Black Bethlehem History Project
History's Headlines: Black lives in the Lehigh Valleyby Frank Whelan, HistorianOctober 10, 2020 Recently the Bethlehem Area Public Library began what it called the Black Bethlehem Project. Headed by M. Rayah Levy, the head of the library’s adult services,...
Ken Raniere Day
KEN RANIERE APPRECIATION DAY AUGUST 1, 2020 Dear Ken: The difficulties encountered by so many during this COVID-19 Pandemic, have truly been a hardship on many. Those who have been able to weather the storm and continue working have become our heroes. Heroes come...
Jewish Traditions
Christmas in South Bethlehem – An Ethnic Experience
On Christmas Eve in 1947, fourteen year-old Portuguese immigrant, Armindo Souza arrived at Union Stationwith his parents Antonio and Teresa, and his older brother, Antonio, Jr. From the station, they walked through four feet of snow to their home on...
30 Years Ago Today: R. Wakefield Roberts and His Community Civic League Respond to History
The explosion of Black protest in the 1950s and 1960s-in both the North and the South-surprised many Americans who were unaware of the deep unrest in their midst. But one Pennsylvania community had a different solution to the abusive conditions with which its African...
Can Any Good Thing Come From Northampton Heights?
written by Dr. Ernest Smith for the J. F. Goodwin Scholarship Fund (org. 1935) 75th Anniversary Celebrated in 2010 The Northampton Heights section of Bethlehem was considered to be the roughest and most out of order section of town. It contained the poorest of...
Legal Action for 24 & 30 West 4th Street
View the filed law suit here South Bethlehem Historical Society Sues City to Stop 9-Story Building Project A local historic society is attempting to block the construction of a $10 million, nine-story building in in Bethlehem. By Nicholas Cardoso (Patch Staff)December...
Bethlehem neighborhood was lost, but not the memories…
By Nicole Radzievich, of The Morning Call9:30 p.m. EDT, October 19, 2013 Near Bethlehem's Packer Avenue, where Lehigh University meets the South Side business district, sprawls a patchwork of lawns and concrete plazas wrapped around classrooms, a library and campus...
Union soccer team honors Bethlehem history
By Allison Steele, Inquirer Staff Writer
POSTED: September 16, 2013
BETHLEHEM For five golden years at the start of the 20th century, the biggest soccer stars in the country lived and worked in Bethlehem, Pa.
The Bethlehem Steel Co. soccer team, consisting of workers imported from the British Isles primarily for their soccer prowess, dominated their opponents from 1915 through the early 1920s, winning five U.S. Open Cups.
The South Bethlehem I Once Knew
The South Bethlehem I Once Knew by Carol Dean Henn The Municipal Market—a favorite shopping experience on E. Third St. “Um-brel-las! I can fix your um-brel-las!” I can still hear the sing-song voice of the peddler and fix-it man who drove through our South Bethlehem...
Commemorating 150 Years: Holy Infancy Church (2011)
Commemorating 150 Years: Holy Infancy Church Emergence of a Parish Lithograph of the second edifice of Holy Infancy, built in 1886. Courtesy Holy Infancy Parish With an Irish labor force working on the Lehigh Valley Railroad and the iron company in the 1850s, it was...
The Lehigh Theatre
Your movie ticket got you more at The Lehigh Theatre What we remember most [about the Lehigh Theater on E. Fourth St.] is that it was the cheapest theatre in town, and you could sit in there all day on one ticket. It was not very clean, but if you were...
Hungarian Christmas
Hungarian Christmas Traditions South Bethlehem Hungarians fondly recalled Christmas in their native Hungary as a festive time of year when family members got together to celebrate the holiday. Candles were placed in the windows as a symbolic greeting to those...
Industrial Pioneers
The Emergence of Industrial Pioneers in South Bethlehem Samuel Wetherill established the Pennsylvania and Lehigh Zinc Company by 1853. In 1848, the Moravians of Bethlehem, Northampton County, Pennsylvania, divested 1,380 acres of farmland situated along the Lehigh...
A. W. Leh
A.W. Leh: South Bethlehem Architect - New World Rising A.W. Leh (1848-1918) Architect, Civil War Soldier Albert Wolfring Leh, later known to citizens of the Bethlehems and beyond as A.W. Leh—or Captain Leh, in deference to his Civil War service— was born...
Phillips Music Store
Phillips Music and Appliance Store by Jennifer Lader “Businessmen thrive only as their customers thrive.” -The Whetford Book, Bethlehem, Pa. 1915 Today, “24 East Asian Bistro” and “Glen Anthony Designs” occupy the former Phillips Music Store on East Third St. Abram...
Civil War Commemoration
This pastoral scene shows Bethlehem prior to the outbreak of the Civil War. Beginning in 2011, the country will celebrate the Sesquicentennial (150th) of the Civil War, or, as many refer to it, The War Between the States. Though most of the tributes will be...
Holy Infancy
Site of the first Holy Infancy (1864) Tradition has dictated that the original site was donated by the Moravian Church (see the Borough of South Bethlehem Semi-Centennial, 1915); however, a deed search by Christian Carson, former SBHS Board of Director, revealed the...