Once Steel-Reliant, Bethlehem Bouncing Back With Tourism

Thousands of white holiday lights illuminate the darkness these evenings as tourists and local shoppers gather around the small brass bands playing Christmas carols in the downtown section of this historic steel town.

Despite recession and the dramatic downsizing of the steel industry, an economic rebirth of sorts is taking place in this mountain community, and tourism plays an important role in Bethlehem’s revival.

“We love to see the lights and the pageantry of Christmas here,” said Rolph Townshend, a visitor from Annapolis, Md., who now makes annual visits here with his wife, Joan Hamilton.

“It reminds me of a European town,” she said. “We love to come here because of the unique shops and the red brick buildings.”

Bethlehem, founded in 1741 as a Moravian missionary community, is blessed with a historic district that has the largest concentration of 18th Century German-style buildings in the country. For the Christmas season, it is illuminated with masses of little white lights in the European tradition.

During World War II and the years until the early 70s, steel made this town boom. Bethlehem Steel Co., at one time the country’s second-leading steel producer, was king of the hill here. A mere nod of the head of its representatives at a Chamber of Commerce meeting was enough to approve or reject any new project.

The company is still the town’s largest employer, with 5,000 workers. But with the virtual collapse of the industry, Bethlehem Steel has sharply curtailed its operations. It once employed 25,000 people here.

“It wasn’t very pretty the last couple of years,” said George Escott, 64, an industrial engineer who worked 33 years for the company but chose to retire 10 years ago.

But in recent years, both tourists and small industry have been flocking to this community of 72,000 people.

Mirroring economic changes that are occurring nationwide, the town is slowly shifting to a service-oriented and high-tech economy. A handful of industrial parks, which have sprung up north of the city, accommodate about 260 new businesses and provide 13,000 jobs, according to the Chamber of Commerce.

Located 60 miles north of Philadelphia and 90 miles west of New York City, Bethlehem has become an ideal distribution point for small manufacturing businesses seeking to penetrate the East Coast markets.

But the town’s history and Moravian cultural traditions also have helped to bring it tourist dollars.

From all over the eastern United States, visitors come to enjoy the splendor of the 75,000 flickering lights and 650 miniature decorated Christmas trees, to shop in the boutiques and craft shops, to sample the hearty German-style cooking, and to savor the friendly Christmas spirit.

“I think this has been the busiest it has been in the last few years,” said Cheryl Shotko, 37, a waitress at a restaurant in the Hotel Bethlehem downtown. “I’ve been working 10- to 11-hour days, six days a week--but you have to make money when you can.”

By the month’s end, more than 100,000 visitors will have come here, three times the number of visitors five years ago.

To lure summer visitors, the town also has begun running a nine-day music festival in August. Last year, the festival attracted nearly a million people.

“Tourism has helped to create a spirit of survival in the community,” said Jeff Parks, an attorney who directs the town’s tourism authority.

To attract more visitors yet, he said, Bethlehem plans to spend $8.5 million soon to restore 14 buildings of the old Moravian industrial complex, recreating the atmosphere of the pre-Revolutionary communal settlement.

After its decline as a steel center, “The town has survived and found other ways to make money,” said Joanne Walters, 51, who owns a cut-crystal shop downtown. “The tourism certainly helps.”

“I think Bethlehem has a very bright future” said six-year mayor Kenneth Smith. “We’ll be looking for real growth in the second half of the ‘90s.”