Closing time

When I started this blog nearly six years I wasn't sure what I would do with it. Would it be a soapbox to shout my opinions to others? A place for book and movie reviews? An online diary?

It has been all of these things, and more. And sometimes the "more" was something unexpected.

Among the things I have done with this blog is presented a view of what life is like in Nanticoke, documenting the places and things that give this little city its character. I've taken photos, provided histories, told stories. I've even spun off some of this stuff into a separate blog.

Little did I realize that I was also documenting a vanishing world.

Maybe I did realize that. That was the driving force behind my (as yet unfinished) Stained Glass Project. And I knew that many places here were precariously balanced, held delicately in place by an economy on the edge and an ever-dwindling population.

I never did get around to telling the story of McDonald's Newsstand until after it closed in the Summer (or maybe the Spring) of 2009. But I did write about Diamond's Candy Shoppe way back in March of 2005, long before the home of the best chocolate in the world closed its doors permanently sometime in late 2008 or early 2009.

When I wrote about WNAK on October 31, 2007, Nanticoke's own easy-listening station had already been transformed into a Spanish music format. The building that had long housed WNAK was demolished in December of 2008, although the station continued to broadcast its new format from a location about fifteen miles away. The old format returned soon after (or possibly just before) the demolition - but then vanished from the airwaves completely in the aftermath of another transfer of ownership a few weeks ago.

I knew at the time I was documenting the Churches of Nanticoke that some of these houses of worship would soon be closed. St. Francis was already closed due to a leaking roof that the diocese had decided not to repair; its congregation was, at the time of my photo expedition, already meeting at St. Joseph's, a few blocks away. Now we know that St. Joseph's is also scheduled to close, along with St. Stanislaus and, unless the parishioners' pleas to the Vatican find a sympathetic ear, Holy Family as well.

What I did not realize as I took these photos was that the non-Catholic parishes of Nanticoke were also facing closure. I learned in November of 2009 at a fire house breakfast that St. George's Episcopal on Main Street had closed earlier in the year. I knew that the First Presbyterian Church was going through a rough time financially - the rectory, or parsonage, or whatever it is called was in danger of needing to be abandoned after a sewer collapse that the church could not afford to repair - but I noticed on the afternoon of the Sunday before last, days after a heavy snowfall earlier in the week, that neither it nor the neighboring First United Methodist Church showed any signs of any activity: the steps leading up to the main doors of each church were completely covered in untouched snow.

And these are just the places I've noticed. It is possible that many more longtime fixtures of life in Nanticoke have closed down, vanished, passed into memory. A dwindling population and a ruinous economic situation have combined to push these places over the edge into oblivion. How many more places will go away in the coming years? And will anything spring up to take their place?