Berlin, PA
Scott Goodin in front of a sign in 2018. Photograph by Douglas Goodin.
No one expected that the Coronavirus scare of 2020 would be a boon for Berlin, PA. Now it seems almost silly. One looks at Berlin and sees the towering landscape of its downtown, it’s financial district, it’s arts district, the uptown where all the yuppies moved when they got older and wanted to get dogs and lofts. One forgets what Berlin looked like in the late months of 2019 - a backwater inhabited by few and traveled through by few more but generally forgotten. It’s main attraction - the Milksquirts sign announcing ones entrance - was of minor interest to travelers who occasionally would pose for an ironic picture (as Scott Goodin did in August of 2018, pictured above). The fact that the name of their town was amusing was not lost on most Berliners - when and if they stopped to think about it (most did not) - but they themselves were not amused by the gawkers that would pull off to the side of the road near Tempson’s Farm and photograph themselves in front of the sign and cause all sorts of problems on what was otherwise a peaceful and serene stretch of highway.
Of course all of this began to change in early March of 2020 when wealthy people who lived in cities like New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Washington, DC began looking for a less densely populated place to live. The idea was that the dense city centers and crowded, close-quartered public transit systems of the aforementioned cities were hotbeds for viral spread, and that if one possessed the means to get away from such a situation, one should.
It would be naive to suggest that Berlin’s name did not have something to do with its appeal. Brooklyn hipsters got a certain thrill from telling their parents and friends that they were moving to Berlin, “no but not that Berlin, lolololol.” And like many towns starting down the barrel of early financial booms, the residents of Berlin welcomed the new visitors who wanted to buy up unused land and frequent local businesses such as the gas station and the grocery store.
It was when the first coffee shop opened up that Earl Tempson first got worried. “I make my coffee and if I’m gonna go out and get coffee somewhere I go to the gas station since Tammy always has a pot of half and half sitting on a hot plate over there. I don’t need any of this fancy fuckin’ coffee. No thank you!” And then, as longtime residents of any gentrified area know, once you get coffee shops then you get vegan bakeries and Soul Cycle. (There are now several Soul Cycles in Berlin!)
And people have written so much about gentrification and about rich people moving and populating new territory that is there really anything more to say on the matter? Of course there is because of course this had the added wrinkle of being the result of a virus that had taken the entire country - no, the entire planet - by storm. Coronavirus was all the rage in March of 2020 and it would continue to be the rage for quite a while longer. Many people would die, including some of those who are close to you and you remember being afraid of that even then.
But you also remember it not really feeling real. And you would wonder if it similarly did not really feel real being on an airplane who has lost engine power and is plummeting to its demise. Or you would wonder what the first US casualty of Coronavirus thought right before they lost consciousness and eventually died. Were they bummed that they were the first to die or did they consider it an honor? Or were they just thinking about all of the things that they had yet to do in their lives? Or were they wondering if they left the burners on the stove on?
Nobody likes to think about death even though we practice it every night. That’s an old cliche, but it was on the minds of newly settled Berliners as they looked around at the rural surroundings and proclaimed “We live here now!” A new batch of wealthy settlers out to tame the land and make it their own.
And of course Coronavirus eventually passed and people moved on and become frightened of something else. I remember comforting people who thought there would be no other pandemics: “Don’t worry! There will be other diseases that sweep across the earth uncontrolled. More people will die. There’s still lots to be afraid of.”
Being afraid is comfortable. Especially when you live in Berlin, PA.