While I love DC’s charming old row houses, my eyes always brighten spotting a brand new glass building in town. However, it is where the old and the new stand beautiful together that I see and feel the city’s vitality.
Perhaps DC is pointing out a way for development in general. Development is a continuous process; I have no doubt that it has to be rooted in a place’s cultural context and connected to its history, but people cannot get lost in The Call of the Drums. All places must look forward and strive for a fluid transition to the future.
On the left from top to bottom: at the Tidal Basin; George Washington University’s Rome Hall; Thursday evening on the corner of U St and 14th St; On the Potomac at the Georgetown waterfront. On the right: at the Washington (Georgetown) Harbor; baptized on the National Mall; July 4th; the homeless’s home on E St in Forggy Bottom; a virtual reality studio in the Kennedy Center’s REACH that is recently completed and opened to public; newly renovated DC library in the West End neighborhood.
At the National Gallery of Art
Triptych by Oliver Lee Jackson (applied felt, chalk, alkyd paint, and mixed media on wood panel).
On the left: Improvisation 31 (Sea Battle) by Wassily Kandinsky; in the middle: Political Drama by Robert Delaunay; on the right: Untitled by František Kupka.
While the White Rose of York has faded, the Red Rose of Lancaster looks pretty. So, hundreds of years later, the Wars of Roses have an apparent winner in the New World. Change is possible and can be fast.
I also visited Strasburg and Lititz, two small towns near Lancaster.
Lancaster
Lancaster is the seat for Pennsylvania’s Lancaster County just as York serves as the county seat of York County. Both cities have a rich history. While York was incorporated as a borough in 1787 and as a city in 1887, Lancaster was incorporated as a borough in 1742 and as a city in 1818. During the American Revolution, York became the capital of the United States after Philadelphia was captured by the British, and Lancaster had served as the capital for one day on September 27, 1777 before the revolutionary government moved to York.
York features numerous historic buildings, among which are the 1741 Golden Plough Tavern and the 1766 York Meetinghouse, and has been called an “architectural museum.” Lancaster also has many historically significant landmarks that include the estate of James Buchanan (the 15th President of the United States), the Fulton Opera House (named for Robert Fulton, a Lancaster native and a renaissance man who created the first fully functional steamboat), and the painter Charles Demuth’s former home (the Demuth Museum today).
The 2010 Census statistics were similar for the Roses. The median income for a household in Lancaster was $29,770, and the per capita income was $13,955. The median income for a household in York was $26,475, and the per capita income was $13,439. About 21.2% of the population in Lancaster were living below the poverty line, and 23.8% in York.Â
In 2017, Lancaster had a population of 59.6k people with a median household income of $40,805. The population of Lancaster is 40.4% White Alone, 38.7% Hispanic or Latino, and 14.3% Black or African American Alone. York had a population of 44.1k people with a median household income of $29,834. The population of York was 38.4% White Alone, 31.7% Hispanic or Latino, and 23.8% Black or African American Alone. The Poverty rate was 26.5% in Lancaster, and 35.8% in York, while the national average was 13.4%. (data source: datausa.io)
Multiple layers of colors in the city of Lancaster.
Lancaster boasts an impressive gallery row where art galleries are lined up showcasing artists’ original work. A gallery owner told me that the gallery row started by a businessman, and the mayor actually reached out to her personally. (I heard similar stories about Frederick where high-end restaurants by the celebrity chef Voltaggio brothers had sparked a series of changes in the main street.)
The gallery owner is, however, worried today: her rent increased 35% just this year. Think about traffic in a city: high volume is likely an indicator of a booming economy and low volume a poor one, but constant traffic jams could drive people away. It’s all about balance, and it is a delicate one.
Top left: work at Artisans Gallery by Jane Wolf, a math major who ultimately finds joy in mixed media. Top right: watercolors by Cheryl Elmo at CityFolk Gallery, depicting subtle human interactions and complexities of relationships. Bottom left: bold colors at Christiane David Gallery. Bottom right: inside Stans Records, a music record store in the gallery row, where old music coming from old speakers on the wall and old pictures remind people of those good old days.
Strasburg
Strasburg is surrounded by Amish farms and remains a rural feel. It was founded in 1733, and much of the town is listed as a historic district by the National Register of Historic Places. In 2017, Strasburg had a population of 2.91k people with a median household income of $65,227 and a poverty rate of 5.21%. I suspect that farm production is an important factor contributing to the town’s low poverty rate. (On the top right: The Old Bank Building and now a mixed office space)
The rural landscape near the town of Strasburg is vibrant; you can take a buggy ride to see the Amish Country. It is delightful to just drive around, and you might suddenly run into a tractor on a back road with a boy in the driver’s seat. I will never forget a mother and a daughter who were putting out flowers in front of a small house on the roadside. The mother may look a little austere, but the daughter (probably about ten years old) looks so sweet in a typical Amish dress of dusty rose color with hair tightly combed in the front making a bun in the back. She quietly smiled at me when I stopped by and waved at me when I drove away. I don’t know what it means to grow up in an Amish community like this that is so different from the wild world outside and cannot help wondering what a stranger would do to a child’s mind.
Lititz
Lititz, funded by members of the Moravian Church in 1756, looks more urban than Strasburg. Its main street is crowded with cute shops and restaurants; in 2013 Lititz won Budget Travel’s America’s Coolest Small Towns competition. In 2017 the town had a population of 9.27k with a median household income of $58,375 and a poverty rate of 4.87%.
It can be fun to take a chocolate or pretzel walk tour here. Most of the Wilbur brand chocolate products are produced in Lititz. The town is the location of many pretzel factories and owns the first commercial pretzel bakery in America, the Julius Sturgis Pretzel Bakery (founded in 1861).These production activities may provide a foundation for the town’s economy and are probably important for the town to maintain a low poverty rate as in Strasburg.
Lititz is also home to Linden Hall, the oldest girls’ boarding and day school in continuous operation in the US. (On the top left: The Framers National Bank building)
This trip turns out to be a hopeful one. While more research is needed to understand what drives positive change, it seems that visionary mayors and business leaders, or “right” coupling of the private and public sectors are critical to initiate change. I am convinced that a town may take advantage of its history to develop tourism or culture-based businesses, but for a town to prosper it needs some sort of production, be it solid production in the first sector or creativity in information and service sectors. It also needs synergy of multiple mutually supportive economic activities and across a larger metro area to sustain an economy. A vital economicscape should have multiple layers of colors just as a vibrantlandscape or cityscape.
In Lancaster it’s confirmed once again that people’s friendliness is an good indicator of a town’s position in the despair-hope spectrum. The residents are quite mixed in Lancaster. Two black teenagers smiled at me and said hello to me on the streets. While I was photographing the city, somebody walked by and started a chat, “It is nice, eh?.” I can tell they all feel good about their town. That is the feeling people in every town should have.
When I visited those towns in the Shenandoah Valley, I knew I’d need to make more trips – they only represent the rosy side of small town America. On my way to Pennsylvania today, my heart is delighted with gentle hills that are imbued with colors: while the corn stems begin to dry out, soybean fields are turning yellow, and goldenrods are still bright. In York, however, I am appalled by its level of decline: the historical town does not evoke a feeling of history; it’s just aged badly. Four gunshots coming from a traffic intersection in downtown seal a somber experience at the end of the day.
I also visited Frederick and Gettysburg and drove past Abbottstown on the way to York, and saw different spectral colors in these towns.
Frederick MD
In Frederick I find a town for everyone: an evangelist of faith, a hippie with bright blue hair, an entrepreneur, or a professional working for the federal government. The town feels like an intelligent man with wild experiences and somehoworganically in harmony.
Not all are bright in Frederick, but there is unmistakably a hopeful vibe as shown by these paintings in the art gallery DISTRICT Arts.
Gettysburg PA
Lincoln is everywhere in the town of Gettysburg; thus one does not need to visit a battlefield to feel history here. But tourism can only sustain a town’s economy to some extent: while the center of the town looks nice, decay is visible just two or three blocks away where you begin to spot houses that are unoccupied or not well maintained.
Lovely wooden awls and African metal work in Gettysburg’s craft stores. In an art gallery I also find a large collection of paintings dedicated to American Indians, and some celebrate the camaraderie between native Americans and colonists.
Abbottstown PA
Abbottstown might be realistically pronounced as “abandoned” town; the goddesses seem to have long been forgotten.
YorkPA
I found very few bright spots in downtown York. It felt a bit uneasy walking there. Since I quickly fled after hearing gunshots in downtown, I didn’t get to photograph its residential neighborhoods. As I drove through the city, it looked even worse outside downtown: those rundown houses along its major streets were nothing but depressing.
According to the 2010 census, the median income for a household in the city was $26,475, and the per capita income was $13,439. About 23.8% of the population were living below the poverty line. In 2017, York had a population of 44.1k people with a median household income of $29,834 and a poverty rate of 35.8%. (data source: https://datausa.io/profile/geo/york-pa/ )
It might be OK to allow towns like Abbottstown with a small population of 1,000 to disappear, and could even be a strategy to help people there migrate out. But it’s impossible for a city like York, which once ranked among the nation’s top 100 most populous urban areas in the 19th century and is home to about half a million people today, to vanish. It needs serious thinking and real efforts more than tinkering. (On the bottom right: a metal sculpture titled “The Tinker”)
Placing them on the map, we see how geography matters. I have no doubt that Frederick has benefited from its location near Washington DC, and I know some of its residents are employed in the DC metro area.
According to the 2010 census, the median annual income for a household in the city of Frederick was $64,833, and the per capita income was $31,123. Approximately 7.7% of the population ( 65,239) were living below the poverty line. In 2017, Frederick had a population of 69.3k people with a median household income of $67,828, and the poverty rate was 11.4%. ( data source: https://datausa.io/profile/geo/frederick-md/ )
It seems to me that how friendly a town’s residents are toward strangers can best tell the town’s renewal efforts and predict its position on the hope-despair gradient. In Frederick (and Staunton), I got warm greetings from many on the streets, and some tried to offer help without me asking.
I cannot remember how many times I looked on them from the Blue Ridge – tucked away far in the valley, sometimes dressed in a blue fog, mystifying as a blue fog. Coming close to meet them, I want to Sing a New Song to the tall purple coneflower stems on the highway and bring the message of LOVE from Harrisonburg to all the people in the world…
These oil paintings in the gallery Artists In Cahoots at Lexington Virginia best present the rural landscape and the charm of small townsin the Shenandoah Valley. Along Interstate Highway 81, or following any local roads like Route 11, one would discover a rolling terrain stretching between towns dotted with real farm houses and roaming cows. The painting on the bottom left depicts Lexington’s historic downtown.
An artwork titled “Sing a New Song” (mixed media) in the gallery OASIS Fine Art & Craft at Harrisonburg VA.
The small LOVE tiles on this mosaic art work are written by members of the Harrisonburg High School Ambassador Program using their native languages – 28 different ones.
Woodstock
Woodstock has a simple rural charm that is easily perceivable even in a very brief walk through the town.
Harrisonburg
Blacksburg
The presence of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg and James Madison University in Harrisonburg seems to lend the two towns different vibes.
Lexington
While Lexington is known for being an important historical place associated with the American Revolution and the Civil War, to me it typifies small towns in the Shenandoah Valley that have a rich colonial tradition. The town also hosts the Virginia Military Institute and Washington and Lee University. It is impossible then not to learn some history here. That the names of Washington and Lee appeared together was not a coincidence – it revealed a social network of the few rich and powerful elite families woven through intermarriages in colonial Virginia. According to the British historian John Keegan, “As early as 1660 every seat on the ruling Council of Virginia was held by members of five interrelated families, and as late as 1775 every council member was descended from one of the 1660 councillors.”
Roanoke
The clock on the historical Colonial National Bank (built in 1926–1927 and still beautiful) reminds people of the passing of time, as well as changes this once-booming manufacturing town and the largest municipality in Southwest Virginia has gone through.
An artwork titled “The Frame of the Mind” (copper) on display in the gallery Market Gallery right next to the farmers’ market in downtown Roanoke VA. The gallery features original work by local and regional artists who take turn to manage it.
These sculptures in a garden explore the theme “Roanoke Rising,” representing the town’s renewal efforts.
Staunton
Staunton definitely lives up to its fame of having the best main street (bottom). Its side streets (upper right) look good too, and taking a “bird view” of the town from Wilson Park above the railway (upper left) can be a moment of contemplation. Served as a supplying center for the Confederate Army in the Civil War but not a battle site, Staunton’s colonial architecture was left largely undamaged after the war. The buildings in town showcase different architectural styles (Greek Revival, Italianate, Dutch Colonial, Queen Anne, Gothic Revival, Romanesque Revival, Venetian Revival, Colonial Revival…) that have evolved over time and enriched by the architect T. J. Collins who moved to Staunton from Washington DC in 1891.
It is a delightful walk to look for these little architectural gems across town; and the walk would naturally lead to Woodrow Wilson’s birthplace in the Gospel Hill neighborhood. Then one cannot help taking a peek at his handsome 1919 Piece-Arrow. A glimpse of the First Presbyterian Church, where his father served as a minister, from the house’s backyard through layers of tree leaves and behind crapemyrtle flowers is almost glamorous. In the same neighborhood, you’d find an elegant Queen Anne style house perched on a hill. It was built by Edward Echols, Virginia’s Lt. Governor (1898 – 1902), and was said to have employed every imaginable material. Right across the Beverley Street is a magnificent Greek Revival style building designed by Robert Cary Long and completed in 1846. It is home to the Virginia School for the Deaf and the Blind. Mary Baldwin University in town occupies another Greek Revival style house dating back to the 1830s.
On the left: the interior of National Valley Bank which was established in 1865 and still function as bank offices provides a fine example of the Beaux-Arts style. On the right: the exterior of a clock shop that is timeless.
Staunton also boasts a camera museum with an impressive collection of antique cameras. It is amusing to see how much a telescope camera that was used to take sports photos in old days looks like and feels as heavy as a cannon. And it is displayed on the side of tiny spy cameras! A bit of history I learned there: Oskar Barnack came up with the idea of and invented the first 35 mm camera because he had asthma, and it was difficult for him to carry around a large camera. The entire history of the camera industry has been one of copying, re-invention, and innovation.
On a side note, I am glad to hear the museum manager say my Lumix camerasare the best today, and we agree that Panasonic is innovative. 🙂
On the left: a glass vase in the shop of a local glass blowing studio Sunspots Studios. In the middle: “Spring Walk,” a painting by Sally Bowring (acrylic on panel) as part of an ongoing exhibition In Dialogue at Staunton Augusta Art Center, featuring four female artists. On the right: “Abstract Forest” (pen and colored pencil) on display at the family-run Staunton Antiques Center.
Paintings by Sae A Lee (acrylic on panel) as part of an ongoing exhibition In Dialogue at Staunton Augusta Art Center, featuring four female artists.
