As each brick building falls to the jaws of ‘progress,’ Joan Lord sheds a tear. Having lived at the western edge of the Allentown State Hospital property for 15 years, Lord mourns the loss of so many historic structures, especially for the grand complex of interconnected brick buildings that formed the institution’s core. She strongly feels the buildings should have been repurposed.

Built in 1912 and closed in 2010, the sprawling complex will soon be a 195 acre vacant lot. Ignoring pleas from preservation advocates and an offer to purchase the property “as is” by Allentown-based developer Nat Hyman for $2.3 million in 2019, the state government decided to raze all structures and prepare the site for private purchase and development.

Currently employed as a crossing guard by the Bethlehem Area School District, Lord worked as a volunteer at Allentown State Hospital from 2002 to 2003, delivering interoffice mail and escorting patients.

She said the staff treated her “like family” and said, “Even the patients were friendly … sometimes.” Most patients were sent to other facilities when this one shut down, but Lord believes some may have ended up homeless.

“There was a juvenile prison all the way to the left hand side of the hospital,” said Lord as we toured the site Jan. 19. She remarked she wasn’t sure if it was still in operation when she was a volunteer.

Already erased from sight is the main complex, as well as the medical building west of it where Lord remembers the hospital’s morgue was located.

The steel jaws of a Volvo EC480EHR chew up bricks from the Ritter Building, where Lehigh Valley Child Care had its administrative offices. Farther down the driveway is the Edgar Building, where the children of hospital employees were taken care of while their parents worked. Now known as Lehigh Valley Children’s Centers (LVCC), the organization moved out of the Allentown State Hospital property in 2008.

LVCC currently operates out of 30 locations and is celebrating 50 years of service.

To the east is another doomed structure listed as the “Psychology” building in the “2012 Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Real Property Disposition Plan” published by the Department of General Services. Lord recollects there was a bowling alley in the basement, although recreation facilities were located elsewhere on the campus.

Lord described a series of underground tunnels she had navigated while working there. These connected the buildings within the hospital complex.

Acess shafts can be found on the property, including one near the admissions building where heavy weights have been placed across them to keep out trespassers.

Attached to the chain link fence surrounding the demolition site are mementos left by onlookers grieving the loss of the vintage buildings. Among these are an ornament resembling a Russian nesting doll and photographs of the hospital from earlier times.

As reported in the Press in 2020, demolition was expected to be completed by February 2021. The contract completion date is May 2021 at a cost of $12.7 million.