Wilkes-Barre Train Station: Symbol of Corruption and Decline

  

By Jonathan H

Market Street Square Station

Lehigh & Susquehanna Railroad Station (1868): An Italianate railroad station that served Wilkes-Barre for a century before it closed in 1972. The Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad (later known as the Central Railroad of New Jersey) was founded by magnates who conquered the mountains and tapped the Wyoming coal fields.

I’ve been struggling with this location. The reason is this: I often hesitate to reveal locations to the public because their revelation often leads to their destruction. At the same time, there are certain stories that simply have to be told. This is one of them.

In the heart of Pennsylvania coal country at the fringes of a small city is a brewery. The brewery has become a federal building, and its hulking brewhouse still proudly displays the pomp of the Gilded Age. Within the shadows of its countenance is a small, shuttered train station. Like most abandonments of our modern era, this diminutive edifice tells the story of corruption, mismanagement, and the ineptitude of bureaucratic sinecures.

Hand-carved Fireplace Mantel

The interior work was top-notch for an era that prided itself on craftshmanship.

The modest Italianate structure facing the railroad tracks along Wilkes-Barre Boulevard was known as the Lehigh & Susquehanna Station (and later the Central Railroad of New Jersey Station). From the outside, it looks like most small-town stations in most rail-towns of mid-19th century America, but looks are deceiving.  Within its walls are awe-inspiring works of original craftsmanship: hand-carved mahogany, hand-laid terrazo, and – perhaps most compelling – a resplendent, curved staircase banister, a spiral exemplar of roccoco. Just look inside this station and you’ll immediately know why it earned its place in, “Great American Railroad Stations.”

The story of this station, however, isn’t told through its beauty. There is a sordid side, too. This station – as it exists in its dilapidated state – is a manifestation of boss politics that still seems to thrive despite the death of the “Tweed” gang and Tammany Hall. Granted, Wilkes-Barre is one among hundreds of cities with rampant corruption. All too often, we pay too much attention to national politics when the true turpitude rests in our local leaders (dare I call them leaders).

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Market Street Square, the property in which the railroad station rests, was owned by convicted (and admitted) felon Thom Greco. Greco has been called a real estate mogul by some, but at least one anonymous online comment finds the title humorous. “‘Mogul?’ Really? I’ve sold to that guy 4 times over the last 20 years, and it took threats of all kinds to get my money. I always got, ‘Mr. Greco is unavailable’ from some young woman on the phone.”

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But Greco is just a strand of much larger, much more Machiavellian web. Fact is: He was not part of the County Redevelopment Authority, who decided to purchase the station from him in 2005 for $5.8 million. Unlike the commissioners who accepted bribes and extorted flat screen televisions in exchange for Greco’s largess, he wasn’t the guy who had control over taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars. Truth is, to properly tell this story, we have to start in 1868 – when the station was built. Yes, this station has more layers than its recent ignominious decline.

A Product of Pennsylvania’s Coal Boom

When the station was born, the Steam Age was at its apex. Locomotives bombasted their way westward to join the continent by iron rail. The same year that the Wilkes-Barre station was built, the Golden Spike was driven into its Laurel Tie at Promontory Summit, Utah. Suffice to say, the country was hungry for coal – both to power its steam engines, and to cast the increasingly voracious appetite for steel. Wilkes-Barre was conveniently situated between two canals. Getting coal from one canal to another meant that the two waterways had to be connected by rail. These were the Wilkes-Barre station’s inchoate moments.

The rabid enthusiasm of the era was immediately apparent within its original walls and accouterments, but only once I was inside. I was a week into my journey, so it wasn’t easy to elicit any sort of enthusiasm out of me, especially after exploring dozens of awe-inspiring sites-in-decline. The station feigns curiosity with its exterior. Honestly, it isn’t much to look at from the outside. Its embellishments aren’t like a vainglorious wedding cake, but rather like a hollow birthday cake (with opportunity for surprise of course).

Banana Joe's

Like many cakes, this station also had layers; additions and extensions attenuated its hidden corners and serendipitous potential. In the early 20th century the Central Railroad of New Jersey was the sole leasor of the tracks. Many a luxurious Jersey passenger passed through its hallways. No doubt, the ornate frosting within its walls was spackled on after the fact; fireplaces were later added and aristocratic comforts became prominent. Whereas the early station served the needs of industry, the improved station became the playground of quixotic entrepreneurs, tycoons, and political bosses.

A Grand Train Station in Decline

Those halcyon days quickly came to a halt by the Great Depression. Passenger service precipitously declined while anthracite coal prices plummeted. The CNJ went into receivership for an entire decade, beginning in 1939. By the time it was finally able to emerge from its financial straits, the railroad found itself in the midst of a burgeoning American love affair with the highway. It didn’t take long for the Wilkes-Barre station to receive its final passenger on July 1, 1963. Train NO. 301 feebly rolled into the Wilkes-Barre stop with a single passenger coach in tow; its two passengers exited the car; and, according to railroad historian Ed Gardner, “thus ended a period of passenger service inaugurated 120 years earlier.”

The five decades that followed were largely modest years for the station. Vacant cars – skeletons of an earlier era – stood in a pall-like atmosphere to be eaten away by time. The station itself was painstakingly restored in the mid-70s, and it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 12, 1975. Reading MU cars and Fruit Grower Express cars began to occupy the adjoining lot. Around 1980 it opened as “The Station,” a high-end bar and restaurant. Some of the nearby Reading MU cars were converted into charming Bed & Breakfast-style overnight accommodations.

Rococo Room

According to Michael G. Rushton of NEPA Railfan, the place was quite “ritzy” by 1984, and it hosted political functions with expensive, gourmet cuisine. The station was then owned by Marvin Roth, but he passed away and the park was auctioned. A single, lonely plaque bears the Marvin’s (and the station’s?) epigraph: “Marvin Roth, a local entrepreneur, rehabilitated this edifice so posterity may forever enjoy its presence.”

The Choo Choo Inn (the train car sleepers) were phased out, and “entertainment magnate” Thom Greco acquired the property. “The crowd started changing,” Said Michael Rushton. “It was not the college crowd, but thugs from out of town… There were shootings, stabbings, robberies, fights, breaking into cars.”

Its final incarnation was as Banana Joe’s, a restaurant chain with cocktails and American fare. Rushton said nobody really went to it, and for “whatever reasons, it failed.” The nearby rail cars met a similar fate. By this time they had become occupied by the homeless and were the victims of fire at least twice a week. Such was the state of the Station when the Luzerne County Redevelopment Authority considered buying the property in 2005.

Rebirth as Market Street Square and Chess Piece in Corruption

By early 2006 the Luzerne County Redevelopment Authority decided to purchase the building for $5.8 million. By then, it was dilapidated and in need of millions in restoration work. It soon became apparent that the Authority had purchased a white elephant, and it stands to this day an embarrassment to all taxpaying Luzerne County citizens. Even more egregious are the stories of the men embroiled in this controversy.

Upstairs Train Station Office

Thom Greco worked with numerous Authority commissioners in the negotiation for the building’s sale.  Soon after it was sold, Greg Skrepenak asked Greco for $10,000 worth of flat screen televisions, presumably for his father’s sports bar.  Greco complied, but when he asked for payment, Skrepenak alluded to the fact that the televisions were recompense for the county’s purchase of the Market Street Square Station. Unfortunately, Skrepenak is difficult to reach these days… He’s in jail for accepting $5,000 in bribes for another completely separate deal with a developer.

Skrepenak wasn’t the only Redevelopment Authority official to be tied up in legal trouble. Back in 2005, Allen Bellas was drumming up the purchase of the Railway Station in the local newspaper. “It’s going to tie into all the downtown projects. It’s obviously going to help out the passenger rail service.” Of course, five years later, the station is still not helping out passenger rail service and is far from helping downtown Wilkes-Barre. As for Allen Bellas, who was then the Executive Director of the Redevelopment Authority, he’s in jail for a $2,000 bribery scandal that’s unrelated to the Station. Even the owners of the property leased to Big Ugly’s Sports Bar (the Bar that received the tainted $10,000 worth of flat screen TV’s), were ensnared in October of 2009 for paying a $1,400 bribe to Gerald Bonner and William McGuire, both one-time bureaucrats in the Luzerne County Housing Authority.

All of these events transpired so quickly that the Redevelopment Authority had to respond with its own Public Relations campaign. Their first order of business was to verify the accuracy of the price they paid for the station. This is generally done by using two neutral real estate appraisers. Before they purchased the property, they chose Stanley Komosinsky and Alan Rosen, neither of whom appear on the roster of the Appraisal Institute (the nationally recognized professional organization for appraisers). Perhaps not coincidentally, both appraisers valued the property at exactly the same price: $5.74 million. And it gets even deeper: Alan Rosen works for the real estate company owned by the Mayor of Wilkes-Barre, Thomas M. Leighton.

A Dilapidated Symbol of Corruption

These days, the Central New Jersey Rail Station (now euphemistically known as “Market Street Square”) sits in neglect. But the station serves as a very salient symbol of bureaucracy run amok and the loss of accountability in local government. It’s highly likely that the men involved with embezzling the public coffers in various ways will receive nothing more than a few months in jail and a slap on the wrist. They’ll return to their lives agrandized by the lucre from the backs of their constituents.

Executive Wood Paneled Office

The fact still remains: It is a beautiful building, filled with wonders, curves, craftsmanship, and symbology. If one spends moments inside of this grand structure, one is easily transported beyond the depressing story of how it came to be what it is. I left the disheveled box cars that line the building and walked back to my car. When I photographed it, I was oblivious to its history; and in those innocent moments I had truly discovered a different world inside of a tiny little train station among the once-prosperous anthracite valley of Pennsylvania.

Sources

http://www.northeast.railfan.net/ls.html
http://www.mtn-top-hs.org/njcrailroadhistory.pdf
http://nepa.railfan.net/articles/mssid.htm
http://www.allbusiness.com/legal/criminal-law-plea-agreements/13223135-1.html
http://purebunkum.com/?p=3352
http://sightsonpennsylvania.blogspot.com/2010/05/great-train-robbery-part-1.html
http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/showthread.php?t=75059
http://www.allbusiness.com/legal/criminal-law-plea-agreements/13223135-1.html
http://www.timesleader.com/news/2-appraisals-performed-on-station-tracts.html?showAll=Y
http://www.timesleader.com/news/2_appraisals_performed_on_station_tracts_07-28-2010.html
http://citizensvoice.com/news/greco-pleads-guilty-admits-knowing-of-gratuities-1.904564

34 comments on “Wilkes-Barre Train Station: Symbol of Corruption and Decline

  1. JT COLFAX on said:

    Wow,…what a beautiful place. Although I don’t smoke cigars, I would love to smoke one next to that fireplace with my snifter of brandy on the mantel as I discuss dirty deals with “moguls.”

    Hours after you posted this the Wilkes Barre Citizen’s Voice came out with the news that one of the grafters you mentioned wants to UTTERLY dictate his own punishment: Here is some paste from that paper on Saturday August 21st 2010:

    “SCRANTON – Former Luzerne County Commissioner Greg Skrepenak wants a shorter sentence at a prison close to home, and he wants to show up late.

    The former NFL lineman was ordered to report Aug. 30 to begin serving a 2-year sentence for taking $5,000 from a developer he helped acquire government-backed financing. But in a pair of motions filed by his attorney Friday afternoon, Skrepenak asked for a sentence reduction of up to six months and a delay in his reporting date until Sept. 16 so that he can attend to “numerous personal, health and family matters.”

    You are LUCKY you didn’t run into any of those “official” thugs as you lurked and creeped about in
    that historic spot. People have always had a way of ending up laying dead in ditches in this region. “The Black Hand” of the Mafia ran Rampant around there, not to mention the King Coal thugs.
    I see online that people are absolutely RAGING over these corruption issues in Wilkes Barre.
    When the locals find your photos they will really freak out to see whats left rotting where they
    COULD be having a very nice tourism spot, but instead it’s all strangled into decay by GREED.

  2. phrenzee on said:

    Thanks for posting this location! Your photos really peaked my interest, and I paid the train station a visit last weekend. Here’s some shots that I took:

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/phrenzee/4997700120/
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/phrenzee/4997700120/
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/phrenzee/4980938599/

  3. Jonathan Haeber on said:

    Very cool. Thanks for posting the photos, phrenzee

  4. jtcolfax on said:

    Hey Phrenzee, just saw your comment and made a bet to myself that if I rummaged yer flickr I would see some LOOMS right near the train station photos. Sho Nuff. You must have driven within 200 yards from my house.

  5. Some people had let my friend and I in the train station once to take some photos. I am a photographer and I would love to have to chance to come in again for some new pictures. Is there anyway that could be arranged?

  6. The county had to board it up because looting of all the brass fixtures was happening. To this day i drive by and remember the good times i had when it was the Station complex. $5.00 all you can drink. Thirsty Thursday it was called. Made Friday come faster. Watching it become the run down shell it is today & when pockets got lined by these now jailbirds. all i can hope for is it to be bulldozed & something put in it’s place

  7. Pingback: Lehigh & Susquehanna Abandoned Railroad Station in Wilkes-Barre, PA | laurafisherphotography

  8. gary fino on said:

    I pass by the station every day on the way to work, and marvel every time I see it. They have finally gotten rid of the old dining car that once was the diner next to the station. I, too, would love to be able to go inside and take photos. The shots you took were very well done, and I would like the chance to get some of my own. Any way to contact somebody that can give access?

  9. Nikademis on said:

    Are there any good images of the Wilkes Barre train station? I am in the process of making a model of the building and would like some nice shots of it from multi angles, preferably before Greco Co got their hands on it. I has found a few images, but all are of the recent decay of this building. Thank you

  10. It is sad to see railroad history decay away. I am looking for an old heavy weight business car to restore, Are there any available there?

  11. john kanyuck on said:

    I’m amazed that some of the room look the same as it was in 1982 The picture of the billard room and the library and the Jesse James room bring back alot of memories. The 5.00dollar drink night was the beginning of the end for the place,it could have been the place to be for decades. Management was just greedy.

  12. Jerome E McCormack on said:

    For anyone who is interested, I have photograph’s from The Station Restaurant and Nightclub Complex’s 6th Birthday Party!!!

  13. Hi Jerome,
    I would love to see the 6th birthday party pictures!

  14. Jerome E McCormack on said:

    I have pictures from The Station Restaurant and Night Complex 6th birthday party. Anyone interested please call me at 570-862-9200.

  15. Gary on said:

    Hi Jerome, I woudl ove to see those pictures, when is good itme to call, and what city are you in?

  16. Jerome E McCormack on said:

    I have pictures from The Station Restaurant and Nightclub Complex 6th birthday party. Anyone interested please call 570-862-9200.

  17. Jerome E McCormack on said:

    Hello Gary, Thank you very much for responding. You can call anytime my friend. I live in North Scranton.

  18. Jerome E McCormack on said:

    For anyone interested I have photographs From The Station Nightclub and Restaurant Complex 6th Birthday party! Please call me at 570-862-9200 and I will be more than happy to assist you.

  19. Jerome E McCormack on said:

    For anyone interested I have photographs from The Station Nightclub and Restaurant Complex 6th Birthday party! Please call me at 570-862-9200 or e- mail me at funeralmanjem@hotmail.com and I will be more than happy to assist you.

  20. Cheri Sundra on said:

    Great Article! It’s as if nothing can happen in Luzerne County without being touched by political scandal, and you’ve done an excellent job in telling that tale. I live in Wilkes-Barre and have more than a passing interest in local history. I’d like to share another side about the history of that train station with you. It’s a story about what happens to history when commercial non-profitability and loss of accountability in local government collide. I wrote about that issue in “A Resurrection Reversed: The Playboy Bunnies & The Death(s) of the Wilkes-Barre Train Station.” You can find it at:
    http://cherisundra.com/2014/05/20/a-resurrection-reversed-the-playboy-bunnies-the-deaths-of-the-wilkes-barre-train-station-part-2/

    **Cheri Sundra–Guerrilla Historian

  21. Jerome E McCormack on said:

    For anyone out there, I do have pictures from The Station Nightclub and Restaurant Complex 6th Birthday Party! My E-mail is funeralmanjem@hotmail.com. My cellphone number is 570-862-9200.

  22. Danielle on said:

    Hello,

    Is this train station still accessible? I am a urban explorer from NJ and would love to photograph it.

    Thank you!
    Danielle

  23. Hi Danielle,
    Unfortunately the station can only be photographed on the outside. I now there are a lot of people, myself included that would love to get in and photograph it before it gets any worse than it already is. Most windows are boarded up as vandles have done a lot to it. It’s a shame the condition it is in.

  24. I don’t know what is left after the looting, haven’t been inside since The Station days. A lot of architectural details were added by Marvin “Murph” Roth during his lavish rehabilitation of the building. For example, the stained glass ceiling, which he had salvaged when the Nanticoke High School (gym?) was demolished. The project was a labor of love, and sorry it went down the tubes after his untimely death. He ran a class operation (although the converted rail car hotel rooms were very cold in the winter) with a great clientele: I remember a short chat with a very tolerant Jack Palance in The Station’s lobby. Hope that helps!

  25. Jerome E McCormack on said:

    We are coming up on the 35th anniversary of the opening of The Station Restaurant and Nightclub Complex. Anyone out there have any comments?

  26. Gary on said:

    Driving by the complex the other day on my way home from work, as I do every day, I noticed it is now up for sale again. Should be interesting to see who buys it and if it will be repaired, or, if they make another parking lot out of one of the last historical buildings of the city.

  27. There was a new tour threw this no sad building yesterday, April 22,2015. If inereasted, go to the Times Leader web site, it is a Wilkes-Barre, Pa local newspaper and you can see a new story and new pictures.

  28. mark albosta on said:

    I would like to see this and more restoration projects like Kings college turning the Ramada inn to a showplace for education. I like what sprouted up as Franklins bar .let’s make Wilkes Barre a city with a heart in the valley with a heart.

  29. I remember going there when it was the station and the bebop café. I saw Firehouse perform there. Wow how times change.

  30. bill hutch on said:

    I was in a train car waiting for the show to begin. Returned from the restroom to find my friends removed from the private car only to have been replaced with David Crosby and his band who invited me to hang out until the show began. Another brush with greatness!

  31. Mike Toole on said:

    Hi, nice website.
    I visited Wilkes-Barre a few days ago and took pictures of the exterior of the station. Work is going on around it. They have just filled in an underground room, looked like storage space. I did not go inside (since about 1975) but if you are interested I will email you the photos. Just let me know. It is also again, up for sale.
    Mike Toole, Lancaster, PA

  32. Margot Bernstein on said:

    I just looked up the Station Complex and found this very sad story. I performed music regularly at the station in 1982 and 1983 and was the opening act for Steve Forbert when he played the large room there, adjacent to the nightclub. Such find memories of a beautiful alive place. I’d love to have photos from that period. Please send.

  33. Jerome E McCormack on said:

    Thank you Margot for responding to me. It was sure great to hear from you. Those pictures will be sent to you right away. I really enjoyed our conversation tonight especially from someone who is originally from this area. We will definitely keep in touch.

  34. Jerome E McCormack on said:

    If anyone out there has any pictures of the interior of The Station Restaurant and Nightclub complex especially the Iron Horse Saloon please contact me at 570-862-9200 or E-mail me at funeralmanjem@hotmail.com

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