Main Street

Main Street meets Church Street at a right angle, forming an L parallel to the bend in Monocacy Creek where it flows into the Lehigh. From here Bethlehem's principal street runs north to Moravian College and Theological Seminary and beyond. When originally platted, land to the west of Main Street stepped down to the industrial area along the creek. To the east a slope led north to the cemetery, or “God's Acre” ( Gottesacker) in Moravian parlance. In contrast to Church Street's collection of residential “choir” structures, Main Street filled with agricultural buildings, tool sheds, and machine shops. All evidence of the Moravian Main Street is gone save for a bit of ground opposite the Central Moravian Church ( NO22.6) sloping down to a newly reconstructed eighteenth-century industrial area, and the Sun Inn ( NO24) three blocks north. Above Broad Street the character of the buildings deteriorates, but between Church and Broad streets Main Street is mostly a collection of nineteenth-century commercial structures.