Bethlehem is on a public relations roll lately. The Hotel Bethlehem was voted the country's best historic inn for the fifth year in a row, while the Main Street was recognized as being the nation's best Main Street for the second year in a row. The awards are connected; the result of a campaign which figured, well, the best hotel should be on the best Main Street.
Now, let us consider the term "Main Street." Is it literal? Or is it more of a feeling rather than an actual address? In the great American novel 'Main Street' written by Sinclair Lewis, Main Street was, yes, a specific place—in this case in the fictional town of Grover Prairie, Minnesota—but it was also more of a metaphorical designation that Lewis used to satirize his real-life hometown of Sauk Centre.
One of Bethlehem's competitors for Main Street honors was Ocean City, New Jersey, which doesn't even have a street called Main, its main artery being Asbury Avenue. As for Bethlehem, its Main Street ambles along for a couple miles outside of what seems to be the town limits, not stopping until it reaches Macada Road. Also, can we consider Main Street to include a section of Broad Street to the east? If we can't that means we can't include the Apollo Grill, surely one of the highlights of downtown, as well as one of my favorite coffee shops, The Joint—hidden in the alleyway of the Sun Inn courtyard, which carries a Broad Street address.
Now, what sets Bethlehem apart from other Main Streets—those in, say, Emporia, Kansas or McMinnville, Oregon, to name two of the other best competitors? That's simple. We got Moravians, baby. I'm pretty sure Bethlehem is the only Main Street in America where the phrase, "What's the deal with Count Zinzendorf" is heard more often than, "Where can we get a drink?" It begins on the south end of Main Street with one of the city's crown jewels, Central Moravian Church, built in the early 1800s, still holding the ability to inspire. Around the corner on Church Street (and I think you have to include Church as part of Main) lies several of the historical Moravian properties that have helped the city gain a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation.
Again, we're unique. You can get a mushroom omelet at many Main Streets in America, but can you get a detailed history of Lewis David von Schweinitz, the Father of Modern Mycology? Well, you can on our Main Street, as long as we count Church Street and the Moravian Museum.
One of the qualifications for a great Main Street is that there has to have been businesses on the street for more than 25-50 years. Man, does our Main Street have that box checked. The Moravian Book Shop is considered the oldest book shop in America, founded in 1745. There's a good chance that sometime in the early 1800s, Lewis von Schweinitz stopped into the bookstore and asked, "You got anything on spores?"
What else about our Main Street? Well, there are a substantial number of places to eat, the obligatory Christmas shop, an ice cream place, Grandpa Joe's Candy Shop, where my granddaughter never fails to stop and raise her blood sugar. I do have one complaint. The National Life Group, which plots such things, suggests that a great Main Street should have a common gathering spot; a place to collectively chill. We don't exactly have that but I think the potential is there with the Sun Inn courtyard.
Look, let's be honest. Can we really declare we're number one in a category as vague as Best Main Street? McMinnville apparently has world-class wine. Howell, Michigan, another competitor, brags about its Melon Festival. But I've never been to either place and, for the sake of civic pride, I'm gonna take the von Schweinitz mushroom over both the McMinnville grape and the Howell melon.
