After looking at the images from the Course of the Empire set, we had a thought about how this related to our site. When looking at historical images and reading about the history of the industry of the Bushkill you can imagine at some point in time how busy and alive things along the Bushkill were. In a way we found this to be like the Consummation of the Empire. As time has gone by the destruction of this empire, or industry, has occurred. As we have discussed in previous posts we now see our site currently as a sort of infrastructure graveyard, in a way similar to the image of Desolation in the last image of the set. As structures lay in ruin in this image they also lay in ruin at our site. Furthermore, we discussed a sense of optimism in this image in class, that perhaps the clouds were clearing and there was to be a revival. This is also how we felt as we constantly felt the potential in this site for something more, to become once again a more natural place or a part of the community. It was interesting to see this piece the other day as it gave us something to compare and contrast our ideas and progression of thought about our site to.

We also pulled together some of our own photos to put against the collection. Seeing the images side by side really helped us imagine how drastically the area has changed and went along with these recent thoughts we had.

Additional interesting history tidbits!

“Butz park is a preserved parcel adjacent to state route 22. The topography is extremely steep and no recreation features exist on the park. It is a remainder parcel from highway construction” -http://www.easton-pa.gov/rec/openspace.pdf

Really cool website of additional images from 1752 to 1900 of Easton and along the Bushkill (photos from Lehigh >:l). Here is one that displays some of our site!

http://digital.lib.lehigh.edu/cdm4/beyond_viewer.php?CISOPTR=7660&ptr=7896&searchworks=cat30&DMTHUMB=1