Having visited the churches on the West side of Nanticoke, our tour now moves to the central section of the city. We begin with another of the city's six Roman Catholic churches, St. Francis.
St. Francis is located at 173 East Green Street and features a large attached school and community center, which in the past was rented out for graduation parties and wedding receptions. It was one of the few Catholic churches in Nanticoke not affected by the first wave of parish consolidations several years ago, and boasted a large congregation and lavish decorations both within and without. Ironically, in 2007 it also became one of the first to close - not due to any of the reasons affecting parishes throughout the city, but because a leak in the roof went undetected until it had compromised the structural integrity of the building to the point that the church was deemed unsafe to use.
The St. Francis community pulled up stakes and relocated several blocks South to St. Joseph's Slovak Roman Catholic Church, located at 107 East Noble Street. St. Joseph's is a smaller, simpler church, though its steeple rises majestically over central Nanticoke and is easily visible from throughout the city. Sadly, the nearby school has been closed for many years and has fallen into disarray, with most of the windows smashed out and boarded up.
(If you find yourself in the vicinity of St. Joseph's, be sure to cross the parking lot behind the church to visit the legendary Sanitary Bakery, which is located at 126 East Ridge Street.)
Moving North once again we come to the First Primitive Methodist Church, which according to the banner across the front is celebrating 125 years (since its establishment, I presume.) It is located at the corner of Church and Prospect Streets, just a few blocks East of St. Stanislaus.
Continuing North down Prospect Street we come to Nanticoke's central park, Patriot Square. This is a pleasant wooded park, featuring walkways and benches and a monument that resembles a missile rising from the center of the park. Across the street from the North side of this park is Diamond's Candy Shoppe, located at 4 East Broad Street - definitely worth a visit in the months when they're open. But the final church on this portion of our tour is located across from the Southwestern portion of the square, heading West.
The building at 2 West Green Street has housed several different congregations in its time. It is currently host to the Berean Lighthouse, and has been for several years.
This concludes the second part of the tour of the Churches of Nanticoke. So far we've only covered nine of the churches. Next we will travel slightly further North, and will look at six churches located just off of Main Street. In the fourth and (for now) final part of our tour, we will see all of the churches that are located on Main Street itself.
Here is an aerial view of the churches covered in part 2 of the tour, courtesy of Google Earth.
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1 comment:
Excellent article.
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