The Future of Downtown Harrisburg

On the day his used bookshop officially closed for business, Eric Papenfuse invited me over for a tour of Fissel’s Antique Department Store in Midtown. It was there, in the fusty old building which once housed a 1920s theatre, that he was making serious headway on his new venture: the first independently-owned coffeeshop, bookstore, and lecture hall Pennsylvania's capital has ever seen.

For a man with so much responsibility, Eric is surprisingly upbeat. He shakes my hand and talks effusively on our way up to the second floor veranda—the open space which he hopes will become outdoor seating for an upstairs café. On my tape recorder, there is a moment of silence as we both revel in the view of the capital building, which, stepping out on this particular day, is offset by the dramatic mis-en-scene of a stormy, late afternoon sky.

In lieu of the majestic cityscape, though, Eric is circumspect. Harrisburg has needed retail for a long time, and in his mind there is only a weak excuse for why it has not been created before. "The independent entrepeneur is definitely a less controllable agent, and so small business has been purposely avoided in this area for years. It's a sad but true phenomenon," he says. "Because it is the entrepeneurial class which is going to begin to question, agitate, and push for more than mediocrity."

Since 1981, when Harrisburg was marked as the second most distressed city in the nation, a $3 billion investment helped turn things around, into what the Washington Post recently called a “lively” and “exciting” locale. But the largely subsidized, top-down, city sponsored—and not individual-led–development is how residents of Harrisburg have come to identify. And it shapes who they are.

“Look,” Eric said, pointing down at the unembellished front doors of Broad Street Market, in front of which two hooded adolescent boys stand, holding plastic bags and drinking from gigantic Styrofoam cups. From our parallax view, there is no one else on the block but an older woman pushing a babyless stroller up the street. A lone plastic bag floats out of nowhere, blowing in circles, as if strategically released by a film crew.

“How can the Broad Street Market not have a sign with its hours?” Eric asks. “How can the Broad Street Market not have a kiosk, which announces local things in the neighborhood?”

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The Broad Street Market is by all accounts a prime example of the underutilized, relatively mismanaged buildings that have long inhibited economic development and population growth in Midtown.

In the 1840s, the Broad Street Market—then known as Market Square—was the centerpiece of Harrisburg city. Vendors came from the surrounding counties to sell their goods, and because the market was centrally located in town, it was also a site for civic events. Residents gathered for political rallies, firemen’s musters, and election night bonfires. They came to see and hear the great heroes of the day. The square was an impetus for neighborhood rapport.

Today, unless you know to look for it, Broad Street Market is highly invisible. As Papenfuse said, the hours of operation are not clearly posted, and it is not open when people are off work, except for the weekends.

“Were some of those tourism dollars currently being spent on the Whitaker Center and Civil War Museum being spent on the Broad Street Market, you could have far more people coming on a daily basis,” he says. “But the city keeps thinking about having people drop in and leave, not about having people come, park, stay, and develop a view. So the Civil War Museum, for example, where was it built? It was built way up in Reservoir Park. This is the same mentality as what happens on restaurant row. It’s a sort of getting people to come in, use the city, but not really expecting them to want to stay and linger, and talk and develop.”

It sounds obvious that devoting more money to the community development of midtown would increase pedestrian traffic and improve the interpersonal relationships within the neighborhood. But the city budget is tight, and there's no room for such things.

“You could say the reason midtown has been deserted for twenty years is because of limited resources. And that’s fine. It's true. I’m not discounting it,” he says. “But the city does have the money and resources for the Civil War Museum, and they put that money into that, and other certain things. What I’m saying is they’re putting it into the wrong things.”

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Like squatters, Eric and I wander around the neighborhood of North Third Street for almost an hour, peering into windows of abandoned shops and musing about the community that could exist if things go as planned. I take note that the walk through midtown is a different, less scenic route than the footpath that carries you along Front Street. The architecture and narrow streets possess a unique, old-timey charm that is unmatched by the view of the purling green waters of the Susquehanna Riverfront. It possesses different hope, it seems. It delivers a unique gaiety to the observer.

When our tour of the neighborhood finally takes us back to the door of Fissel’s, the sky looks grim but acts nicely as a shared antagonist. Eric has plenty more to say to me, but it is getting late, and the interruptions from his cell phone have become more frequent. We shake hands and part ways, and as I stand idly on the sidewalk, looking out into the street, a voice from behind emerges–“excuse me”–and a man on a bike passes, ringing a scanty bell. My gaze follows him southbound, landing on a forlorn parking lot overrun with weeds and graffiti.

A few ghost towns manage a second life. Midtown Harrisburg is not exactly dead, but it’s in a sort of coma. If it can support the renovation project by reacting to retail in a positive way, it may officially shed its harum-scarum past and become a place where people are not just likely to visit, but to stay.