It’s a strange sight, that old building
standing alone on the North side of the first block of East Main Street in Norristown, Pa.. #43, a relic of the past, stands just east of
the county garage, with nothingness beyond it to DeKalb Street. If you are at all interested in the good old
days of Norristown, check it out, because soon it will follow all the other
buildings that used to grace this side of the core block of downtown
Norristown. It will disappear. The buildings to the east succumbed to
different causes, but #43 East Main Street will join all the other buildings between
it and the Public Square as a victim of a single voracious neighbor, the
Government of Montgomery County.
The Government of Montgomery County is evidence that something can be
within a municipality’s boundaries and also beyond its control, thus adding a
further wrinkle to the possibilities discussed in my previous post. The County’s exercise of “eminent domain” to
acquire #43 East demonstrated that quite clearly. The acquisition was an initial step in what
will be a major reworking of the county’s physical plant. History says you should be concerned.
Montgomery County’s creation of its present complex contributed substantially
to the decline of downtown Norristown. Will history
sort of repeat itself? Could this new
program hurt Norristown at precisely the time people are beginning to see signs
of a turnaround? Only time will tell,
but something this substantial scheduled to take place in the core of the town
you are trying to revive should be carefully considered. And you definitely don’t want history to even
sort of repeat itself in downtown Norristown.
When Montgomery County first constructed the buildings and parking
garage that will be rehabbed, it delivered repeated body blows to what was then
the county’s shopping mecca, downtown Main Street. The County was by no means Main Street’s only
assailant, to be sure, but the decline of downtown Norristown was initiated and
then sustained by the County’s actions.
And this began BEFORE even the idea of a large shopping center at King
of Prussia. If you want more than a
super brief outline of what happened, I refer you to my book, What Killed Downtown? Norristown,
Pennsylvania From Main Street to the Malls, but what follows outlines some
fundamental points.
Montgomery County hurt downtown Norristown in two ways. First, it tore the heart out of what was then
a thriving downtown Main Street. The
County removed 20 businesses, plus the offices of two unions and one fraternal
organization, from Norristown’s commercial core. They never returned. Second, and perhaps even more damaging, it
allowed the work to drag out over almost two decades, disrupting downtown
commerce at exactly the wrong time in history.
The County struck its first blow back in 1954, the peak year of Main
Street’s post-World War II prosperity.
Planning had begun earlier, but the course of events seems to indicate
that either the County began the project unsure of what would result, or had to
frequently change its goals during an era of ballooning government
responsibility. Or perhaps both.
In 1954 the County purchased the
Montgomery Trust Building at #25 East Main and the Montgomery Trust Arcade
Building (originally the Boyer Arcade, named after its builder) at #29. Despite noble proclamations about making a
“commitment to Norristown” while saving the taxpayers’ money, the County’s
subsequent actions did exactly the opposite, at least for Norristown. The County expelled all the tenants from the
buildings it had purchased, and had various government agencies occupy the
buildings for a while. But then the
County let the buildings deteriorate until they sat boarded and empty for
years, a considerable eyesore in a town by then struggling against blight.
In 1961 the County announced that not only would it raze #25 and #29, it
would also purchase the two buildings to the east, #35 and #37, and raze them
too. This the County proceeded to do. What had been from Norristown’s beginning the
very core of downtown, the site of numerous businesses, became the entrance to
a parking garage. But that took quite a
while; the project’s impact on Main Street stretched out over 17 years, from
the County’s purchase of two buildings in 1954 to the completion of the parking
garage in 1971. Much verbiage was
expended as to how the new garage would solve the downtown parking problem, but
by the time it opened downtown was a ghost town and the parking wasn’t needed.
The recent newspaper article announcing the impending end of #43 East
Main contained a statement that should be considered as ominous: “The work [of
renovating the entire County complex] is expected to take a decade…” The financial figures that follow are
substantial, but the extended time is what renders the County’s construction
program problematic—at best—for a reviving Norristown. The next decade will be crucial for
Norristown, and constant disruption, noise and traffic blockages in the core of
what you are trying to revive is not going to help.
But can anything actually be done to mitigate the effects on downtown of the proposed work? How much influence does Norristown have with the County these days? Any at all? But maybe it doesn't matter. Back when the County complex was built, the Borough still possessed economic clout, although that was waning. There was a Norristown Chamber of Commerce and a number of influential merchants of long standing in the region. All this did Norristown absolutely no good, as it turned out.
Will things be better this time? My research about the last time never turned up anything that would even suggest evil intent on the County's part, but the results were devastating nonetheless. So, even assuming the best intentions on the part of the County, those working to revive Norristown should pay close attention to what's coming. History may--or it may not--sort of repeat itself, but knowing history--understanding what happened in similar circumstances before--can only help to swing your chances toward the latter option. That's definitely what you want.
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