A Road Trip to Cleveland: Walking Down Memory Lane ~ New Wilmington, Cambridge Springs, and Edinboro
A Road Trip to Cleveland
New Wilmington, Pennsylvania
June 8, 2024
Route 80 across Pennsylvania hasn't changed much over the years - it's still very green and very empty of all but farmlands interspersed with woodlands. There are a few more buildings around the exit ramps - gas stations and fast food places, mostly. And it is finished now. Back when we were going back and forth to New Jersey, first as students and then as young marrieds, you'd travel a hundred miles or so and encounter construction that sent you off the highway and through back roads until you could get back on.
We stopped once for gas but mostly pushed onward, anxious to get to our destination. First stop - MP Coney Island in New Castle! I remember Jeff taking me to Coney Island Lunch when I visited Westminster in the fall of my senior year of high school. The restaurant was dark and gloomy and a couple of older ladies were the waitresses, shouting orders to the cooks. The original (pictured below) was downtown, and that was the restaurant we really wanted to go to see. Alas, the pandemic caused it to close.
A bit of the history of this storied place:
John Mitsos and George Papazekos immigrated as teenagers from Greece, and in 1923 they opened the original Coney Island Lunch on West Washington Street in New Castle.
Their restaurant specialized in selling Greek-style hot dogs with their own secret chili sauce. In March 1971, Mitsos and Papazekos added a second location and renamed their business “M&P Coney Island.”
The children of John E. Mitsos (nephew of the original Mitsos) now own the business and saw it through the pandemic. Although the original restaurant has closed, they are growing the business with several franchises throughout western Pennsylvania and wholesaling their famous chili. You can order a gallon of their chili for $54.00
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| The photo of the two founders in front of the Washington St. restaurant graces one wall. |
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| Standing in line to order! |
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| The famous Coney Island Chili Dogs! (One just isn't enough.) |
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| Jeff dips his fries into the chili. In the original restaurant, you used to get a small dish of chili on the side to dip your fries into. Nowadays, that costs extra. We made short work of our lunch and were on our way to New Wilmington. |
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| Old Main |
Our first stop was at Jeffers Hall, Jeff's dorm freshman and sophomore years. He was an RA in his sophomore year. We later learned that it is now used for coaches and for graduate students.
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| Jeffers Hall |
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| Eichenauer Hall |
Jeff lived in Eichenauer Hall his junior year.
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| 149 Waugh Street - Jeff's home senior year Jeff showed me the stump where he used to lean his bicycle |
Senior year, Jeff lived upstairs in a room with a bathroom that he shared with Adam Smith. The bathroom had a refrigerator in it! Their friends, George and Nancy Wilson lived in the apartment in front, and another couple, Randy and Boots, lived in an apartment in the back.
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| 149 Waugh Street |
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| Old Main |
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| Linda in front of Shaw Hall |
I lived on the second floor of Shaw Hall the year I was a student at Westminster.
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| The Inn on Maple |
We stayed in a wonderful inn in downtown New Wilmington and had a delightful stay. We enjoyed a cocktail on the patio before walking down to the Tavern on the Square for dinner.
For dinner, we walked down to the Tavern on the Square, where we learned that they had just reopened three weeks ago. The Tavern on the Square has been an icon since it first opened in 1931. The restaurant closed in 2020 and sat empty for nearly two years. New owners purchased the abandoned building in 2021 and have undertaken a major restoration. It began as the home and office for a doctor, built in 1849, and later served as a stop on the Underground Railroad. In 1931, it transformed into a tavern. The building deteriorated over the years, and it closed in 2020. It was almost demolished. But then Maggie and Matt Noble purchased it and invested considerable sums in restoring it. It is a magnificent restoration! We had a long conversation with Maggie
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| Bookstore in town -- a lovely clutter! |
We took a leisurely stroll back to the Inn and had a delightful night's sleep. I didn't take any pictures of our breakfast this morning, but it was just delicious. They had made a baked oatmeal for Jeff (I had indicated that he was lactose intolerant), and I had a wonderful frittata. They served a lovely bowl of watermelon and blueberries as well. Truly a delight!
We loaded up the car for the short drive to Cambridge Springs and Edinboro.
Cambridge Springs and Edinboro
June 9 -10, 2024
Cambridge Springs, PA
We made our first stop this morning in Cambridge Springs. We drove into town and made our way to South Main Street. We parked the car, looked across the street, and tried to figure out which building was ours. The one closest to the train tracks just didn't look right to me. So we decided to walk around to the back of the rows of buildings until we saw our back door—the one we usually used since that was where we parked the car.
Our apartment was on the second floor. If you look carefully, you can see a screen door in between the windows - we could open that door and get some nice air circulation.
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| The back door to our apartment circa 1973 Jeff's mom, Linda, and Jeff |
This photo gives you a better view of the screen door. We don't think anyone lives in the apartment today.
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| The narrow door next to the Old Tyme Cafe was the front entrance |
We stood across the street for a bit, and a woman pulled up, parked, and was about to go into a building near us when she turned and struck up a conversation with us. She knew Russell T. Grabb, our landlord, and spoke about the hardships of the town. It's definitely a "hard luck" town, and it looks it!
We ended our visit with lunch at a new brewery in town, located on the site of the historic Riverside Inn, a hotel and dinner theater built in the late 1880s at the height of the mineral springs craze in the US. It was still standing when we lived there in the early 1970s, but I don't think it was open. It was destroyed by fire in May 2017.
The Brewery is housed in an 1800s rustic barn that was deconstructed, moved, and reconstructed on the site. It's really quite lovely. We sat outside and had a delicious lunch.
A Drive Through Edinboro
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| Current location of Jeff's first employer! |
Just after his graduation, Jeff found a job with the Northwest Tri-County Intermediate Unit. It's an educational service center that had just been legislated into existence in Pennsylvania, and it's very similar to Connecticut's regional educational service centers (RESCs), which are now named EdAdvance, CREC, ACES, and EastConn. He earned a whopping $5,200 per year, with a raise to $5,800 per year the second year we lived in western PA. At the time, the offices were located in Erie, so it was a bit of a hike. We don't know when, but they moved to Edinboro at some point. Jeff made contact with them and somehow managed to get us "invited" to a "staff luncheon" on Monday. Although this is outside my personal comfort zone ("crashing a luncheon"), I will reluctantly follow along.
As we drove into town, we quickly located Normal Street (named for the college when it was known as a "Normal School"), and just as quickly located the house where our first apartment was located.
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| Our address was 203 1/2 Normal Street |
Our apartment was the single-floor part of this house, with the door just up the steps on the right. You walked into the living room, which had a small bathroom on the left, and then into the long, narrow kitchen that spanned the back of our side of the house. The bedroom was in the portion to the far right behind the red maple tree (which wasn't there when we lived there). It had a weird basement with a washing machine - I don't remember if it had a dryer.
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| Another view of our apartment - and the place we used to park our car! |
It was a treat to be able to walk half a block to the campus, and I remember loving that part of living in this apartment. The rent was $110 per month - something we discovered was a "stretch" for us, which caused us to move to Cambridge Springs, where the rent was just $75 per month. The apartment was nowhere near as nice as this one - it was kind of oddly laid out with a small kitchen, living room with a space heater (the only heat for the whole place), an "in-between" room that we lined with homemade bookshelves, the bedroom, and the bathroom - all in a row! Originally, the second floor housed offices and that's pretty much what the apartment looked like. There was even a doorway to the hall in the "in-between" room!
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| This sign used to read Edinboro State College when I walked past it every day |
The school is known today as PennWest Edinboro. Founded in 1857 as Edinboro Academy, a private training school for Pennsylvania teachers, the school affiliated with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania became the second State Normal School and was called the Northwest State Normal School. In 1914, the state purchased the school from the original stockholders and renamed it Edinboro State Normal School, and by 1927 the school included additional academic programs, including liberal arts, and was renamed Edinboro State Teachers College.
By the time I enrolled, the school was offering degree programs outside of education and was called Edinboro State College in 1960. It has continued to evolve, and in 1988, it merged with two other schools to become PennWestern University.
Today we will have lunch with the current NWTCIU staff and then head west to Cleveland for what I have dubbed "cousin palooza." Tuesday will hold a big bash with the "tier ones" (I like that term better than "old fogies"), the "tier twos" (children of the tier ones), and the "tier threes." Our family tier twos aren't old enough to have grandchildren, so there are no "tier fours" just yet!
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