Fairmount fit for Roger, Anita and Pongo, Perdita

To orient you: North Beaver Street passes through the heart of this neighborhood just before it intersects with Parkway Boulevard.

Historian George Prowell dates the neighborhood to 1884, when attorney E.W. Spangler bought 17 acres of undeveloped land north of the Codorus. Before long, workers constructed the North Beaver Street bridge. Writing in 1906, Prowell viewed the neighborhood as one of the most "interesting" parts of the city.

He meant it was one of the city’s most desirable neighborhoods.

One can squint and almost see a neighborhood right out of "101 Dalmatians," with Roger and Anita walking Pongo and Perdita.

Actually, some of the neighborhood’s beauty has returned. Some of the decaying Victorians have been renovated into 38 apartments.

The rehab cost was about $170,000 per unit.

But that’s a small cost to reclaim the neighborhood from Cruella DeVil wannabes.

So there it is, overlooked York County landmark No. 25, York’s Fairmount neighborhood. Other overlooked county sites and landmarks (See posts under York Town Square):

-- The Little Courthouse
-- Prospect Hill Cemetery
-- War Mothers Memorial
-- Work War II USO at former York County Academy gymnasium
-- York’s Salem Square soldiers monument
-- York’s Cookes House
-- York’s rowhouses
-- Wrightsville’s monuments
-- The Columbia-Wrightsville Bridge
-- Memorial trees along highways Route 30 & Susquehanna Trail.
-- The Inches
-- Camp Stewartstown
-- The Wrightsville Bridge supports
-- New York Wire Co.’s factory whistle
-- Mary Ann Furnace
-- York’s Hartman Building
-- Hanover’s Iron Mike and The Picket
-- York’s Eberts Lane
-- Helen Reeves Thackston Memorial Park
-- WW II defense worker housing
-- Shiloh’s former town square
-- Loucks one-room school
-- Red Lion’s Fairmount Park
-- Carlisle Avenue Market House