Last thread (but first stop) on my recent tour of mid-sized industrial cities in Pennsylvania and environs. I made a brief stop on a drizzly dusk after shooting the Ashtabula County courthouse in Jefferson (my 87th of 88).

 

Erie is Pennsylvania's 4th largest city, with a 2014 estimate of 99,424 people in a metro area of 280,000 (and an urbanized area of 195,000). The population estimate, if accurate, would signal the first time since the 1920 Census that Erie was below 100,000. Its population decline (down from 138,000 in 1960) came as Allentown's rose to replace Erie as the state's 3rd biggest city. Founded 1795 and, less than 20 years later was the shipbuilding base for Oliver Hazard Perry and the Battle of Lake Erie ("We have met the enemy and they are ours").

 

Erie as a maritime center evolved into a railroad hub. The backbone of the economy was iron and steel for most the last century, but the industrial heritage has faded fast. GE still has a diesel-electric locomotive plant (Wikipedia tells me), and there are smaller manufacturing operations. When I was there in mid-October, the Erie Times-News had a front page article about Zurn Industries, a plumbing fixture maker founded in 1900 in Erie, that was moving another 60 manufacturing jobs to Milwaukee after the headquarters was moved there. That leaves Zurn with fewer than 100 workers left in Erie -- down from 2,700 in the mid-70s. I had never heard of Zurn as I read the article at the counter of an all-night diner called Dominick's, but when I went to the men's room, there was the Zurn name on the fixtures.

 

Please forgive the quality -- it was wet and getting dark, and I didn't have a tripod. Still, I got a decent effect with a few of the shots.

 

The former Boston Store, built in the 1920s (store founded in Erie in 1885). Vacant for a while, now housing and other uses

 

Looking south on State Street at the heart of downtown

 

The Warner was buzzing with activity

 

More of State Street

 

Apparently the second tallest

 

Renaissance Center, the tallest at 198 feet and 14 stories; completed in 1928 as the home of Erie Trust, which went belly-up five years later

 

10th Street, with a theater and a YMCA

 

Yhe busy, classic Y

 

 

Looking back at the Renaissance

 

Renaissance main lobby

 

Renaissance elevator lobby

 

Good place to grab a bite and read the local paper

 

Sign a few doors down from the diner

 

Nice little tour!

Erie seems like a really cool city, and it is home to the most famous beach on the American side of Lake Erie, Presque Isle. Presque Isle is one of Pennsylvania's most popular state parks, and for good reason. It's a giant sand spit in Lake Erie that also protects the natural harbor:

 

http://www.presqueisle.org

 

Like Sandusky (the crown jewel of Ohio), it's surprising this city didn't grow bigger. It has a top notch natural harbor and great location for shipping. Lake Erie's development was really bizarre. The two best harbors were at Sandusky and Erie, but those cities never got anywhere near as big as Detroit, Toledo, Cleveland, or Buffalo. Granted, the four major cities around Lake Erie all had rivers with extensive industry on them, but in terms of natural harbors, Erie and Sandusky were the best on Lake Erie by a big margin. Their harbors are as good as almost any saltwater city in the United States. Only a handful of other Great Lakes cities (Duluth, Traverse City, Alpena, Muskegon, Green Bay) and a few key saltwater ports (San Francisco-Oakland, New York City, Seattle, Baltimore, Boston, Hampton Roads) are naturally better.

 

The biggest ports on the Great Lakes all had to be extensively modified to support the industrial boom. Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, Toledo, Cleveland, Buffalo, etc. all underwent extensive dredging, bulkheading, and breakwater construction to make them viable. In some cases, their rivers were completely altered.

 

It has always baffled me how the major Great Lakes cities developed where they did. The major historic ports on the Atlantic and Pacific all made perfect sense, but with the Great Lakes, logic was thrown to the wind. Sandusky and Erie should have been the biggest cities on the American side of the Great Lakes! Canada at least got it right with Toronto, which is arguably the only major Great Lakes city that made sense since it has an excellent natural harbor.

It has always baffled me how the major Great Lakes cities developed where they did. The major historic ports on the Atlantic and Pacific all made perfect sense, but with the Great Lakes, logic was thrown to the wind. Sandusky and Erie should have been the biggest cities on the American side of the Great Lakes! Canada at least got it right with Toronto, which is arguably the only major Great Lakes city that made sense since it has an excellent natural harbor.

 

I think it's because of the land-transport, and not the Lake's features that explains the growth of the Lake Erie cities. Buffalo, Cleveland and Toledo were all at the heads of canals into the hinterlands, which concentrated the shipping of agricultural products in those cities. Toledo and Buffalo are also at natural overland crossings to get around the lakes, like Chicago, which meant natural crossroads for trails, then roads, then railroads. For Detroit, it's the easiest place to cross the lakes between Niagara and Sault Ste. Marie, and it was along a historic route between Chicago (the southern end of Lake Michigan, really), and Upper Canada, and is really the oldest city in the Midwest. 

 

Even with those beautiful harbors at Sandusky and Erie, they weren't at natural crossing points, and the Sandusky River couldn't/didn't connect to a canal like the Cuyahoga did in Cleveland.

 

Nice pictures of Erie, btw - I'd only passed through on I-90, and didn't realize the downtown is as big as you show in the photos. Thank you!

Thanks for the harbor history and analysis. I love it when I post some pictures and then learn some new stuff.

 

Great pics. I love city scenes at night in the rain -- especially with lots of lights on.

 

I'm a frequent visitor to Erie, which has kept much of its built environment unlike similarly sized industrial neighbor Youngstown. The reason is GE Transportation's locomotive plant and its many suppliers nearby. But unfortunately this is taking a big hit this past week as 1,500 layoffs were announced as GE moves more production to Texas and Mexico. Its corporate offices were moved to Chicago a few years ago. The rest of the plant may be living on borrowed time.

 

Erie's future may lie in higher education with Gannon University, The Behrend College (Penn State-Erie), and Edinboro College's new Porreco Center in downtown Erie.

a very noirish erie is looking good in the rain. and good news to hear the boston bldg is redeveloped.

Like Sandusky (the crown jewel of Ohio), it's surprising this city didn't grow bigger. It has a top notch natural harbor and great location for shipping. Lake Erie's development was really bizarre. The two best harbors were at Sandusky and Erie, but those cities never got anywhere near as big as Detroit, Toledo, Cleveland, or Buffalo.

 

I've always thought it would have been interesting if Sandusky had swelled in population and and/or a sizable city had sprung up on Marblehead. Ohio could have had its own mini Bay Area!

 

Great photos. Erie's one of those places I've really only been through, other than a couple of trips to Waldameer. Maybe next time I'll have to actually stop and explore a bit.

^Yeah, it would have been amazing if Ohio developed its biggest and best urban areas around Sandusky Bay! As it stands, Sandusky's situation is similar to Port Huron in Michigan- great little shipping port city starting to transition to tourism. From what I've read, Erie and Port Huron are ahead of Sandusky with the tourism transition. Erie's potential is pretty huge since Presque Isle is massive and it's a unique asset that cannot be found anywhere else in Pennsylvania. I wish there was some way to open up Cedar Point's beach to the public, since it's a similar geography to Presque Isle. Cedar Point annihilates all other amusement parks on earth, but that great beach should be open to the public. PA was smart to keep Erie's Presque Isle all public access. It's by far the best coastline in the state, and they smartly recognized that.

 

*Also, here's a little-known fact about Erie. If you've ever seen the dismal, yet pehenomenal movie, "The Road," you've seen Erie, Pennsylvania. Coastal scenes were not shot on the Atlantic. They were shot on Lake Erie! I believe they filmed during the cold, gray months around Western Pennsylvania to get the proper depressing feel. "The Road" is arguably one of the most depressing films ever made, but it's a masterpiece of modern cinema. It's a perfectly-executed film, no matter how brutal the subject matter. While I'm sure it didn't do Erie any favors, I remember when I first saw it (not knowing it was shot on Lake Erie), I remarked, "Those waves don't like the ocean. They look like a Great Lake." When the Great Lakes fill in for ocean scenes in Hollywood, you can tell due to wave frequency. The Great Lakes have higher frequency waves with shorter fetch than the oceans do.

^I'm pretty sure you can get on Cedar Point's beach as long as you pay the parking fee, unless they've changed that since I worked at the park 3 years ago. You just have to park back by Soak City and walk over toward Hotel Breakers (which is another Sandusky gem). Of course, they don't advertise it as such so no one really realizes this, and it's hard to pass up the roller coasters if you're driving out there!

^Oh wow, I never knew that. I'll have to try that next time I visit Sandusky. Can you go year-round, or is it only open during months the Cedar Point is open?

^Hmmmm, now that I don't know. I would assume that it's only open when the resorts are open. But you probably wouldn't want to go to an Ohio beach after October anyway  :wink:.

Dominick's... Home of the meatball omelet.