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Typically when I hear the word “dichotomy” my first instinct is to assume that there is a intellectual nearby trying to sound important. But I’m going to have to resort to peppering that word dichotomy throughout the next few paragraphs, because it’s the only one I can come up with to describe my unique perspective of this city.
I guess I have to start by explaining where I come from to some degree. I spent the first 20 years of my life on a dairy farm just outside of town; a farm my parents still own and operate by themselves. Growing up, the City of Lancaster was a jungle of confusion and foreboding. It’s only been in recent years, as friends and relatives have taken up residence downtown that I began to see the city in a new light.
Growing up with agriculture and now working in the business of pork production, I’ve learned that farmers have a certain resentment towards “cityfolk”. There’s a common saying that Pennsylvania is Pittsburgh in the west, Philadelphia in the east, and Alabama in the middle. This perfectly reflects the sentiment by a lot of the agricultural community that rural America is full of hard-working, blue collar people who are destined to be dragged in whichever direction the larger population chooses.
Unfortunately, as society becomes more and more removed from the family farm, these preconceptions and stereotypes become a reality. Land development, economies of scale, and the scrutiny of lenders have forced farmers to move towards increasingly large scale business complexes as opposed to the small family farms that our parents grew up with. Ultimately, the people involved are the same hard-working, blue collar families who would have been raising food for our nation half a century ago, but the economics have changed and many of these families are now contractors instead of sole proprietors.
Because of these dynamics, we grow further and further removed from the people and places who produce our food and care for our natural resources…. At least that would be the case in most cities. This is where that magical “dichotomy” word comes to mind, because Lancaster somehow manages to look forward with energy and enthusiasm while revering the traditions and heritage of the past.
When I tell the average person that I buy pigs for a living, I imagine they picture me, corn-cob pipe in hand, overalls with no shirt and bare feet, swigging moonshine out of a jug with 3 X’s. This stereotype is of course not true as I tend to prefer a hollowed out juniper branch to the corn cob. My point is that in Lancaster, my agricultural heritage is a badge of honor. We have all seen the fervor with which many market patrons search for fresh locally raised meats, dairy, and produce at Central Market. As one small link in that chain, I feel a great sense of gratitude that my fellow farmers are held in such high regard.Yet when I walk out the door of Central Market and down the street the landscape is dotted with art galleries, office buildings, and upscale restaurants; heritage and cutting-edge side-by-side. It is this dichotomy that makes Lancaster County so special. Our reverence for agriculture has allowed us to preserve the proximity of farms and franchises, meadows and malls, crops and corporations. Even in a city marked by growth, prosperity, and new discovery we hold true to those whose labors laid the ground work for our wealth of culture. Thank you Lancaster, for being a place where a cow-milking, tractor-riding, pig-buying redneck can hold his head high.
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We are posting answers to the question WHY LANCASTER?
Jerry Greiner is a graphic designer, teacher, writer & filmmaker living in Lancaster city. His most recent film ‘The Sitting Machine’ has has its local premiere this weekend at Penn Cinema. It was voted in the top ten at the Philadelphia Film Festival out of 200 films. Be sure to support Lancaster film making this weekend. More details can be found at www.thesittingmachinemovie.com, and you can contact Jerry at jerrygreiner@paonline.com.
Why Lancaster?
Every town and city is defined by a specific kind of participation by its citizens. At this moment the country at large seems to be recovering from a national economic downturn. In our fair city though, there is a creative blooming going on. This bloom mask’s the harder side of economic woes because so much of it is public and free to enjoy.
Music, performance and dining on the sidewalks lace the pedestrian way to the life of the interior. Art and artisan galleries and shops are sustained in spite of the economy. Acts which aid other city business ventures. For me, there seems to be an awareness that it is possible to practise civility in specific ways via the expression of business accumen and creativity which in turn makes us more civil in specific ways.
My own philosophy is that thinking creatively is at the foundation of every action. To me, this means that the vitality of a place is food for and attracts better creative thinkers. Lancaster City is that place today. Creative thinking will make this a better place and us better civilians.
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We are posting answers to the question WHY LANCASTER?
Steve Zimmermann is a copywriter and public relations guy who moved to Lancaster two years ago. He lives in the heart of downtown with his significantly better half and his two cats.
Why Lancaster?
For so many people, Lancaster has always been home. I know people who have moved away and yet always seem to find their way back here. For me? Things were a little different. I’m not from here, I didn’t grow up here and as of two years ago, I had never even been here.
I came for a job and stayed for something entirely different.
There is this vibe that neighborhoods give off. That feeling of community that leaves an indefinable touch on an area. Lancaster seems to have that feeling regardless of where you wander and, even if you’re from here, I recommend you wander. There is a ubiquitous sense of pride of ownership, creative spirit and an ingrained integrity that people from here seem to naturally carry with them. Part of me hopes that as an outsider caught between looking in and being sucked in I can develop that sense of Lancaster-self.
I’ve been here for two years and there are still days that I find myself being surprised by this place (Onion’s Cafe serves Korean? And it’s delicious!). The days I’m surprised are the best days. They are the reason I go for Sunday morning walks around town and the answer to the question: Why Lancaster?
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We are posting answers to the question WHY LANCASTER?
Kelly Watson is a freelance copywriter and marketing consultant who specializes in marketing to women. She lives with her boyfriend and dog in West Hempfield, Lancaster.
A love letter to Lancaster.
As a teenager, I hated Lancaster. I found it backward and boring. I spent my free time pouring through travel guides and youth hostel reviews, eager for any excuse to skip town. I found my chance when my parents, thinking my moodiness was a sign of seasonal depression, offered to send me some place sunny for a week.
My boyfriend at the time had fond memories of travelling to Arizona as a kid, so I took my parents’ offer and we flew to Flagstaff. Driving our rental car down a stretch of Route 66, we could see ourselves living there among the old-fashioned diners and wind-stripped evergreens.
When I arrived back home, I could think of nothing else. I applied as a transfer student to Northern Arizona University, and shortly after my acceptance letter arrived, I packed my red Mazda and drove across country with boyfriend in tow. We lived in Flagstaff for two years, travelling back to Lancaster only for Christmas.
At first, it was bliss. Living in a place where no one knew me, I could be anyone I wanted. As graduation neared, however, I started longing for home. Flagstaff was a town of transients. Rich Phoenix residents flooded the town in an effort to beat the heat. Tourists wandered through on their way to the Grand Canyon, snapping pictures as they went.
The only people who seemed rooted in Flagstaff were the college kids, many of whom couldn’t afford to attend larger colleges in the city. When a college professor told his class that I had come from Pennsylvania, one girl scoffed: “Why would you travel all that way just to come here?”
I didn’t fall out of love with Flagstaff; I just fell back in love with Lancaster. I missed the miles of rolling farmland, the sound of Amish buggies in midday traffic, the Germanic inflections of residents who lived there all their lives. I missed the crowded farmers’ markets and their rich Dutch foods: whoopee pies and chicken corn soup and apple snitz.
More than that, though, I missed the identity that Lancaster gives me. Genealogy records show that my roots go back at least four generations, and I can feel it in my blood whenever I see the patchwork landscape of farms and fields. The same land that nourished my ancestors is now nourishing me, whether I plant tomatoes in the back yard or just savor the view of a dazzling sunset.
Making the cross-country drive back to Lancaster after graduation, I thought my love for the area would last a few months, tops. But it hasn’t gone away. As I’ve settled here, I’ve discovered a burgeoning art scene, a bustling downtown and a welcoming group of creative types with fierce local pride. I’ve made new friends and rediscovered old ones. Together we are creating a new history, a new collection of stories to tell about our time together.
Perhaps when I have teenagers of my own, they too will want to go anywhere but here. I’ll encourage them. After all, it took me two years of living in an unfamiliar place to discover that for me, Lancaster is, and always has been, home.
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During the month of August we will be posting answers to the question WHY LANCASTER?
I was born in Bristol, CT, raised in Greencastle, PA, came to Lancaster in 1991. Joined PPT, a technology company in 1994. Living and working in the city for 8 years. PPT became Cimbrian and bought the Kelly Michener Ad Agency. I moved out to Lancaster Township in 2002 and no longer work at Cimbrian. However, both are still close to my heart and big part of who I am.
Why Lancaster?
If I sit and think about “Why Lancaster?” my mind starts swirling. So I thought I’d give you a view of a bit of what’s rolling around in there.
I loved working in the city
I loved living in the city
It is full of historical stories
It has amazing architecture
I love Central Market as established and familiar
I love Eastern Market as vibrant new and changing
I spent half of my twenties in Dipco with great friends having great times
I love the coffee shops for great coffee with amazing atmosphere
I love snow blizzards that stop everything except people walking the city and sharing the experience
It’s full of smart people - lots of entrepreneurial events happening all the time
It’s full of creative people - I was privileged to run an ad agency. Creative people are AMAZING
It has deep roots that lead to great heights - embracing history to push into the future
I love to ride my mountain bike through the city, sidewalk, street, grass, sheer joy
I love to pedal my son through the city and over the “big bumps”
I love how green the city is.
I love city life.
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During the month of August we will be posting answers to the question WHY LANCASTER?
Kevin Ressler lives and works in downtown Lancaster. He is a co-founder of The Doplic Project.
Why Lancaster?
Ask me Why Lancaster in person and I will fill you with stories and ideas and plans. Let me be honest, there is much to love about Lancaster, but first we must battle perception. It is a town in constant combat. There are battle lines between the historically rich and the historically poor and they can be seen drawn horizontally down King Street and encircling the city limits. It goes from race to politics to economic opportunity. There are far too many slum lords who live in the county and blame their tenants for properties they never intended to upkeep.
I grew up here, first in the city then right on the outskirts in a suburban neighborhood. A girlfriend of mine and I once traveled through the city from East to West in order to get to the movie theater. When we hit the city limits she locked her doors and I immediately asked me why. She said, “There are black peop…” and she stopped realizing she was speaking prejudice and stereotypes to her mixed-race boyfriend. I still consider her a beloved friend, she now lives in the city and has for years. To this day she has yet to be robbed, maimed, or have had any other vindications for her preconceptions.
This is not a story to say there is no crime, there are no problems. They exist. Just like in the suburbs, just like in the country. When we recognize that the majority of poverty exists in rural America to whites not inner cities to minorities, then we recognize that there are better reasons to move to a place than the foolishness of fear.
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Lancaster is where you can dream. The advantage of the bigotry of fools works to the advantages of sages. The house prices in the city are half that of outside for comparable space. The business opportunities are begging. And there is a drive to educate, culturize, and communicate. People in the city are more positive than in the county about development and the prosperities of the future.
I moved back after college and a stint living in hipster San Francisco which I loved but found ultimately unsatisfying long term. I work at Community First Fund, one of the top for Community Development Financial Institutions in the country, as an AmeriCorps trying to figure out and learn the ropes of community development. Because when I leave, I want to start something innovative where people can gather to share their talents and sit in appreciation of the talents of others from music to theater to art and all forms of culture. While I wait, I study the works of others and what you find is that it is everywhere, people are abuzz because we have what others don’t.
Lancaster has everything one looks for in “the next big thing” be it Portland or Pittsburgh or Austin except for an abundance of people who chase the tails of innovators. Here is a place ripe for people like me who want to create, who want to make, who want to start, who want to build. You don’t have to blend in here, you can stand out. You don’t have to follow, you can lead. It’s happening; it hasn’t already happened. We are on the upside in the oldest landlocked city for a day. Even New York can’t claim to have been capital of the USA for a day.
Kevin Ressler wasn’t born in Lancaster, but he grew up here from the time he was 6 months old. After a Hate-Hate relationship with it, he has travelled the world and America and formed a Love-Love relationship with it realizing “If you can do anything anywhere else, you can do it wherever your feet are firmly found.”
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During the month of August we will be posting answers to the question WHY LANCASTER?
Becky lives on Lemon street and works as a grant writer for Hope International. She loves watering her plants and making pots.
Why Lancaster?
Why Lancaster? Because I had no choice. At least initially. I moved to Lancaster to work with one of the country’s most incredible nonprofits, so my move felt like an act of personal sacrifice. At a time when I would have loved to move all my worldly possessions to a far-off place like Seattle or Mexico City, I found myself, two hours from where I grew up, moving boxes into a solitary apartment in an old house in Willow Street. No offense Willow Street residents, but I wasn’t happy there.
Months later, though, I moved into a happy little row home in the city, and over the course of a year, Lancaster has grown on me. While visiting friends recently in Seattle and Colorado Springs, two places that seemed to be natural fits for my personality, I even found myself compiling a mental list of reasons why I liked Lancaster better. So what caused the switch? Lancaster is a beautiful city full of a million small wonderfulnesses – an abundance of trees, few chain restaurants, photogenic buildings, arts and culture galore, and plentiful free parking. But I think my favorite Why Lancaster is simply because people really like it here. I’m realizing that so much of what I love about this city is a result of the love other people have already poured into it.
I grew up in a town no one liked. A dried-up industry hub now home to the descendants of former slate miners and Italian immigrants, the community wasn’t so much low income as it was low-morale. Creepy gray mountains of slate slag piled around the main road set the tone for a sad, frustrated town most kids leave as soon as they get the chance. With our city the butt-end of jokes from throughout the region, hometown pride was infinitely lacking from people of all ages, and the trendy concept of “community” never seemed to stick. People use mean names for people who sit on their porch. Many families making decent money only can because they spend hours each day commuting into New Jersey and New York. One of the area’s only successful festivals, held every fall to showcase art from local public schools, will probably shut down this year because no one is willing to pay for public restrooms for the event.
The people of Lancaster love their city – and it’s refreshing. Theirs is not the same love/pride New Yorkers have in the greatness and grittiness of their city. It’s not the love/pride of Californians and their sunshine, Texans and their bigness, or Las Vegans and their wildness. It’s a pride that’s really more like gratitude. It’s a love that comes from choosing to be content in a place that has everything, or even more, than we really need. The people of Lancaster show their love by buying local tomatoes, hosting cool events, speaking up at council meetings, going to the library, and planting gardens and window boxes in good and bad neighborhoods alike.
Lancaster is no Utopia – we’re not immune to the problems all cities will draw. But we understand that focusing only on the imperfect and the undone shows disrespect for the progress that others have made before us. So we make our lives here, and we find ourselves liking what comes from it. I think I like it too. That’s Why Lancaster. -
During the month of August we will be posting answers to the question WHY LANCASTER?
Adam DelMarcelle lives in Lebanon with his wife Melissa and Bassett Hound Lucille. He is a Professional Counselor to troubled kids as well as a senior design major at PCA&D.
Why Lancaster?
It is the undercurrent that important work is happening, as we speak, just under the surface, and the idea that we can be a part of the story as it unfolds that draws me to Lancaster City. The people are the fabric of this community, and on any given day the rustling sound this tapestry brings forth makes me excited to be a part of the continuing tale that is this town. Though it has been many years since my coat has hung on Vine Street, I have never forgotten that this place has helped, in many ways, forge me into the man I am today and that through my experiences here, I have created a work ethic that serves as one of my strongest qualities.
When I lived here I was young, not to say that now I am old in any way, but as I return ten years later, I am able to see the city in a way that twenty-year-old eyes could not have understood: this is a place of opportunity, a place where my contribution and voice can make a lasting impression, a place where the back beat of history and the thumping pulse of the present keep equal time. History is embraced on the ever-abundant one-ways that map the City of Lancaster. It has not been replaced with a drop ceiling culture of convenience but has held tightly to its beautiful flaws in an understanding that we are not a blackboard to be erased and re-chalked but a never-ending work in progress that needs to marry the past and present to find a creative avenue on which to continue.
It is the kitchen table conversations that happen on the street, in the pub and in the homes of Lancaster where many of our journeys have begun and will continue. In all towns these conversations happen but in few does real change spring. Lancaster is a town where real change is harbored, as is the idea that culture is worth nurturing and the understanding that through this care of our community, we will continue to do good and lasting work.
This is why Lancaster.
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During the month of August we will be posting answers to the question WHY LANCASTER?
Heather Hough is a designer/artist who works in Lancaster and the surrounding areas.
Why Lancaster?
There is a potential here, a potential for growth and opportunity.
Enter Lancaster with big aspirations and around every corner is someone lending sound advice or a helping hand.
community.There is a mix here, a well-blended mix of rural and urban.
Lancaster city, surrounded by rural counties on all sides; the rural flavor has seeped into the city represented by the quilt and textile museum, showcasing Amish quilts throughout the decades to galleries that feature a majority of rural themed paintings to Maplehofes’ stand at central market.
representation.There is art here, diverse artwork featured.
From artist-owned featuring their own work to galleries featuring well-known artists, you can see the beginning work of an emerging artist to the latest collection of an established artist. There is bound to be an art that suites your aesthetic.
variety.There is Lancaster.
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During the month of August we will be posting answers to the question WHY LANCASTER?
Kate Behrenshausen is an English teacher at Cocalico High School and the author of MainlyVeggie.com, a pescetarian recipe blog. She enjoys cooking for friends, family, and her husband Bryan.
Why Lancaster?
Lancaster continually impresses me with its ability to both fuse and juxtapose the old with the new. It is a city of contrasts. Its narrow streets host a wealth of architectural styles, from Colonial to Art Deco, yet these buildings house residents, businesspeople, city officials, and students working towards modernity and change. Many are attracted to the city by its quaint, austere Amish roots, but those visitors can easily discover dozens of quirky boutiques, unique restaurants, hip hangouts, and inspirational galleries. The city’s historical elements emphasize how far Lancaster has come over the years; simultaneously, they absorb the new into structures and beliefs that have existed here for centuries.
As a graduate of Millersville University, I discovered and explored quite a bit in the city and its surrounding areas during my college years. I tasted everything from sushi to Nietzsche for the first time here. When I first moved away from home, I found comfort in the idea that I could still turn to my existing interests – books, cooking, shopping, theater – but uncover new facets of them in this setting. This very practice of confounding my expectations and building on past experiences is what drew me back to the city even after I’d graduated.
So why Lancaster? I choose Lancaster because, like me, it’s an ever-evolving blend of meaningful traditions, forward-thinking inspirations, well-intentioned risks, and hope for a happy future.