THE LIST

VALLEY

The Hoover-Mason Trestle is elevated and elevating. The 1,650foot-long, 46-foot-high, steel-and-concrete walkway splits Bethlehem Steel’s titanic, intricate blast furnaces and the railroad that carried raw materials 365/24/7 around the headquarters plant from 1907 to 1995, the year it closed for good. Abundant texts richly tell a robust history of complex processes, immigrant workers, strikes, lethal dangers and monumental monuments (Golden Gate Bridge, Chrysler Building, a battleship a day during World War II). Zigzagging gardens of native flowers, shrubs and trees, planted lushly in geometric beds, create the atmosphere of an urban park, zooming me back to the butterfly bushes that flourished like tumbleweeds when the dead factory sprouted into a Wild East ghost town. The walkway provides stimulating, soothing views of the SteelStacks entertainment center; St. Michael’s Cemetery, the mountainous resting place of steelworkers from around the globe, buried overlooking their row homes, and the Iron Foundry, a glorious ruin with arched window frames both cathedral-esque and picturesque. Extra added bonus: strumming the threaded metal grates with shoes produces the zinging ping of an industrial autoharp. (101 Founders Way, Bethlehem; hoovermason.com)

The bakery case at Sweet Memories glows like a jukebox, urging visitors to press their sweet-teeth buttons. Pastry chef Jamie Smith makes a dizzying number of delectable desserts, flavored with raspberry and pumpkin and leavened with butter cream and whipped cream. Her cakes are remarkably light, in the mouth and the wallet. On a recent visit I paid three bucks a slice for a luscious coconut treat and the gradually explosive “Chocolate Nightmare.” Both cakes made my taste buds tango. Sweet Memories is a café and a family affair, run by Jamie with husband Mark and children Allyssa and Heather, who wait tables with friendly efficiency. They serve tasty, nicely twisty soups, salads, quiches and sandwiches—grilled cheese is a specialty--in the former parlor of a 19th-century brick house with a welcoming garden. The cozy space reminded my late mother of tea rooms in her native London, which inspired her to make mean pies and meaner scones. We spent a lot of time here, one time eating lunch and playing bridge in a group we nicknamed Three Queens & a Joker and I nicknamed My Three Moms. (180 Main St., Emmaus; 610-967-0296)

Bach at Noon is a fugue of gifts. The Bach Choir of Bethlehem presents the concert series free of charge on second Tuesdays in Central Moravian Church, where the choir launched its celebrated annual festival in 1900. Naturally lit and austerely ornamented, the spacious sanctuary is an ideal setting to absorb Johann Sebastian’s celestial aural architecture, as well as his contemporaries’ greatest hits. Last month’s bill included Cantata 140 (“Wachet Auf …”), which received its American premiere on this very spot. Singers and instrumentalists

It’s December. Philly just announced its 500th victim of gun violence. Covid’s worldwide B.1.1.529 variant should drop on the East Coast just in time for Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanza. Stephen Sondheim just died, and the only thing kitschier than the first ABBA

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—GEOFF GEHMAN

CITY

album in 40 years is Lady Gaga in the House of Gucci. Now what.

Stay safe, Philly, while mulling about between the holy holidays (THAT’s RIGHT. Sacred happy holidays) and New Year’s Eve. You can get fucked up drunk and high, but bring a friend to watch your back.

The holiday movie thing at a live theater and cinema cineplex used to be an event that families could do in-person to avoid going to their grandmother’s house until later in the day or something lonely people did before hitting up Burger King for Christmas dinner. I’m not making fun of lonely people here, folks. I’m making fun of Burger King. Anyway, Covid and streamers such as Netflix and Hulu pretty much killed that tradition. So what is left to see out at a theater now that Matrix 4 is on HBO Max? Spider-Man: No Way Home hits big screens, exclusively, on December 17, which will only be good if Tobey Macguire and Andrew Garfield make their secret returns as the webbed wonder as rumored. And speaking of Garfield, who made his gorgeously hammy singing debut in Netflix’s Sondheim-inspired biography of the late Jonathan Larson, Tick… Tick… BOOM! Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein’s masterful musical, West Side Story, gets a re-imagining at the hands of Stephen Spielberg and Tony Kushner. Is it good? Sure. Did it need a re-do? Not at all, especially when you consider that Spielberg’s Tony, Maria, the Jets, and the Sharks, still fall in love and fight it out in 1950s New York City. Why not update the setting or make it all LatinX or something different? A wasted opportunity. Save your Sondheim money, get an Amtrack Acela to NYC and go see the brand-new revival of Assassins.

You can do the whole stroll through the Miracle on South 13th Street and its world-famous rowhome light display in South Philly. Then again, it will be a miracle if you don’t get shot.

Christmas at Macy’s, the old Wanamakers. It’s still pretty great. It is true that the lo-tech Dickens Village with the beat-up animatronic characters doing A Christmas Carol is long in the tooth. That’s the whole point, though. Who doesn’t look a mess in 2021? Reservations are required for in-person participation here, so the spirit of drinking heavily and just dropping by is shot in the ass. As for the evergreen and ever-annual Macy’s Christmas Light Show, I’ll never get over losing the gravitas of the late, great John Facenda as the voice of the light pageant over the still-living Julie Andrews. But the Wanamaker Organ at Macy’s is still celebrating its 110th Anniversary, and the guy who’s been at the

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—A.D. AMOROSI