No deal to fix New Deal-era stone wall

MOSCOW — Plans to preserve a piece of history in Lackawanna County have failed. PennDOT officials say repairing a stone wall will cost too much…

MOSCOW — Plans to preserve a piece of history in Lackawanna County have failed.

PennDOT officials say it will cost too much to repair a stone wall in Moscow built after the Great Depression.

The stone wall along Church Street in Moscow is showing its age. What you can’t see is its history and the craftsmanship behind it all. Ken Carling of Spring Brook Township, a mason by trade, has admired this wall and others like it all his life.

“You have to understand that there is no equipment, laid by hand, I don’t know where the manpower came from, you have to assume it was a hand- cheap labor. But a lot of work went into it,” Carling said.

The labor actually came from the Works Progress Administration, or WPA, an organization born out of President Roosevelt’s New Deal intended to give people jobs after the Great Depression.

The Church Street wall was built by hand in the late 1930s, but parts have crumbled in recent years. Moscow district council members hoped to preserve it through grants. But, PennDOT officials now say the work will be far too expensive.

You will find the work of the work in progress administration all over our region. From Moscow, to Blakely, to Route 435 in Elmhurst Township where there are 4 WPA walls. Some walls are better preserved than others.

PennDOT officials said other walls are farther from the road, so they’ve held up better over the years.

The fact that the Church Street wall is still standing is a reason to preserve it, according to lifelong Moscow resident Eleanor Morrison.

“I think they’re wonderful, look at all the years they’ve lasted. I wish they would fix them, but it’s a different age,” Morrison said.

PennDOT officials said there were no plans to demolish the wall. But it will need to be removed if it becomes a safety hazard.

But residents of the Moscow region in Lackawanna County said the wall was still standing, albeit crumbling, during a simpler time when hard work was done by hand.

“There’s no replacing them, you’ll never see anyone build another wall like this,” Carling added.

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