Elmwood Park Historic District

Built between 1917 and 1920 on a plain six blocks northeast of Bethlehem's midtown, Elmwood Park is a residential district of one-and-one-half and two-story houses, mostly brick, clapboard, or stucco, with Colonial Revival details. The developers Wood and Hawthorne of Pittsburgh laid out 235 lots around an oval street and a central playground, creating a planned village-like setting. The district includes 68 contributing houses in forms ranging from single dwellings and double residences to butterfly-plan triple units and apartment buildings with six or seven residences. Its significance lies in its uniformity of mass, scale, roof slopes, porches, and window arrangement, which set it apart from the piecemeal housing common in Bethlehem. Built to house workers at the Bethlehem Steel Company during World War I, it is regarded as an early example of large-scale unified housing in the region. Later alterations and post-1950 infill have reduced its uniformity somewhat.