A nearly 90-year-old gem of Allentown’s parks system is seeing new life, thanks to extensive masonry repairs and a concert series in partnership with one of the Lehigh Valley’s most prominent nonprofits.

Allentown’s Union Terrace Amphitheater was constructed in 1937 via the Works Progress Administration, a New Deal agency that created public works jobs for unemployed people during the Great Depression. The natural grass amphitheater features stone steps worked into the slopes, a brook that separates the stage flanked by stone pillars from the viewing area, and a large flagstone patio structure like a crown at the amphitheater’s helm.

Allentown Mayor Matt Tuerk called it “one of the most beautiful and unique” parts of the city.

The makeover involved polishing the weather-worn stones, replacing cracked and deteriorated ones and repointing them, which involves removing and replacing the mortar that holds them together.

“We try as best as we can to use what’s existing and restore it, because that is what we want to do, we want to preserve what’s existing,” said Ken Spence, owner of Penn Mount Stone, a masonry contractor that handled the stonework. “Sometimes you need to take a little bit more drastic measures, but we rebuilt all the steps 100%, just to make them safe for the public and make them last another 90 years.”

The process took about seven months and cost $382,000, most of which came from a grant from the Trexler Trust, a fund established by Gen. Harry Trexler dedicated to preserving and improving Allentown’s parks system.

“How wonderful it is that we’re celebrating a structure that was first imagined in 1937, and has been reborn today to be a place where people gather, ” said Scott Pidcock, chair of the Trexler Trust.

The renovations were complete in the spring, in time for the city to launch a monthly summer concert series in partnership with ArtsQuest — the first collaboration between Allentown and the region’s largest arts-related nonprofit.

The final concert of the 2025 summer series is at 6 p.m. Friday with 1970s pop band Orleans set to headline.

The concert series will return in 2026, Tuerk announced, and the city is soliciting more ideas for possible public uses of the space.

“I can only imagine where we’ll go with the concert series here at Union Terrace, but I know that we’re going to be following a lot of Allentonians there,” Tuerk said.

Reporter Lindsay Weber can be reached at Liweber@mcall.com.

https://www.mcall.com/2025/09/11/union-terrace-allentown-concert-series/