With a population expanding to just over 121,000 people, Allentown ranks as the third largest city within the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The Queen City as she's nicknamed, remains as the most populous municipality within the greater Lehigh Valley metropolitan area. However, in reality, Allentown seems to exist as more of a kidney stone passed from the bladder of Philadelphia, ejected into a field of corn, some 60 miles north. There's no real distinctive reason to visit Allentown for the typical tourist, sans Dorney Park and perhaps the Mack Truck Museum. Try Googling the question, "What is Allentown known for?", and you'll discover a baseball team no one has ever heard of and some supposedly award winning park system. Yet Allentown as a city thrives, existing as a sort of misplaced patch of urbanity, surrounded largely to the north, south, and west by miles of rural nothingness.
Despite the city's ability to be easily overlooked and overshadowed by the State's larger metropolises of Philly and Pittsburgh, there's a real layer of grime and hardship that can be uncovered within this seemingly forgotten former industrial rail town. A network of abandoned rail infrastructure such as overgrown railroad beds and numerous abandoned trestles criss cross the city's creeks and rivers. However, outside of some very active freight yards, little other rolling stock passes through town. Passenger train service was terminated decades ago, yet many artifacts and curiosities still remain, from preserved stations to overgrown railheads and even maintained rail trails. It's the forgotten infrastructure which really piques my curiosity, for its within this world of rusted iron, overgrown rails, and decaying trestles in which a hidden society exists to be explored.
Walking the paved streets and sidewalks of center city Allentown and it may be difficult to see, but the city is not as shiny as it seems. Patches of woods and overgrown lots remain as home the homeless. Makeshift tents and abandoned mattresses are erected beneath the cover of an early 1900s train trestle or within the ruins of a blownout cement silo, a vestige from a long defunct factory. Its within these random blotches of forgottenness in which I enjoy poking around. For what may currently exist as an understory of empty 40s, discarded cigarette cases, and crushed Coors cans, rotting beneath a canopy of ghetto palms, the smooth bark crawling with spotted lanternflies, was at one time a major rail pinch point. However, my interest with these lesser known spaces is also shared by a castaway population attempting to survive. Their struggles and emotions are real, yet often hardened by a life defined by destitution, mental health issues, and addiction. Homelessness is an issue in every American city and is a state of existence I often come across during my adventures. Within our current society as defined by overconsumption and greed, the byproduct often seems to be our own citizens, many of whom get caught in a rut and can't escape. And while help in theory does exists, it often seems to exist as just a ruse.
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