Hyde Park- West Scranton’s most iconic and in-tact neighborhood

Hyde Park is the most defined neighborhood in West Scranton due to the historic Borough that gave it its namesake but it is still difficult to nail down the boundaries. I choose to use Main Street as the eastern border, the railroad tracks as the western, Cathedral Cemetery as the northern border, and the Scranton Municipal line as the southern border. This seems to capture the core of Hyde Park and leave the area between Main Street and the Downtown as a separate neighborhood, which many would consider Bellevue.

Hyde Park is a tight-knit Scranton neighborhood, which developed rapidly during the turn of the 20th century. While the neighborhood’s rise was fueled by the coal mining industry, the neighborhood has also always had a strong middle class. Main Street is the neighborhood’s historic commercial street with the best concentration of businesses and urban fabric between Washburn and Lackawanna. The rest of Main Street is pretty mixed-use in character. While a decent number of businesses remain along Main Street, it is quite gritty and has lots of vacant storefronts. The residential areas of the neighborhood are generally intact thanks to new waves of Hispanic immigrants who are increasingly replacing the neighborhood’s strong Italian and Lebanese character.

Hyde Park is a fairly walkable community with convenient access to Dwtn and supports a wide array of affordable rental and for-sale housing options. Also great walkable schools remain here. For this to be a premiere urban district, Hyde Park needs to reinvest in its historic main street filing up vacancies and encouraging mixed-use in-fill development. The tree canopy and park amenities are limited, and bike infrastructure is non-existent. 

Click here to view my Hyde Park album on Flickr

URBAN STRENGTHS:

• Sidewalk infrastructure is consistent across the neighborhood but ADA standard curb cuts really only exist along Main Street. A decent amount of sidewalks have been paved over by asphalt.
• Pretty good density
• Excellent access to Dwtn only 1.5 miles away. 6 min drive and a 25 min bus ride.
• Good street connectivity and grid although blocks can be long at points.
• Good diversity metrics all around. Large Hispanic Population here as well accounting for about 25% of the population.
• Overall a safe community with limited blight but plenty of grittiness.
• Decent urban form along Main Street especially several blocks btwn Washburn and Lackawanna.
• Good array of walkable schools including public schools covering all grades and a couple private Catholic grade schools. Public middle and high schools are rated 3 out of 10 however.
• Decent array of rental options and generally pretty affordable. 1-beds lease for around 1K, 2-beds for btwn $900-1.6K, and lots of 3-bed options that lease in the 1Ks. Even some 4-beds. Also an affordable senior high rise.
• Good retail amenities including a supermarket, several Hispanic & Italian grocerias, a drug store, a hardware store, a family dollar, a couple furniture stores, several salons, a couple bakeries & gyms, post office, several banks, and several churches.

URBAN WEAKNESSES:

• Within Hyde Park the only parks really are cemeteries. The expansive McDade Park isn’t too far way however.
• Very mediocre public transit access. Bike infrastructure is non-existent.
• So so cultural amenities which includes several restaurants (mostly Lebanese, Hispanic, and Italian), and couple bars.
• Tree canopy is pretty mediocre.
• For sale housing is very affordable but not a ton of diversity. Limited 1-bed product. 2-beds sell btwn 50K-low 200Ks and 3 & 4 beds sell btwn 50K- low 300Ks.”