"Much of the city is as gritty as gritty gets" - pj3000 (Erie native and SSP forumer in a previous Erie thread)

 

The City of Erie (pop. 103,717) is the fourth largest municipality in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Allentown).  However, it ranks as the commonwealth's 9th largest metropolitan area at 280,843 (though 2nd largest in PA west of Harrisburg).  Erie's Urbanized Area has a population of 194,804.  The city of Erie is the seat of Erie County, which is coterminous with the Erie Metro.

 

Erie is located in Pennsylvania's northwestern corner and is the state's only coastal and Great Lakes city.  It serves as the hub of northwestern Pennsylvania and is home to major cultural institutions, shopping destinations, recreational facilities, and health care (Hamot) and educational (Gannon, Mercyhurst, Penn State Behrend, Lake Erie College of Medicine) institutions.

 

Erie remains a heavy manufacturing city to this day, and can be considered the "epicenter of the Rust Belt"... being roughly equidistant from Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Buffalo.  While located in PA, Erie doesn't really look like anything else in PA... and has a typically "Great Lakes" style of urban development and vernacular architecture.  It is quite similar to neighboring Lake Erie cities Cleveland and Buffalo (and Detroit somewhat) in terms of urban environment, neighborhood style, climate, industrial heritage and demographics... though it has also had a close relationship with Pittsburgh to the south... the "in-state" factor facilitating greater population and business interchange.  Erie is known for its "lake effect" climate, which dumps an average of 88 inches of snow each year... but also moderates the summer climate and provides optimal conditions for grape and fruit cultivation. 

 

Brief history:

 

Before Erie was founded, the French built a Fort Presque Isle along the bay in 1753, the northernmost of a string of frontier forts running south to Fort Pitt (Pittsburgh), also including: Fort LeBoeuf (Waterford) and Fort Machault (Franklin).  When the British defeated the French at the Battle of Fort Niagara in 1759, the French abandoned and burned Fort Presque Isle.  The British built a new Fort Presque Isle, but the garrison was massacred during Pontiac's Rebellion of 1763.  Erie was founded in 1795, but before that... the area around Erie... a triangle of land wedged between New York and Ohio... was a point of contention.... claimed by PA, NY, CT and MA (the latter two having wide-reaching ambiguous territorial claims from colonial days).  The other states eventually released their claims on the land to the federal government, from whom Pennsylvania purchased the land in 1792.  Andrew Ellicott arrived in 1795 to survey Erie and settlement began. 

"We have met the enemy and they are ours." - Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry

 

During the War of 1812, Erie would once again take a key military role.  President James Madison ordered the construction of a naval fleet at Erie, which was headed by Daniel Dobbins.  Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry led the American fleet to a famous victory over the British fleet at the Battle of Lake Erie.  Perry's name is today ubiquitous throughout Western Pennsylvania, adorning schools, monuments, parks and towns.

 

Erie then became a significant transportation hub (rail and port) and manufacturing center.  In the late 1900s, Erie fell into the typical Rust Belt economic malaise along with the rest of the region.  However, even with the dramatic shrinkage of the manufacturing sector, Erie's economy is still heavily reliant on manufacturing... producing locomotives (Erie-based GE Transportation), aerospace components (Erie-founded Lord Corp.) and 10% of the nation's plastics.  Today, Erie's growth sectors include the usual mix of health care and services.  Beaches and grape heritage form important bulwarks for the emerging tourism trade.  Erie is home to one Fortune 500 company: Erie Insurance Group.

 

Erie's urban core fell into the usual pattern of American urban neglect, disinvestment and active destruction in the 2nd half of the 20th century.  Furthermore, the region stagnated beginning in the 1970s due to industrial decline.  Neighborhoods throughout the city fell prey to the usual toxic cocktail of urban ills... and Erie's downtown was largely wiped out... replaced by suburban buildings with tragic architecture, parking lots, and a shocking system of inner-city 4-6 lane highways.  While recovery has been slow... downtown and bayfront development seems to finally be gaining significant traction in recent years.  Erie has assets totally unique to Pennsylvania, which will hopefully allow this city to fulfill its potential once again.

 

Now on to the photos.  Due to Lake Erie, Erie has a unique micro-climate.  It was sunny and 88F when I left Pittsburgh... but arrived to 62F and heavy rain 2 hours north in Erie (I failed to check the Erie weather forecast).  I tried to make the best of it... though you might notice some raindrops in my photos.

 

First a couple shots from Presque Isle State Park... a remarkable peninsula jutting into Lake Erie.  It is home to many beaches and trails.  The weather was horrible, so I didn't get to explore much.

 

 

 

 

Houseboats!

 

looking towards Ontario (country radio from London comes in quite clearly in Erie)

 

this old lighthouse is on the East Side of the city

 

Mercyhurst is a small Catholic liberal arts college on the city's southern edge... the school is known for its excellent hockey teams... Go Lakers!

 

a Catholic school... Erie is one of the most Catholic cities in the country

 

the southern edges of the City of Erie are very 1960s/70s bland suburbia (ranches, split levels, no sidewalks)... the portion of South Erie further in is more of a 1930s/40s "suburbia" that reminds me of working class suburbs like Parma (Cleveland) and Cheektowaga (Buffalo).  It's not terribly interesting... but has a lot of "boulevard" residential streets with grass/tree medians. 

 

I think of these types of houses as "cottages"

 

 

Moving further into Erie's urban core... the city's East Side is extremely gritty...

 

 

this type of housing is very common in Cleveland (though they have a distinctive "duckbill" architectural flourish)

 

 

 

 

a pocket of wealth along the eastern shore

 

 

 

 

\

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

much like Cleveland, Buffalo and Detroit... massive institutional structures from the 1880-1930 era are scattered throughout the city neighborhoods

 

 

same style... but brick this time! 

 

 

 

 

Erie's gigantic industrial heart in the center city

 

catering to the working man

 

 

When you enter Erie from the south on I-79... the W. 12th St. exit is one of the most awesome urban heavy industrial entrances a city could have... it is brutal, terrifying and awe-inspiring

 

example of residential boulevard

 

26th St. has some decent commercial

 

 

 

 

:haha:

 

 

 

 

much of the city's west side is also quite gritty

 

on the city's far west shore there's a neighborhood called Kanawha(sp?) that has the city's largest area of upscale mansions... it reminds me of Cleveland's Edgewater neighborhood... which is also located on that city's far west shore

 

 

 

 

 

some bay housing

 

 

the section of the city along W. 8th and W. 6th near Gridley Park is my favorite... it's got some nice stuff... though it too is still rather gritty

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

some bayview apartments

 

Front St... at the edge of the bluff high above the bay

 

 

 

Downtown next to the Bayfront Parkway...

 

Modern Tool complex

 

really handsome block downtown... the Erie Museum of Art is at right

 

building at left dates from the 1830s

 

this is another fantastic block downtown... the Starbucks is gorgeous and seems to function as the hub of Erie's intellectual community... and Sherlock's at left is a rather famous nightlife spot

 

 

 

 

Erie County Courthouse (1855) in downtown

 

 

a Gannon University building

 

 

the old Boston Store

 

State St. is the main drag through town... featuring many of the high-rises and much of the nightlife... the Warner Theatre is an opulent art-deco venue

 

I think this is Erie's tallest skyscraper... it's also my favorite

 

another strong block featuring the Erie Playhouse

 

the Avalon Hotel presents a blank face

 

destroy it

 

Cathedral of the Erie Catholic Dioceses

 

I imagine there used to be a lot of houses like this one in central Erie... only a few remain... "erratics" amongst blighted streetscapes of parking lots, mid-century trash and automobile-centric facilities

 

Nice block... much of State St. south of the railroad remains pretty solid

 

 

 

 

condo conversion in progress

 

 

 

 

Peach St. is 5 lanes in one direction downtown... a thoroughly depressing environment

 

more wide-ass boulevards of desolation

 

 

ooo... the Professional Building!

 

 

hideous residential building and abandoned Burger King

 

too wide!

 

oh... Verizon

 

another lonely survivor with the crappiest arena ever in the distance

 

 

 

that dude at bottom right is the mascot for Troyer Farms potato chips... the  best chips in the world

 

how could an architect live with himself after designing such a monstrosity?

 

 

 

 

the best houses always turn out to be law firms and funeral homes

 

 

 

Erie's bayfront has seen plenty of development lately... there's Erie's sexy and sleek new convention center and Sheraton hotel

 

the Flagship Niagara led the American fleet during the Battle of Lake Erie in 1813... the current ship was reconstructed from the sunken remnants

 

 

the former Pittsburgh Wind Symphony barge is hanging out at Dobbins Landing

 

Gannon students coming down to the bayfront to watch the tall ship

 

Perry Monument across the bay on Presque Isle

 

 

finishing up with some near East Side... this area has some serious problems... but I really like its narrow streets and tree canopies...

 

 

 

 

heading south on Parade St.

 

 

Great photo set. I was only in Erie once, in the early 1960s. It had a fairly thriving retail downtown then.

 

One of the things I remember about the city is that the traffic signals at residential intersections were painted dark green, hung over the center of the intersection on wires, and had only two aspects. In one direction they were red over green, and in the other they were green over red. That way, they only required two lamps to create all possible display configurations.

 

Erie Engine Mfg. Co. ...

 

made Erie steam engines. Go figure.

 

Skinner Engine Works (can't remember details of the building), also in Erie, built industrial steam engines like this one powering a sawmill in northern Indiana :

 

They also built large engines for steamships and power plants. In the 1960s I saw two 900-horsepower Skinner Unaflow inline triple-expansion steam engines powering one of the car ferries that ran across Delaware Bay between Lewes and Cape May. It was a big boat, capable of carrying 120 cars and trucks and 1200 passengers. I saw the outside of the factory buildings in a nighttime driving tour in 1961, and only remember that they were long multistory brick industrial buildings typical of their era and function.

 

 

the rainy weather is appropriate. good work. and of course we always enjoy sets of the metro cleveland towns.  :wink:

another lonely survivor with the crappiest arena ever in the distance

 

Yep. I saw Def Leppard there when I was in High School. Although the Erie County Field House was even crappier. I'm not sure if it still exists.

 

Rain, snow, sleet, the photo shoot must go on! I thought it was going to be all grit but you balanced it out quite well. Nice job.

I had friends in college from Erie.  I never visited, but wondered what it looked like.

 

Pretty neat place--neglect and all.

Give it back to New York.

Way to go CDM.....!

 

Nice subject. I always liked Erie. But what's up with the colors in some of those pics, especially the flourescent grass?

That's what I do.  Truthfullness!  Or truthiness!  Or whatever it is.

Wow. Erie has some great architecture. But it looks like it could use some serious TLC.

 

Nice shots.