Celebrating Bethlehem's Southside Culture
By the end of Barack Obama’s term as the President of the United States, former chief official White House photographer Pete Souza had captured those eight years in a collection of two million photos. Three hundred of these photos make up his best-selling photography book, Obama: An Intimate Portrait, and it was that visual narrative…
I never expected to be finishing my last year at Lehigh from my house in New Hampshire, which is just over three hundred miles away from Bethlehem. And yet, here we are. I’ve spent the better part of the last twenty one years of my life in my hometown. Its sights, smells, and sounds are…
Hippo Campus invigorated the SteelStacks crowd on November 5th at the Musikfest Café. The band performed a dynamic line-up of alternative rock pieces with jazz inspired roots after a rousing opening by indie rock band The Greeting Committee. The concert brought a nice mix of Bethlehem locals and students together to enjoy a high energy…
“When the war began, Whitman was despondent, but the violence of those years seemed to strengthen and clarify his faith in democracy, a faith that would take on a transcendent dimension.” I read this passage from Jet Black Sunrise’s playbill, quoted from Ed Simon’s New York Times article “Why We Will Need Walt Whitman in…
It was a dark, wet, and cold Wednesday night. The sun had long ago said its goodbyes, leaving the slickened streets to be illuminated by nothing but orange and purple string lights. Front lawns were home to eerie ghouls and rattling skeletons and grimacing jack-o-lanterns that matched the chill seeping into your bones. Bethlehem was…
On the night of Sunday September 22nd, my favorite band, Rainbow Kitten Surprise (RKS), performed at the Bethlehem Steel Stack’s Levitt Pavilion. From the start, I was standing just inches away from the stage, screaming at the top of my lungs. The concert took me on a captivating journey, reminding me of all the enjoyable…
Lori Goldstein, a member of the graduating class of 1995, began her career in both editing and journalism. Some of her first jobs included editing technology and public policy journals for Cutter Consortium, a business-technology advisory firm, and Harvard Kennedy School of Government. However, the monotony of this style of writing lead to Goldstein’s realization…
Twenty years ago in 1999, Bethlehem’s Touchstone Theatre created an arts and cultural festival to help the community through the devastating closure of Bethlehem Steel. “Steel Festival, The Art of an Industry” aimed to celebrate everything Bethlehem had become during the years in which the plant was in operation. Two decades after the first Steel…
To open the recent Festival UnBound, Touchstone Theatre staged the play Prometheus/Redux at Lehigh Valley Charter High School for the Arts from Oct. 4-6. Long term residents of Bethlehem will know that this production connects with the play Steelbound produced in 1999. Touchstone Theatre created the 1999 production to give residents the opportunity to process…
On the first Friday of every month, Bethlehem’s Third and Fourth Streets radiate with life. The diverse array of shops, art galleries, restaurants, salons and boutiques turn into a city-wide celebration of the arts, culture, and music that residents can find in the South Side Arts District. In September, the SouthSide Arts District hosted its…