Font Resize
It was fun to drive past the old place where for decades hordes of teen kids and grown kids converged.
The cement patio where they danced under the moonlight is still there. So is the large Victorian structure that housed a snack bar, pool table and couples-only booths.
The Dell got a bad reputation in its later years, but something has been lost with the death of such venues and the birth of East Market Street bars.
Our windshield tour of The Dell put us on the old Baltimore Pike, or Starcross Road.
I joked with my son, who is also a journalist and likes such things, that this was the route folks took on Sunday afternoon wagon rides to Baltimore in the 1700s.
Only Joppa was the main destination then, so it became Joppa Road in Leader Heights and points farther south.
We next headed south on Starcross to St. Mary's/St. Patrick's Cemetery. There, we found few Irish names on the tombstones.
I noted that German Roman Catholics were more numerous in York, and the many names ending with "baugh" on the tombstones proved that.
As we headed to the cemetery's highest point, I looked unsuccessfully for the gravesite of cigarmaker John G. Mayer, founder of Mayersville, later North York. He was buried
I've long pondered how a Catholic in predominantly Protestant York County had achieved so much before the turn of the 20th century.
Ironically, North York gained notoriety as a hotbed of Klan activity and its attendant anti-Catholicism in the 1920s.
High up, we paused to admire a view from this rare vantage point. We could see York Hospital's roof.
How many places, short of a 747, can you do that?
We moved down into Springdale, named after the springs that fed that area.
Congressman Charles A. Barnitz built the mansion "Springdale" here. I pointed out the carriage house and noted that if an outbuilding such as that was so large, imagine the size of the now-demolished 1820s-era mansion.
Davy Crockett, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster and other luminaries visited Barnitz at his Springdale home.
We traveled through Springdale, passing the spot where a street luge accident cost a popular teen his life. With my son in the car, I could feel a lump rising in my throat and pondered that sad accident, the brave public response from his parents and efforts under way to build a skate park.
Veterans Memorial Park came next, the safe city site where such a skate place would be built.
We drove around an unsung memorial that lends the park and nearby stadium its name - a monument built after World War II to honor veterans.
We next crossed Prospect Street and traveled around Girard Park. The park and its environs seem particularly run down and without hope.
Maybe the knowledge that the Girarders, a gang that hailed from this area and helped instigate the race riots of the late 1960s, influences my view of the park.
Nearby Albermarle Park promised to be a happier setting. As we walked, the park did, indeed, ring with people having fun.
A basketball court was crowded, and loud salsa music drifted from houses ringing the park. Sixty years ago, the most ethnic sound coming from the blaring radio would have been Frank Sinatra singing "South of the Border" in a New Jersey accent.
In a corner of the busy park, the condition of the AIDS memorial was sobering.
The winter had treated the usually beautiful site roughly and so had vandals - it was hard to tell which was the worse thug.
Particularly disturbing was that several bricks from the ribbon-shaped walkway bearing names of those being remembered lay loose.
On the way to our next stop, Penn State York, city neighborhoods blended into blocks within the York Suburban School District.
I pondered whether a program of gradual annexation of such city neighborhoods bordering townships and the subsequent movement of those students to suburban schools would achieve two things: That would add needed diversification to suburban schools and re-assign poverty-level students to better-funded educational settings.
Annex a block a year, just to see how it works.
On campus, Penn State York's new library called for exploration.
As we entered the building, the wisdom of the idea to place the Pullo Family Performing Arts Center and the Lee R. Glatfelter Library under one roof became apparent.
Library patrons could be exposed to the beautiful center and vice versa.
I wasn't prepared for the unusual view of the city from the big windows on the north end of the complex. The towering Blackbridge incinerator did not seem so high from this elevation.
Penn State has done much in recent years to make its entrances more prominent and inviting, and its playing fields below were overflowing with young athletes that Sunday.
Or were those Memorial Park's fields?
The park blends into Penn State's campus, and I wondered whether the university couldn't become a full partner with the ailing city in its upkeep.
We entered the library to look through its big windows, but it was just about ready to close.
Oh well, a thorough visit there will be a good starting point for a future Sunday afternoon tour.
James McClure is editor of the York Daily Record/Sunday News. He has written five books on county history and writes a local history blog, www.yorktownsquare.com. To contact him, call 771-2000, or e-mail jem@ ydr.com
