On a whim, I drove to spend the afternoon in Erie, Pennsylvania and Geneva on the Lake.

 

These are the photos I took before my camera battery lost its charge.

 

These were taken near the Port Authority.

 

One of my pet peeves is when people go to a park and sit in their car reading the paper or doing whatever.

 

Industry on water looks familiar.  I think that one has something to do with tar or asphalt.

 

Here's a different plant.

 

Lots of people fishing this afternoon (I'm not being sarcastic because only one guy is in this photo!).

 

Small lakefront park, kind of isolated and not connected to other recreation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Enjoy the pollution.

 

I like this shot.

 

 

 

Water taxi near the convention center.

 

Here's her back end.

 

The convention center, which is newer, is surrounded by water on three sides.

 

That tower on the right is an observation deck that is probably about four stories high.  That's State Street straight ahead.

 

Convention center hotel.

 

 

 

 

I walked some 20-30 blocks around State Street and some others downtown.

 

Downtown reminded me of Lakewood (Ohio).  It was pretty walkable and had a good mix of chain and independent stores/restaurants.

 

But once you get out of the downtown, farther away from the water, and closer to I-90, it's sprawl all over.

 

 

I wish my camera had enough battery so I could've taken a photo of an old firehouse converted into a Pufferbelly restaurant.

 

 

 

Wonder what was demo'ed so that this McDonald's could be there.

 

 

All of the civic buildings are clustered around these parks.

 

 

Courthouse

 

 

 

Gannon University takes up several city blocks.

 

 

Not sure where that blur in the middle came from...

 

Erie has lots of parking garages.

 

I thought this was interesting.

 

 

 

 

 

Fantastic set!

Thanks!

A beautiful town! Glad to see at least one city that still uses the waterfront for industry :)

amazingly, I haven't been there in 5 years

Erie is a great little city! I always enjoyed going there as a kid.

Pretty place. Thanks.

cd-cleveland nice set.  I grew up not far from here (Penn/Ohio line). 

Did you make it to Presque Isle (the peninsula)?  A must if you go back. 

wow!  Nice set.  I've always had a negative impression of Erie but this post has changed that.

Now if only we could email a pic post of Cleveland to all the people in the nation with a negative impression of our city, that could be great.

 

Erie actually looks pretty decent, and an art museum no less! I traveled through Erie on a Greyhound bus a few times when I was young but don’t remember much. Erie always seems like a forgotten part of the state, even by other Pennsylvanians; and in the news for the most dubious of reasons: 1) home to Tom Ridge—the first head of Homeland Security known more for his “entertaining” talk show appearances than anything else; and 2) as the site of that bizarre pizza deliveryman/bank robber/bomb-around-his-neck story a few years ago.

cd-cleveland nice set.  I grew up not far from here (Penn/Ohio line). 

Did you make it to Presque Isle (the peninsula)?  A must if you go back. 

 

Hey Willyboy, I grew up 1 mile from the stateline, in Pierpont (Oh)township; halfway between Conneaut and Andover (Pymatuning).

 

I used to spend a ton of time in Erie in the summers when I was home from college; one of my best friends went to Gannon so I was always heading up there to party and whatnot. Presque Isle, Perry Square, the bars on State St, the ballpark...good times!

 

I love Erie.  :clap:

Thanks, guys. 

 

I liked Downtown Erie.  It seems...serene.  All of the buildings seem to be intact, and I didn't notice a lot of commercial vacancy.  I was pleasantly surprised.  What's cool is that single-family housing is directly across a quiet two-lane street from the traditional retail buildings.

 

The waterfront was very segmented and didn't seem extremely accessible without driving.  I can tell you'd probably have to drive to get to the spot where I took the photos with the industry in the background.  There is a multi-purpose trail that supposed goes along the lake, but I didn't really bother to follow it a whole lot so I couldn't tell you what it's like.

 

As I eluded, once you get out of the downtown, there's a lot of nasty sprawl.  It's more clustered around I-90 than anything.  The impression I got was that the city wasn't maintained as well the further you were from the core. 

 

Photos of my tours of Pittsburgh neighborhoods (South Side, Bloomfield, and Mt. Washington) from today are forthcoming!

Very nice! Erie is a place I've been wanting to check out

Good photos. Erie looks like a decent town.

 

The "pollution" looks to me like plain ol' steam. Power plants and other places that use boilers vent steam occasionally for various reasons, like "blowing down" boilers. As water is boiled away, dissolved minerals accumulate as sludge in the bottom of the boiler. Periodically a valve is opened that causes the sediment to be forced out by the pressure; with a big boiler, it's a noisy, spectacular activity. Older coal-fired plants transfer ash from pits beneath the boilers to an outside storage bin with conveyors or augers powered by steam turbines, too. The turbines blow a huge plume of steam when they're running.

 

The blur looks like a pigeon in flight at close range, or more likely a gull, the maritime version of a pigeon.

 

Erie looks like a cool little town. For most people PA=Philadelphia & Pittsburgh, so places like this are under the radar.

no no, the blur is definitely a ghost. I'm never stepping foot in Erie again because of it.

My girlfried and I spent the day at Presque Isle State Park yesterday in Erie, PA.  I had always heard how beautiful the beaches there were and figured since I have this week off of work that we'd go.

 

I must say - it truly was beautiful.  Hard to believe it was the same Lake Erie 100 miles west.  We go to the beaches in Cleveland and enjoy ourselves - but the Presque Isle beaches were truly amazing.  The water was blue, the sand was soft and clean, and the beaches went on for miles. 

 

We did take an accidental detour through parts of Erie (i didn't bring directions) - and must say I was shocked.  For some reason I always had a negative perseption of Erie, but at least the areas we were around were very nice.

 

It's definitely worth a trip if you haven't been.