Bethlehem invests in outdoor green spaces following COVID lockdowns

A space where trains once reigned is now scattered with human and plant life. 

Shoes slap the pavement as people walk or run along the tree-lined trail. Bike tires spin round and round, as cyclists roll by. A man tends to raised garden beds as giggles escape from children on the playground off of Webster Street. 

These scenes take place daily on Bethlehem’s Greenway, a former railroad track turned South Side connector.

Green is good. Two North Carolina State University professors found grassy fields, trails and trees improve the overall well-being of communities, and Bethlehem is one community getting greener. 

The city is home to 39 parks, most of which are filled with greenery.

“Just being near greenery is sort of calming in a way that other types of scenery just aren’t,” said Karen Pooley, political science professor and advisory board member for The South Side Initiative. 

An Australian survey found people gravitated to outdoor green spaces during COVID-19 lockdowns. With that newfound appreciation, communities are embracing more green spaces and recreation.

Pooley said one example of this investment in clean green spaces is revitalization work in the vacant lots of Philadelphia. 

“I’ve seen really positive public safety impacts from those,” Pooley said. “Crime has gone down around them. Human health — the mental and physical well being of residents nearby — has gone up in addition to property values stabilizing and increasing around them.”

Bethlehem city government has recognized the benefits of greenery as it is in the process of transforming primarily asphalt parks into green spaces through park revitalization projects.

Bethlehem Recreation Director, Jodi Evans, said the North Side’s Friendship Park and Fairview Park are both in the planning stages of revitalization. 

The city has also been working on a project to extend Monocacy Way Trail, which runs along the Monocacy Creek. In May 2022, the trail, which begins at Memorial Pool, was expanded to Schoenersville Road. 

“We recently finished this one piece of it,” Evans said. “It was so popular that we applied for a grant to continue it.”

State and Local Initiatives

Investment in outdoor recreation and revitalization has become a priority across the state. In September 2022, former Gov. Tom Wolf announced $90 million had been awarded to such projects throughout Pennsylvania. It is the largest single amount allocated for recreation and conservation in the state’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources history. 

Grant funding of $441,000 from the department will allow for further improvements to Monocacy Way Trail. Evans said the goal is to extend the trail by approximately 1.48 miles to the D&L Trail at Sand Island by 2024.  

Evans said connecting the Greenway to the Hellertown Rail Trail has also been discussed, but railroad company Norfolk Southern owns the land required to make it happen.

“There are definitely plans,” Pooley said. “It’s just simply a matter of dollars to implement.”

Bethlehem has been using its existing green spaces in creative ways to support and cultivate community. 

In summer 2022, a family-friendly concert series called Live in the Garden was introduced at the Rose Garden in West Bethlehem. Every week from May through June, people gathered to hear the music and smell the roses. The event brought in a different food truck each week along with local beer and wine. 

Erin Zebertavage, downtown manager at SouthSide Arts District, said Live in the Garden garnered a great turnout and inspired the community. 

“There was an interest to bring that same kind of energy to activate the Greenway, and so that’s what brought Live on the Greenway,” Zebertavage said. “It was almost like its own little Musikfest on our Greenway space. 

Cultivating the Greenway

The Greenway offers several leisure and wellness opportunities. Two “little free libraries” line the space, inviting passers-by to take a book or leave one for the next person. Zebertavage said Lehigh’s Engineers Without Borders are in the process of making a third little library. 

The strip of Greenway space between Taylor Street and Webster Street is home to the Esperanza Garden, a community garden cared for by the collective Afros in Nature. 

The Lehigh Permaculture Club is in the first stages of building a Lenape garden in the shape of a turtle near this same section of the trail. The Community Action Development hosts the Greenway Farmers’ Market every Friday from June to October.

 “Access to open space, access to greenery and access to places for active or passive recreation are incredibly important,” Pooley said.

The Lehigh University Art Galleries, in collaboration with SouthSide Arts District, set up an art exhibit along the Greenway called “What Matters Most,” their third annual display exhibit.

Stacie Brennan, the gallery’s curator of education, said the inspiration to bring art to the Greenway spurred from COVID-19 lockdowns when social distancing was necessary. 

“We’re trying to think about ways that we could be creative to connect with the community in outdoor spaces that don’t have any sort of physical restraints,” Brennan said.

South Side Initiative, a Lehigh organization with a mission to improve the quality of life in Bethlehem, is another group working to cultivate and support green spaces.

It has provided support for Bethlehem’s community gardens and developed the Greenway Native Meadow, a strip of native plants surrounded by bilingual educational signs, a Chinese Harmony Pavilion and community art. 

“Big picture, it’s about creating dialogue and community engagement and having those sorts of collaborative problem-solving conversations,” Pooley said. “Specifically, a lot of the projects that have come out of that are sort of green- and park-oriented.”

Pooley said when looking at green spaces, there needs to be a focus on how neighborhoods and communities work to best serve the people who live in them.

She said you don’t need a ton of space to reap benefits from them, but with these spaces comes the question of accessibility. She said conversations about the development of green spaces are also conversations about inclusion.

“Bethlehem has 75,000 people, varied demographics, and we want to really make sure that we are giving everybody an opportunity to enjoy recreation,” Evans said.