….some are eyesores.. some spawn nostalgic memories..
They are abundant in the coal region (and beyond): Vacant schools of yesterday.. hospitals.. businesses.. former immaculate homes now gutted and furnished with the finest of litter and filth..
Hours of thought and pondering could be spent on what to do about blighted residential properties–look around and you’ll see the potential issues in a neighborhood near you..
But for this post, we delve into the big structures that exist.. and sit.. and stand dark.. and age without heat and water flowing through them..
The life of a building can be gauged by the laughter, sadness, or range of emotions that dwell within it..
Schools offer up those memories.. Hospitals conjure old spirits of the living and the dead..
Here are the big three of our area that stand now into the 2020s:
Holy Spirit Elementary School
Holy Spirit was a thriving Catholic school in Mt. Carmel for decades.. it closed years ago, long after Sr. Adrian was the principal ..
The school was shut down early part of the century and since then has been dormant..
Since 2018, it’s been for sale for $500,000 by the Prestige Group
It would appear no buyers have yet to express much interest beyond links and chatter.. From the looks of photos inside the building, you can get a blast from the past.. images from the 1980s still appear painted on walls.. The gym still looks the same.. Chances are the same chemical substance they sprinkled on beautifully buffed floors after kids vomited still has an a residual odor..
What will become of this structure?
THE ASHLAND HOSPITAL
This is a monster of a vacant structure…
This was the first hospital Schuylkill County. The state purchased most of the land for $1 per acre, with the Philadelphia and Reading Coal and Iron Company donating 18 acres, and $60,000 was appropriated by the state legislature for the hospital construction.
The need for better medical care was evident in the 1870s.. miners were dying or becoming very injured at their dangerous craft.. In 1879, state legislation was approved to form the State Hospital for Injured Persons of the Anthracite Coal Region at Fountain Springs.. Construction of the new hospital began in May 1880 and was completed in 1882. The original building included several wards, an Administrative wing, operating rooms, laundry and a stable. It went bankrupt in 2012 and most of its insides were auctioned off in 2013. The building itself failed to be sold at that time.
Since then the building was sold and was planned to become a drug rehab center. For a few years Miller Bros Construction did work on it, according to insiders, put in some new floors, a boiler, and a roof.. all for nothing.. The building is yet again up for sale, as the drug rehab facility never happened.
Bennett Williams Commercial is the commercial realtor selling the property with the current price set at $1.5 Million. The property is advertised as being on 20.7 acres with 4 buildings, 285 parking space and a helipad.
And.. there it sits. Desolate.. On a certain nights it looks ever darker than the night sky.
It shadows over the area. It spawned miracles and births decades ago. Now it triggers nightmares.
The Former Cardinal Brennan school
A few weeks ago, we took a photo of the former Cardinal Brennan, now owned by North Schuylkill School District, with a dumpster out front…
Is this a sign of things to come?
There are rampant rumors that the structure as we know it soon may not stand.. The former Cardinal Brennan that was the former Immaculate Heart Academy is a monument of a time gone.. of a school closed more than a decade+ ago..
What will happen in the coming months of years is anyone’s guess.. that dumpster may give a clue..
The school was closed in 2007 after the Allentown Diocese made the controversial call.
Five years ago, an auction occurred at Cardinal Brennan.. everything inside went. I almost got a baby grand piano but was outbid. That’s me in the YouTube video. I quickly put my iPhone in a spot where it could record myself before the winners of the piano auction would remove their prize.. YES!!
I am proudly boasting and will always relish in this fact: I was the final person who had the chance to blast out the school alma mater on a piano in this building. Forever. It will never happen again. The ghosts of the past perhaps had one last chance to sing their praise.. or maybe those ghosts have been gone for a long time anyway.
These are the big three.. but they don’t end there.. There are countless properties like these..
So what do we do?
Where do we go from here?
Drug rehab.. retirement homes.. nursing homes… pot facilities?
Maybe every town should have indoor aquaponics.. Who has the money to make it!?
Are these eyesores just going to stay where they are? Remain as they were..? relics of a time gone, and no changes coming to change then, reestablish them, or raze them?
One of the biggest questions as we enter the roaring 20s will be what happens with properties like these big three and others like it across this area–and across America.
This is not just a coal region question but one that is being dealt with far beyond anthracite land..
