Lackawanna Railroad

On Sunday we were lucky to catch a train as it came out of Nay Aug Tunnel heading west. This is on the former mainline of the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad, looking west. The bridge at the bottom is above Roaring Brook Gorge.

Nay Aug Treehouse

This is the new treehouse in Scranton's Nay Aug Park.

It's Tree-mendous!

Milepost 13

This is milepost 13 on the Erie's Wyoming Division. Took a walk through the wilds today. This was one of the more interesting sights.

The Allen Theatre

Here's an ad for a Peter Yarrow show at the Allen. Not many people came to this, but there were a few hundred, in a place that seated 2,860. After the show Peter signed autographs and sang some songs in the rotunda. A few other shows appear in these ads from 1972. A couple popular local acts were appearing down in Kent, Damnation, and Tiny Alice. I can only assume that Tiny Alice played their local hit "And Now A Word From Our Sponsor"

The Jeff Beck Group show at The Allen was a rather rowdy affair, Glass Harp opened.

Luna Park Shoot-the Chute

Since I have all these present day images of the remains of Luna Park, this is a view of the

Park when it was actually open. Compare this view of the Shoot-the-Chute with the one in the very first post in this blog. Most of this is covered in tons of fill for Interstate 81, only that one corner remains today. I guess even that is somewhat suprising since the park has been closed for 80 years.

Laurel Line: Luna Park Entrance

This is the entrance to Luna Park that ran under the Laurel Lines Dunmore branch. Interstate 81 cuts this off from the rest of the former park area. There was a station up the walkway to the right of the photo. Now that spring is here, the area is covered in heavy foilage. The area has become a dumping ground for local residents as is evidenced by the debris. Standing water fills the bottom of the passageway. The tracks ran above the opening here. This station was in between the Nay Aug Park, and the Myrtle Street stops. Luna closed after the 1916 season, when a fire destroyed three buildings.

Wyoming Division revisited

Yesterday on our way to Nay Aug Park we took the scenic route via the Erie Railroad's Wyoming Division. We hadn't been through there since Easter Sunday when it was starting to snow. This view of the rock cut shows spring is in full swing. Compare this image with the one below.

Nay Aug Falls

We went to Nay Aug Park yesterday, and found the new bridge across Roaring Brook is finally open. Following the yet to be completed pathway we made our way to an unfinished viewing platform above Nay Aug Falls. I was able to get this photo. This formerly abandoned section of the park was previously hard to access. We had been there a couple times in the past, but it wasn't easy to get there. From this area it should be alot easier to reach the abandoned Luna Park area.

Cleveland:Fulton Road Bridge

This is a view of the Fulton Road Bridge in Cleveland taken on Saturday March 19, 1994. This is the day before my 37th birthday. Back in the late 60's - early 70's I spent alot of time down in this area. Like many Cleveland landmarks this bridge fell into disrepair. Eventually the bridge needed to be replaced. This set into motion one of the more comical events in recent Cleveland History. The first three attempts to implode this bridge on Saturday morning April 28, 2007 didn't go as planned. A number of videos appeared on YouTube showing the comical attempts, with the sound of an explosion, but with the bridge remaining standing. It was finally brought down on Tuesday May 2.

Erie Railroad:Wyoming Division

On Easter Sunday April 8, 2007 we took a stroll down a section on the Erie Railroad's Wyoming Division in Scranton. This section was part of the original Pennsylvania Coal Company Gravity Railroad built about 1850. I'm not 100% sure, but I think the section in the photo, is the loaded track, between planes 5 & 6. One wonders how many Irish immigrants it took to chop through all the rock in this cut. By 1886, the PCC Gravity had been purchased by the Erie, and transformed into a conventional steam railroad. This became the Wyoming Division, and remained in use until 1982. Today giant weeds cover most of the trackage north from River Street in Scranton. The right-of-way is used mostly by ATV riders. The Dunmore Branch of the Lackawanna & Wyoming Railroad (Laurel Line) ran just west of here. Most of that line was obliterated by the construction of Interstate 81, although a few portions of the roadbed are still visible. One of these days we'll try and find whatever remains of the light track of the PCC Gravity road, which must be a little higher up on the mountainside.

The Allen Theatre

The Allen Theatre had been in Cleveland's Playhouse Square 51 years before I first walked in the doors. These were the first shows I worked on there. It was quite an eventful weekend for a wide eyed 15 year old. I'll never forget the rush of excitement as the crowds poured in through the front doors on a chilly March evening, back in 1972. The conventional wisdom was that downtown was dead, these shows proved quite the opposite. These two shows were quite different from each other, one a classy show with a legendary British actor, the other a rather rowdy evening with a legendary British rocker. I must have a thousand stories about the Allen, and the rest of the Playhouse Square theatres. The first ones would revolve around these two shows.

Nay Aug

My wife and I spent alot of time visiting various historical sites. One of those is Scranton's Nay Aug Park. In the summer of 1996 we were fortunate to catch a passing Steamtown Excursion train as it approached Nay Aug Tunnel. Usually in railroad photography when you have the camera, trains are scarce. When you're trackside with camera in hand the trains seem to be few and far in between.

Cleveland

Back in the 1970's, I spent alot of time in the Playhouse Square area. This is an old postcard view of that area. A couple stories from that era made it into the Carlo Wolff book, Cleveland Rock and Roll Memories. The B.F.Keith Building, shown here,is 22 stories tall,was once the tallest building between New York and Chicago. It houses the Palace Theatre, and opened on November 6, 1922. The huge electric sign on the roof was also once the worlds largest.Then the Terminal Tower was built om Public Square, opening in 1927, which is 52 stories.

Scranton: Luna Park

Scranton's Luna Park, the remains from the Shoot-the-Chute, December 2006. Most of the Shoot-the-Chute area is today burnied in fill from I-81. But this one section still remains. Not much of the former amusement park is left, but there are still some remnants left.