I am sitting at a long wooden table covered in stacks of magazines and newspapers. Somewhere in the back, John is bustling around, making a lot of noise when he walks. I can hear his feet smack the floor as another woman, a prospective renter, flutters around behind him with a notebook. Saraceno Design is on the second floor of the renovated Harland Building, which faces John’s wife’s artisan shop, Cleo’s, across the street on Third Ave. The walls are clean and white, and my chair is made from orange leather and old brass studs nailed into a comfortable low wooden back. John comes in and asks if I’d like coffee. I tell him I’d love some, and, as he’s thumping back through the cavernous office he hollers, “what would you like in it?” I holler back “just milk!” to which he responds, “only got sugar and powder!” I have it black. He comes back a few minutes later, deftly flicks a coaster from a hidden drawer in the long table, and places a mug before me. I peek at the coaster. It reads: “Bethlehem Chamber of Commerce Salutes Bethlehem Steel. May 3, 1993.”
When I first met John, I was in Cleo’s looking for a job. I approached him behind a glass counter filled with small trinkets and silver bangles, and he quickly became interested in my project. “You gotta talk to the business owners he said,” handing me his card. “Be in touch.”
John Saraceno doesn’t blink often when he speaks. His dark eyes are like two coffee black holes staring inquisitively. He sports a salt and pepper goatee and stern, thin lips. The skin around his eyes looked leathery and worn, and I thought of the chairs I sat in. I wondered if he took his coffee black too.
It was 10:30 on a Tuesday morning. John sat across the table from me and slid a black leather place mat in front of him.
When I first met John, I was in Cleo’s looking for a job. I approached him behind a glass counter filled with small trinkets and silver bangles, and he quickly became interested in my project. “You gotta talk to the business owners he said,” handing me his card. “Be in touch.”
John Saraceno doesn’t blink often when he speaks. His dark eyes are like two coffee black holes staring inquisitively. He sports a salt and pepper goatee and stern, thin lips. The skin around his eyes looked leathery and worn, and I thought of the chairs I sat in. I wondered if he took his coffee black too.
It was 10:30 on a Tuesday morning. John sat across the table from me and slid a black leather place mat in front of him.
...
"Well when you think of the casino it’s like, okay, if I’m over at Cleo’s, and have the little jewelry pad here, it looks like it’s... here’s the 120 acres. Here’s the casino, right here. (John draws a small square on the bottom corner of the placemat.) Okay? Here’s all the other stuff that’s gonna go on down there. It’s like, what part aren’t you gettin’? Y’know? There’s twelve hundred living units, there’s 200,000 square feet of shopping, okay, there’s gonna be the Steel Stacks Project, which is, y’know, ArtsQuest and PBS 39 is moving down off the mountain, building their whole production studio down here, they’re gonna broadcast concerts from the site, okay, there’s gonna be two small movie theaters, alright, that they’re gonna satellite in independent films on a daily basis, y’know... there’s just so much good stuff that’s gonna come outta this. And it’s gonna take 120 acres of what is essentially crap land and make it work. And between the 120 acres there, that’s the smallest piece, and then all the other stuff on the other side of the casino, okay, it’s the largest brownfields project in the United States. And it’s getting turned around. It’s getting used, okay? It’s like, y’know, so that’s my spiel. It’s like, what part aren’t you gettin’ here?"
...
...
"They’re comin'. It just started two weeks ago, okay. Three weeks ago... it’s like they... are discovering that there’s stuff out here. We’ve already waited on people, y’know, over at Cleo’s, that were at the casino or on their way to the casino, y’know, and were out here shopping. And buying stuff. The other thing that probably a lot of people weren’t thinking about was the amount of cars goin’ by the store. They discovered that there’s a store here! Or that there’s a neighborhood here. And some of them have pulled over, y’know, gone out and investigated the stores. Now, it’s more than a handful. I know that already. So it’s like... The Sands is not the problem here. Okay, it is not the problem. We have building owners that are idiots. Who are sitting on buildings and not doing anything with ‘em. That are more of a detriment than the Sands ever will be. Okay, because The Sands is only gonna be a small part of this thing. Y’know, it’s a huge part financially, it’s a driver to get this thing movin’, y’know there’s gonna be a hotel, a three-hundred room hotel there. Those people are not gonna spend twenty-four hours a day in the hotel or the casino. Y’know, they’re gonna come out, they’re gonna wander. It’s what happens in things like this...
It's like the inner harbor in Baltimore.
Okay. The inner harbor in Baltimore was like, you didn’t go there before the inner harbor was fixed up. You just didn’t go there. It was like a war zone. And it’s... have you ever been there?
Okay, essentially it’s like this. Here’s the water, okay. And they build a couple buildings that became where the shops and restaurants were. Okay, and I’m lookin’ in from the water. Okay, over here they put in a science center, over here was an old power plant that they turned into... the power plant. Restaurants and everything. And it’s gone through some changes... there’s a Starbucks in there and a huge Barnes and Noble up on the third floor or somethin’. So, but before they even got all that stuff, the inner harbor was here, and the guys were over in the neighborhood over here, which was little Italy, who were like, terrified. (John is still using the black leather mat to demonstrate the geographically adjacent camps.) They figured that they would lose all their business. Alright, and they had a guy who was workin’ on the project who grew up in Baltimore, and he went over and talked to ‘em.
He said look, the way this works, is when we get here, or right now, you’ve got a pie that’s like this big. (John makes a small circle with his hands.) Okay, and when we get done, the pie’s gonna be like this big. (John stretches out his arms and reaches his fingers towards the walls.) Alright, and your piece is gonna be like this. (He makes a big triangle with his thumbs and pointer fingers. And that is exactly what happened. The restaurants in Little Italy are printin’ money. Because what happened was that people were like alright this is cool.. uhhh let’s go discover stuff! And they go wanderin’ out. Up behind the science center, up on the hill, was a neighborhood that you could buy a house up there for three hundred bucks. Okay, that’s how bad it was. It was just run down big time. Now, I can’t even imagine what the prices are up there. Okay, they have fixed up all the old homes, okay. There were streets up there that were coated with macadam. The neighbors went out and rented busters and took the macadam off the streets, and it’s now all Belgium blocks... it’s like, a cool place to live. None of that woulda happened without the inner harbor startin’."
...
"And... we used to beat up City Hall. Y’know, whatever we needed to do. We were like these crazy people over here. Okay, when we started the organization we decided no members, no dues, no bylaws. Cuz if you had dues, you’d never have enough, if you had bylaws, no one would ever read ‘em, and if you had members, you had nonmembers. Okay so we spent a year and a half with all the hot air goin’ around and everything, and then finally, all that kinda went away, and there was a group. And then we did dues and we did membership and we did bylaws and nobody read ‘em anyway and we stuck ‘em in a drawer. And it was basically just a bunch of cowboys that were goin’ uh well, less you get the city of Bethlehem turned around, nothin’s not gonna go anywhere. And that’s what we focused on. We got to the point where if we’d walk into a room, the conversation turned to the south side. Didn’t matter where we were. Chamber, board meeting, whatever. It was like if we walked into a room. And it wasn’t us that did it. It was the other people in the room. They responded to us walkin’ in the room because we were so vocal, constantly."
It's like the inner harbor in Baltimore.
Okay. The inner harbor in Baltimore was like, you didn’t go there before the inner harbor was fixed up. You just didn’t go there. It was like a war zone. And it’s... have you ever been there?
Okay, essentially it’s like this. Here’s the water, okay. And they build a couple buildings that became where the shops and restaurants were. Okay, and I’m lookin’ in from the water. Okay, over here they put in a science center, over here was an old power plant that they turned into... the power plant. Restaurants and everything. And it’s gone through some changes... there’s a Starbucks in there and a huge Barnes and Noble up on the third floor or somethin’. So, but before they even got all that stuff, the inner harbor was here, and the guys were over in the neighborhood over here, which was little Italy, who were like, terrified. (John is still using the black leather mat to demonstrate the geographically adjacent camps.) They figured that they would lose all their business. Alright, and they had a guy who was workin’ on the project who grew up in Baltimore, and he went over and talked to ‘em.
He said look, the way this works, is when we get here, or right now, you’ve got a pie that’s like this big. (John makes a small circle with his hands.) Okay, and when we get done, the pie’s gonna be like this big. (John stretches out his arms and reaches his fingers towards the walls.) Alright, and your piece is gonna be like this. (He makes a big triangle with his thumbs and pointer fingers. And that is exactly what happened. The restaurants in Little Italy are printin’ money. Because what happened was that people were like alright this is cool.. uhhh let’s go discover stuff! And they go wanderin’ out. Up behind the science center, up on the hill, was a neighborhood that you could buy a house up there for three hundred bucks. Okay, that’s how bad it was. It was just run down big time. Now, I can’t even imagine what the prices are up there. Okay, they have fixed up all the old homes, okay. There were streets up there that were coated with macadam. The neighbors went out and rented busters and took the macadam off the streets, and it’s now all Belgium blocks... it’s like, a cool place to live. None of that woulda happened without the inner harbor startin’."
...
"And... we used to beat up City Hall. Y’know, whatever we needed to do. We were like these crazy people over here. Okay, when we started the organization we decided no members, no dues, no bylaws. Cuz if you had dues, you’d never have enough, if you had bylaws, no one would ever read ‘em, and if you had members, you had nonmembers. Okay so we spent a year and a half with all the hot air goin’ around and everything, and then finally, all that kinda went away, and there was a group. And then we did dues and we did membership and we did bylaws and nobody read ‘em anyway and we stuck ‘em in a drawer. And it was basically just a bunch of cowboys that were goin’ uh well, less you get the city of Bethlehem turned around, nothin’s not gonna go anywhere. And that’s what we focused on. We got to the point where if we’d walk into a room, the conversation turned to the south side. Didn’t matter where we were. Chamber, board meeting, whatever. It was like if we walked into a room. And it wasn’t us that did it. It was the other people in the room. They responded to us walkin’ in the room because we were so vocal, constantly."
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