|
Luzerne County Courthouse,
one of the buildings in the River Street Historic District
Photograph by Sue Pridemore
Irem Temple, another building in the River Street Historic
District
Photograph
by Sue Pridemore
|
The River Street Historic
District is made up of civic, commercial, ecclesiastical, and
residential buildings dating from 1860 to 1920. Primarily a
district of wealthy industrialists' mansions and upwardly mobile
merchants' homes, it is organized around a central core of Wilkes-Barre's
principal civic and financial institutions. Historically, the
district displays the wealth and importance of Wilkes-Barre
during the years of the anthracite coal industry. Most of the
buildings in the River Street Historic District are architect-designed
and represent the range of popular styles for their periods.
The district possesses many noteworthy buildings, such as the
Luzerne County Courthouse, a grand Beaux Arts style building,
a Renaissance Palazzo YMCA, and the unusual Moorish Revival
style Irem Temple, built for a local Masonic lodge. The River
Street Historic District contains 258 buildings, and includes
four church buildings erected between 1848 and 1900, all situated
on Franklin Street. Their steeples (and the extraordinary campanile
of St. Stephen's Church) provide the principal features of the
District's skyline. These are high-quality designs, reflecting
a cosmopolitan civic image based on the metropolitan architecture
of New York and Philadelphia. In large part, it was architects
from these cities who were brought to Wilkes-Barre to design
churches as well as homes and commercial buildings. Among those
whose work in the District survives are James Renwick (Osterhout
Library, formerly the Presbyterian Church of 1843-1852); F.
C. Withers, and J. C. Cady (the "new" Presbyterian Church
of 1889), all from New York and architects of national renown.
From Philadelphia came architects such as John Fraser, best
known as Frank Furness' mentor; Wilson Eyre (the Phelps home,
later the American Legion Post) and Charles Burns, a prominent
designer of Episcopal churches and the architect of St. Stephen's
Episcopal Church. While the residential streets of the district
are of a domestic scale and character, the institutional core
at the corner of West Market and Franklin Streets is different
stylistically, in its Beaux Arts buildings, and its scale, determined
by tall office buildings. Chief among these are the United Penn
Bank Building, built by the nationally acclaimed Chicago architect
Daniel H. Burnham in 1911, and the First Eastern Bank, built
in 1907 by influential local architects McCormick and French.
The River Street Historic District is located in Wilkes-Barre
and includes Franklin, River West River, West Jackson, West
Union, West Market, West Northampton, West South, and West
Ross Sts., Barnum Place, and the Susquehanna River. Many of
the businesses within the district open to the public during
normal business hours.
|