Upon its opening, currently slated for this January, the new 180 room Renaissance Hotel in downtown Allentown will be as up to date as any hostelry in the country. But the guests who enter it will do so through the doors of a building that first opened when Calvin Coolidge was president.
In 1925 the Dime Savings & Trust Company was one of the city’s newest buildings. It was designed by Tilghman H. Moyer and Company, a firm that specialized in banks and other office buildings.
Moyer’s training was as an engineer but the firm employed several trained architects. Among them was the late John Heyl, who was well known in Allentown for many years. Just before it did the Dime building, the Moyer firm designed the offices of the Allentown meat packer Arbogast & Bastian, now the offices of the America On Wheels automotive museum, with which it has many details in common.
The Dime building was built when architectural styles were edging away from frothy Beaux Arts Classicism of the 1900s to the angular 1920s Art Deco. Its exterior bows in the direction of the past with engaged columns whose capitals echo ancient Rome. One critic called it Lombard Romanesque due to its similarity to an early medieval style.
But the slightly jagged and “jazzy” upper stories suggest that change in the form of Deco was waiting in the wings. This was to come to full flower in Allentown with the PPL Tower building, designed by visionary skyscraper pioneering architect Harvey Wiley Corbett (1873-1954). Due to structural problems, many changes were required in the Dime building’s interior to make it work as a modern hotel’s entrance.
The public face of the Dime Savings & Trust Company was Fred Lewis (1865-1949). A three time Allentown mayor, he also served a term representing Lehigh County in Congress.
A Progressive Republican reformer, Lewis’s idol was Theodore Roosevelt, with whom he later became friends. Lewis bore a remarkable physical resemblance to “Teddy” that he sometimes played up by wearing similar clothing and the same pince-nez type eyeglasses.
Lewis’s father and grandfather had been pioneers in the city’s 19th century iron industry. He had gotten involved with banking as a founder of Merchants Bank. Lewis formed the Dime with several other prominent members of the community. It quickly became the 5th largest bank in Allentown.
Lewis’s involvement in banking flowed out of his concern that other local banks were unwilling to lend credit to small businessmen. It was for them that Merchants Bank was formed.
Lewis remained president of the Dime throughout the prosperous 1920s. But the stock market crash of 1929 and the economic crisis that followed put pressure on several local banks.
In June of 1932, the state took over the affairs of the troubled Allentown Trust Company. This started a quiet “run” on the Dime and other banks as people, hearing rumors, and having become unemployed, began withdrawing their savings in order to survive.
Lewis, then the city’s mayor, issued a statement that month saying “the banking situation in Allentown is strong and no one need have any fears.” But by early July the Dime was feeling the heat. Fortunately local bankers had formed what was called the Clearing House Association to foster mergers between troubled banks and more stable institutions. On July 3rd it was announced that the Dime was to merge with the larger Lehigh Valley Trust Company or be “consolidated.”
On July 8, 1932 Lewis issued a statement to the public to explain why the consolidation was taking place.
“The reason for the Dime Savings & Trust Company consolidating with the Lehigh Valley Trust Company was that so many people became alarmed when the Allentown Trust Company had closed its doors with the result that there was a continual seepage of deposits from the Dime Savings & Trust Co, which if allowed to continue, would have made it necessary for this institution to discontinue business, as no bank can have its deposits withdrawn and hope to keep its doors open.”
Lewis went on to point out that the bank was not insolvent and by the consolidation they had saved the Christmas Club savings and checking accounts of depositors.
“My connection with the Dime Savings & Trust Company is necessarily ended and the institution will soon pass into history,” he said, “but we, the officers and directors, have the satisfaction of knowing that none of the bank’s depositors will lose a dollar, and we believe its stockholders will ultimately receive a very substantial portion of their investment.”
As Lewis predicted his bank closed. But his reputation in the community as one of Allentown’s best mayors remained intact and he became something of a community sage before his death at age 84.
For several years the Dime’s banking floor remained empty. But to judge from city directories of the 1930s, the office space above it was occupied by a number business and professional offices.
The city directory for 1937-38 shows that a new business had taken over the banking floor. Known as the Marble Bar, apparently after the use of marble in the building, it was a popular eating and drinking place from the late 30s until the early 60s. Occasionally some matchbooks from the bar show up on-line.
Among the Marble Bar’s early managers was Jack Archinal, who as a G.I. just after World War II was to have his 15 minutes of fame when he gave his blood to keep alive Japanese warlord Tojo after he tried to commit suicide.
After the demise of the Marble Bar, over 50 years of attempts to re-purpose the Dime building have been unsuccessful. But with the revival of downtown Allentown promised by the PPL Arena, its handsome facade has survived to delight a new generation 90 years later.
from 69News:Home http://ift.tt/1ouPobT
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