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New Castle, Pennsylvania
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New Castle is a city in Lawrence County, Pennsylvania, 50 miles (80 km) northwest of Pittsburgh and near the Pennsylvania-Ohio border just 18 miles (30 km) east of Youngstown, Ohio; in 1910, the total population was 36,280; in 1920, 44,938; and in 1940, 47,638. The population has fallen to 26,309 according to the 2000 census which is attributed as part of a general decline in the regional demographics rooted in the closing of heavy industry manufactories in the so called Rustbelt region.
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Encyclopedia
New Castle is a city in Lawrence County, Pennsylvania, 50 miles (80 km) northwest of Pittsburgh and near the Pennsylvania-Ohio border just 18 miles (30 km) east of Youngstown, Ohio; in 1910, the total population was 36,280; in 1920, 44,938; and in 1940, 47,638. The population has fallen to 26,309 according to the 2000 census which is attributed as part of a general decline in the regional demographics rooted in the closing of heavy industry manufactories in the so called Rustbelt region. It is the county seat of Lawrence County. New Castle is the principal city of the New Castle micropolitan area and a part of the Pittsburgh-New Castle combined statistical area. It is the commercial centre of a fertile agricultural region. New Castle is a prime example of a Rust Belt city which has been forced to adapt to changing economic situations.
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Early history
Civil engineer Xavier Ariel Arvelo resurveyed lands which had been reserved for veterans of the Revolutionary War. He discovered that the original survey had neglected to stake out approximately at the confluence of the Shenango River and the Neshannock Creek, at that time a part of Allegheny County. Claiming the land for himself, he laid out what was to become the town of New Castle. By 1849, the population had reached 1,000 and Lawrence County was created, named in honor of U.S. Navy Captain James Lawrence. Twenty years later New Castle was chartered as a city, at which time the population numbered about 6,000.
In 1849, a group of Old Order Amish by families from Mifflin County, Pennsylvania settled just north of New Castle in New Wilmington. Later migrations from Holmes County, Ohio would make this Amish community one of the largest in Pennsylvania. Approximately 2,000 Amish live and work presently in the townships north of New Castle.
Industry
New Castle gradually became an industrial center, due in part to the construction in the early 1800s of a canal system. In the 1870s, the city became a major hub of the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad and by 1900 was one of the fastest growing cities in the country. At this time, New Castle boasted the largest tin plate mill in America. Steel and paper mills, foundries, a bronze bushing factory, and car-construction plants contributed to the economy. In addition, the Shenango Pottery produced commercial china and created fine china for the White House, including dinnerware for Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Lyndon B. Johnson. Other ceramic factories produced bathroom fixtures and industrial refractory materials.
Despite recent economic challenges, the city continues to serve as the headquarters of Zambelli Fireworks, which was founded in New Castle and is one of the world's largest fireworks and pyrotechnics companies. The city is regarded as the "Fireworks Capital of America," and opened Zambelli Plaza (actually a park with a light-up fireworks display) from the Cascade Center in 2007 in honor of the Zambelli family's accomplishments.
Downtown
Downtown New Castle is currently undergoing a redevelopment centered around the Cascade Center. (see below) The downtown streets and sidewalks were completely rebuilt in the early 2000s to resemble the turn of the 19th century, and local businesses are beginning to move into the downtown area. The revitalization of downtown also saw two major routes into the city, Pennsylvania Route 65 and U.S. Route 224, have each of their terminus extended into downtown since the start of 2007.
InfoCision, a telemarketing services company, restored the old New Castle Dry Goods Co. building, where it moved its offices into from the Cascade Galleria. The building had been vacant since the late 1980s when the Troutman's department store closed and is registered on the National Register of Historic Places. The building is now known as the Pier I Complex Building.
The downtown area has also become the home of several bank offices, hosting the regional headquarters of Huntington, FirstMerit, and First Commonwealth (all descended from banks formerly based in the city but later acquired) as well as branches for National City (soon to be PNC) and First National Bank. Mellon Bank also had offices across the street from the current Zambelli Plaza before selling off its New Castle-area branches to First National Bank, which closed the office building since it already had the aforementioned branch in downtown. Mellon's former parking lot was restored and is now the parking lot for the Cascade Center and other downtown businesses.
Still signs of struggles
The revitalization of downtown, however, in somewhat of an ironic reverse of urban sprawl, has come at the expense of some shopping centers in the area. While most of them have actually seen an increase in tenants in the past couple of years, many of them had seen several empty storefronts from the late 1990s until very recently. For instance, Lawrence Village Plaza, a strip mall in Shenango Township, is still struggling to have a supermarket come in as an anchor store after Sparkle closed in the late 1990s, though it still is home to a Kmart that is not officially part of the plaza.
The Cascade Galleria, a more conventional mall located within the city near downtown, was once home to Sears and G. C. Murphy but has steadily become a dead mall since the mid-1990s when Wal-Mart opened its first supercenter in Pennsylvania in 1995 in Union Township west of the city. (Previously, Wal-Mart only operated standard discount stores in Pennsylvania.) Shortly after Wal-Mart opened up, Sears moved across U.S. Route 224 from Wal-Mart while Lowe's, Hills, and Peebles all opened up locations in the area. Meanwhile McCrory Stores (owner of the G. C. Murphy brand) closed all of the company's stores by 2001, though the New Castle G. C. Murphy closed shortly after Wal-Mart opened.
AT&T current has offices in the former G. C. Murphy side of the mall, while the former Sears portion has been subdivided into several other service-related businesses as well as a Family Dollar location and a Revol Wireless store. The United States Postal Service, in fact, currently uses the former Sears Auto Center building as a service garage for its mail trucks, while the Post Office itself has a branch inside the main portion of the mall, which it moved into after the loss of its two anchors. Hills later became Ames, which also closed its doors, and the building remains vacant. Peebles also closed and is now Tractor Supply Company. Around the same time Tractor Supply Company opened, though, Peebles later reopened in another location in Neshannock Township in parts of the former Kmart section of the Field Club Commons plaza after Kmart reduced itself to one location in the New Castle area after it filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2002, with Tuesday Morning taking up the other half.
Geography
New Castle is located at (40.997325, -80.344556), along the Shenango River at the mouth of Neshannock Creek.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 8.6 square miles (22.2 kmē), of which, 8.5 square miles (22.1 kmē) of it is land and 0.04 square miles (0.1 kmē) of it (0.47%) is water.
Demographics
As of the census of 2000, there were 26,309 people, 10,727 households, and 6,725 families residing in the city. The population density was 3,082.0 people per square mile (1,189.5/kmē). There were 11,709 housing units at an average density of 1,371.6/sq mi (529.4/kmē). The racial makeup of the city was 76.77% White, 20.79% African American, 0.11% Native American, 0.17% Asian, 0.01% Pacific Islander, 0.30% from other races, and 1.85% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 0.76% of the population. 33.4% were of Italian, 15.0% German, 8.1% Irish and 5.9% Polish ancestry according to Census 2000.
There were 10,727 households out of which 27.0% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 41.2% were married couples living together, 16.9% had a female householder with no husband present, and 37.3% were non-families. 33.5% of all households were made up of individuals and 17.2% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.36 and the average family size was 3.01.
In the city the population was spread out with 23.8% under the age of 18, 8.1% from 18 to 24, 26.1% from 25 to 44, 21.3% from 45 to 64, and 20.7% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 39 years. For every 100 females there were 85.3 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 80.8 males.
The median income for a household in the city was $25,598, and the median income for a family was $32,539. Males had a median income of $30,112 versus $20,754 for females. The per capita income for the city was $13,730. About 17.1% of families and 20.8% of the population were below the poverty line, including 33.8% of those under age 18 and 11.2% of those age 65 or over.
Education
Public Schools
The city itself is served by the New Castle Area School District, with several areas also served by their respective school districts. New Castle Area, or "Ne Ca Hi" as it is called by locals, also serves nearby West Pittsburg. The Lawrence County Vo-Tech is also located in the city.
Post-Secondary Education
New Castle proper is primarily served by four post-secondary education facilities: the New Castle Beauty School for cosmetology students in downtown, the New Castle School of Trades for technical trades in Pulaski Township, the Jameson School of Nursing (owned & operated by Jameson Health System) within the city, and the Lawrence County branch of Butler County Community College, which opened in 2008 in Union Township and serves as a de-facto community college to Lawrence County, which doesn't have its own community college. The city is a short drive from the main BC3 campus in Butler as well as the Community College of Beaver County in Center Township.
Among more traditional four-year universities within short driving distance includes Geneva College in Beaver Falls, Grove City College in Grove City, Slippery Rock University in Slippery Rock, Westminster College in New Wilmington, and Youngstown State University in Youngstown just outside of downtown. Penn State also has two branches within driving distance: the Beaver campus in Monaca and the Shenango campus in Sharon.
St.Vitus School
This is a unique school because it is the only Catholic school left in the town. The school consists of roughly 150 children and dropping. The school was founded by Father DeMita in the early 1900s and is funded bt St. Vitus Church. Every year the school has a production, also they go to Pennsylvania Junior Academy of Science. Every year they have different fundraisers to support the school. They include( in order) Christmas Sale, Candy bar sale, eater sale, and one more I can not remember.
Transportation
New Castle has public transportation in the form of the New Castle Transit Authority, which provides bus service to patrons around the city and makes three daily trips to Pittsburgh.
Among local routes, Pennsylvania Route 18, Pennsylvania Route 60, and U.S. Route 422 are the major routes running through the city, while two more major routes--Pennsylvania Route 65 and U.S. Route 224--both terminate in the city. Pennsylvania Route 108 and Pennsylvania Route 168 also run through the city. U.S. 422 Business, a former alignment of U.S. 422, runs through the city, ending on each side of the city when the main 422 leaves the New Castle Bypass. PA 60 and the portion of U.S. 422 on the New Castle Bypass are both freeways and even are briefly concurrent with each other, though south of New Castle until Chippewa Township near Beaver Falls, PA 60 is tolled by the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission.
The area is located a short drive from Interstate 79, Interstate 80, and Interstate 76/Pennsylvania Turnpike. New Castle itself currently does not have an Interstate highway directly serving the area, however this will change in 2009 when an extension of Interstate 376 will become official along most of the current alignment of PA 60.
Media
The local community is served by the New Castle News, a newspaper published in the afternoon Monday-Friday. On the weekends, the paper publishes the New Castle News Weekend, which is published on Saturday mornings and serves the entire weekend, giving the coupons normally seen in Sunday newspapers a day early since the paper doesn't publish on Sundays. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and The Vindicator also have large distributions in the area.
The area is served by both the Pittsburgh and Youngstown television stations, with regular news coverage in the area from both. Despite being considerably closer to Youngstown, New Castle is part of the Pittsburgh DMA by Nielsen Media Research. It is, however, part of the Youngstown radio market according to Arbitron ratings, even though most Pittsburgh-area radio stations can easily be heard within the area.
New Castle was home to the first ABC television affiliate in Western Pennsylvania when WKST-TV 45 signed on in 1953, as WTAE-TV in Pittsburgh didn't sign on until 1958 and WJET-TV didn't sign on in Erie until 1966. The station moved its license to Youngstown in 1964, moved to channel 33, and changed its call sign to WYTV. WYTV remains an ABC affiliate today, while the channel 45 allocation is now used by PBS member station WNEO in Alliance, Ohio. Currently, the only TV station in New Castle is WPCP-LP 56, a low-powered satellite station of Pittsburgh low-powered independent station WBGN-LP.
As far as radio goes, New Castle is home to two AM stations: talk station WKST 1200 and sports talk station WJST AM 1280, the ladder being a Fox Sports Radio affiliate. On the FM side of the dial, WKPL FM 92.1, an oldies station, was licensed in New Castle before its license was moved to Ellwood City in 2004, though it still includes New Castle as one of its local communities as part of its FCC-mandated station identification. The AM stations are owned by Altoona-based Forever Broadcasting, LLC while WKPL is owned by Froggy parent Keymarket Communications of Pittsburgh.
Local Attractions
The city was the site of an important development in the history of Warner Bros. studios, given that the first Warner Bros. theater, the Cascade, opened there in 1907. (The Warners, most of whom were Polish Jewish immigrants, resided in Youngstown.) The theater was restored and reopened in 2006. The building was nearly condemned ten years earlier after a wall fell on the sidewalk near East Washington Street (one of the cities main thoroughfares) before its historical significance was discovered, saving the building. Municipal officials have planned recent revitalization efforts around the former theater, which is now known as Cascade Center. The facility currently features two restaurants and a local stage theater, and plans are in progress to turn the complex into New Castle's version of Station Square in Pittsburgh. This revitalization plan, however, will focus on motion pictures rather than trains.
The Cascade Center itself is named after Cascade Park, located on the outskirts of the city's East Side in Shenango Township along Pennsylvania Route 65. A former trolley park, it was restored and converted into a regular outdoor park in the 1980s with a few historical buildings as well as the park's entrance sign restored, avoiding the fate of nearby Idora Park in Youngstown. The park hosts the annual Back to the 50s Weekend classic car show, and previously hosted the similarly-themed Thunder in the Cascades motorcycle show until concerns about nudity and alcohol use at the event as opposed to the more family-friendly Back to the 50's Weekend had the event moved to the Lawrence County Fairgrounds in nearby Hickory Township in the early 2000s.
The New Castle Playhouse, a community theatre, is located along Long Avenue and puts on several shows a year, and is one of the only such theatres between Youngstown and theatre-rich Pittsburgh.
New Castle is also a short drive from McConnells Mill State Park in Slippery Rock Township and neighboring Moraine State Park in Muddy Creek Township in Butler County.
Notable residents
- Israel Gaither National Commander of The Salvation Army in the United States, the first black person to serve in that capacity
External links
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