Category:WPA Wall and Stairway, Allentown, Pennsylvania

An often overlooked WPA structure in Allentown is a series of retaining walls located on the north side of Union Street, between South Poplar and South 10th Streets. Also, there is another wall on the south side of Junction Street, which goes to the north side of Martin Luther King Boulevard, then curls to the west at the intersection for several yards.

Along with the stone wall are two stone staircases and a tunnel, one of which goes through the wall, on the north side of the intersection of Union and Junction Street up the hill to Spring Garden Street. A second stone staircase, on the other side of Union Street, goes down to Martin Luther King Drive.

At the time the lower stairway was built, MLK Drive was called "Larwence Street", and homes were lined on both sides of the street. Larwence Street, at the time was very difficult to access though Lehigh Street, several blocks away. The people living there generally did not have cars, and used the stairway to climb up the hill to Union or Spring Garden Street and back down, which solved that problem.

An inscription on the Union Street retaining wall west of the staircase entrance declares: “Constructed by the Works Progress Administration and the City of Allentown, 1937. There is a similar inscription at the bottom of the lower staircase along Martin Luther King Drive.