York Collegiate Institute, South Duke Street and East College Avenue, city park.ChildrenвЂ™s Home of York, North Pine and East Philadelphia streets, shopping center with parking lot.Faith Presbyterian Church and community building, 50-52 N.HereвЂ™s a sampling of York-area demolitions in the 1950s through 1970s and what currently occupies those spaces. ItвЂ™s just striking how often the former footprints were used with automobiles and trucks in mind. Today, a parking lot covers much of the church and community buildingвЂ™s footprint.Д®lsewhere, one after another, landmark buildings came down. First Presbyterian sold the building, and the demolition team went to work.ДЄt the time, the new owner would not talk about its future use. FaithвЂ™s building, built in 1870, stood empty for two years. The predominantly Black Faith Presbyterian merged with the mostly white First Presbyterian in 1965. The empty Faith Presbyterian Church and its neighboring community building on North Duke Street is one casualty to consider. So the bulldozer and wrecking ball moved in and many fine buildings came down.ДЄ sense of loss still felt today set in. Some city leaders simply didnвЂ™t value the historically and architecturally significant structures that the city had been blessed with. City government and business leaders resorted to the same solutions as their peers in other cities: They searched for parking.ДЄ way to gain it quickly was to knock down large buildings, structures with special designs or with deep meaning that had grown up with the city mostly since the Civil War era. Those streets built for horses were crowded with cars, trucks and buses. When census takers finished their work in 1960, the city had lost about 9% of its population. The trolley service that was so popular for 50 years ended before the war, untracking this once-popular form of mass transportation.ДЄnd besides, the dream of a suburban house with a yard and swing set now was a possibility for many, such as those earning CaterpillarвЂ™s high wages and all. These young postwar families increasingly sought horsepower created by internal combustion. Caterpillar and what became Naval Ordnance Plant/AMF/Harley provided jobs. In the east end, the York County Shopping Center, anchored by Sears, was there to buy things. But Haines Acres and other suburbs in neighboring townships started going in. Some acreage in the city was filled in вЂ“ Fireside is one example. The city framework could no longer hold the returning veterans who were starting families. When World War II ended 200 years later, the cityвЂ™s cramped housing and city infrastructure faced a different form of horsepower.

Streets and lots were drawn to accommodate horses and wagons, and houses and buildings were constructed on lots with compressed dimensions found in German and British farming villages. When YorkвЂ™s lines were drawn in 1741, surveyors for William Penn had horsepower in mind. Watch Video: Watch: 5 York buildings that should never have come down

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