A Town Divided

Remember Petula Clark singing her hit Downtown (the lights are much brighter there!)? Remember years later Billy Joel performing Uptown Girl (living in her uptown world)? Uptown and Downtown. Two parts of many American cities and towns. In all the old cop shows, when they arrest someone, it would be “take ’em downtown”.

In my little town , with a population of a little over four thousand, there is a definite downtown and an equally defined uptown.  A town divided.  Oh sure, we were all pretty much the same, a mostly lower middle class community of Welsh and Pennsylvania Dutch.  But there were some differences.  I am going to attempt to point them out, but here is a little warning. We are talking over five decades ago AND I have an uptown bias! I was an uptown boy. Uptown Proud!!

Slatington also had an Out Town. But that is a story for another day.

Geography. I am thinking there are three things that separate downtown and uptown. The Main Street Bridge, the Hundred Steps, and the Danny (the Dan Jones Hill). Bottom of the Danny…downtown. South of the Main Street Bridge…uptown. Bottom of the Hundred Steps…downtown. Maybe that is why it is called downtown.

For the most part, uptown kids went to Lincoln Elementary and downtown kids went to Roosevelt Elementary.  Abe Lincoln versus Teddy Roosevelt! What a fight that would be. Both schools were traditional brick buildings of their day. Today the Roosevelt is Borough Hall and other offices. The Lincoln Building exists only in memories. Sad.

Downtown had the “rich” kids of Kuehner Hill. It’s funny how that was the swanky part of town until Maple Spring Acres was built a little farther north.  Uptown had the big homes on East Franklin and East Washington Streets.

Even little league baseball was somewhat divided between the ups and downs. Uptown boys were most likely to play for Slatington Rotary and the downtown boys were most likely on the Skeet Club team.

But we were the same people, with some very minor differences, living in a great town. Junior High brought us all together. Kids from Walnutport, Peters, and Slatedale elementary schools joined us there too.

I haven’t lived in Slatington for about thirty years. I am close by in Schnecksville.  I don’t know if they still identify the two parts of town anymore. But every time I drive through town, and I cross north over the  Main Street Bridge, Petula Clark starts up in my brain.  You can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares and go…Downtown!