnr.state.pa.us/stateparks/parks/lackawanna.aspx.
Gaze into a gorge or swim and try the water slides ($5 per person) at Nay Aug Park (1901 Mulberry St.). Information: 570-348-4186, www.scrantonpa.gov/nayaug_park.html.
During the winter, hit the slopes at Elk Mountain (570-679-4400, www.elkskier.com) and Snö Mountain (570-969-7669, www.snomtn.com).
Places to stay
We stayed in a lovely room at the Radisson Lackawanna Station Hotel (700 Lackawanna Ave., 1-888-201-1718, www.radisson.com/scrantonpa.
Another downtown option is the Hilton Scranton & Conference Center (100 Adams Ave., 1-866-539-0036, www.hilton.com).
Places to eat
Breakfast in the Radisson's elegant former train-station lobby is a must. The hotel's Carmen's Ristorante offers a breakfast buffet ($10.95) and a legendary Sunday brunch ($25.95).
Good lunch options include Coney Island Lunch (515 Lackawanna Ave., 570-961-9004, www.texas-wiener.com); the Glider, a classic diner not far from the Houdini Museum, (890 Providence Rd., 570-343-8036, www.gliderdiner.com); and the pizzerias of the Old Forge neighborhood, particularly Revello's Café (502 S. Main St., 570-457-9843).
For dinner, bring a bottle of gewurztraminer to Thai Rak Thai (349 Adams Ave., 570-344-2240, www.thairakthaiusa.com), since it's BYOB. Reservations suggested.
More Information
Lackawanna County Convention and Visitor's Bureau
1-800-229-3526
www.visitnepa.org
Lackawanna Historical Society
The Caitlin House
232 Monroe Ave.
570-344-3841
www.lackawannahistory.org
- Anne Supsic
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