Near the notorious Five Points, on Wyandotte St. on the South Side, there is a McDonald's of devastating ugliness. Something which, if memory serves me, former Mayor Don Cunningham insisted on leaving us as a gift.
I now realize that, in planting that particular structure there, the company may have been trying to placate us. It is, after all, "historical" McDonald's, the famed Golden Arches, going all the way back to, maybe, the '50s. With the metal-clad apartment house that stands nearby, it is the classic example of what you would not want at the gateway to your city. And, like it or not, the Five Points IS a gateway to the City of Bethlehem. Moreover, right across Wyandotte St. merchants and entrepreneurs are struggling to redeem and revitalize the once-thriving Wyandotte St. shops.
In the context of these things, the Golden Arches are an eyesore. I have nothing against the occasional Big Mac or Egg McMuffin; but I hope that someday soon these things will be served up in a more reserved building on the same site.
The Five Points McDonald's also may be an example of a "cash-strapped" city (the newspapers always use that expression)in a desperate charge to get every vacant piece of ground, and some that are not so vacant, built up with just anything that pays taxes.
But, hold on. And I DO mean, literally, hold on. Many of the best, or at least most interesting, pieces of real estate in the city are tax-exempt. Schools. Universities. Parks. In many cases, putting them on the tax rolls would effectively destroy them. And that, in turn, could cut to the heart of what we think of as Essential Bethelehem.
Besides, there is the Casino Factor. Wasn't income for the city one of the key reasons for people,including this writer, to reluctantly support the Casino idea?
If we were right, money from that source should be along relatively soon. Meanwhile, City Council should go relatively slow with development-for-the-sake-of-taxes. Bethlehem might lose-or gain-something it had not counted on. Something that either cannot be replaced, or that cannot easily be disposed of.