Bethlehem Journal: Wind Creek

photograph: Hallie Cohen

Bethlehem is a remnant of America’s industrial past and one of those old American towns that has both a pre and post-industrial life. Its abandoned factories and smokestacks are interspersed with neat stone cottages that emanate from the 18th century when Moravian immigrants founded a college (in 1742). When you travel to Vermont or Massachusetts, you find  deserted red brick hulks which have either been asylums (Wingdale in the Hudson Valley), shoe factories (now housing artisanal cheese shops) and even an occasional museum as in the case of Mass MoCA in North Adams. Bethlehem, Pa. is a particularly charming example of once dreary sweatshops and factories turned into alluring redoubts. Main Street is presided over by the auspicious Hotel Bethlehem built in l922. The brick streets are now lined with bistros;  the old Woolworth's now houses a Spanish restaurant. There's even a casino called Wind Creek, the ultimate in hi tech with its bold red sign hanging over the entrails of an abandoned steel mill. 

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