Sunday, February 16, 2014

Booker T. Washington Center Aerial View

Booker T. Washington Center at 1720 Holland St. in Erie, PA.
The Booker T. Washington Center, at 1720 Holland Street in Erie, PA, was built around 1970. This aerial photograph from the Erie Redevelopment Authority shows the rebirth of the neighborhood, with several gaps where new homes had yet to be constructed.

The BTW Center is in the middle of this picture, on the north side of 18th St. If I remember correctly, the circle to the west of BTW was one of the old, shallow cement pools that the City of Erie used to fill in the summertime for kids to play in. Most of these pools were filled in with soil and are no longer used for that purpose. 

The old Lakeshore Ice Cream and the cold storage building at 347-351 East 15th Street is the tallest structure on the left side of the photo. Those buildings, on 15th and Parade, have been demolished. The white building below that, at 242 East 16th St., was Nagle Engine & Boiler Works at the turn of the century.

Booker T. Washington Center is a community gathering place which has educational and recreational activities for children, teens, adults and seniors. Booker T. Washington spoke in Erie, PA on June 21, 1914 at the Central Presbyterian Church on 10th and Sassafras St.

Find more historic facts and photos of Erie, Pennsylvania at Old Time Erie

3 comments:

  1. I had forgotten about those shallow cement pools! Where were others located?
    Leslie Ann

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    1. You can still see the outline at Glenwood Park by the zoo, I don't know specifically of any others but I know that several exist-- just walk around the central areas of city parks and you will see them.

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  2. On the pools, you can still see the cement outline of them at several Erie parks. I'm amazed they ever had them in the first place, they were a tremendous safety hazard. The large building in the back of the photo was recently torn down -- the first floor was a company that made pallets and the rest of the building was a warehouse. I believe it was, at one time, the storage facility for all the local liquor stores.

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