bellefonte-2002-06-30-09.jpg

into the penn belle; here's the lobby, which looks and smells like it hasn't changed since glenn last saw it. it has the same decayed smell that i remember from the old buildings in mannington.

we wanted to see the penn belle because glenn spent a lot of time there growing up. when he was ten years old, his best friend frank was the son of the hotel's owner, and they spent their summers eating lunch in the hotel dining room and playing monopoly in one of the unoccupied rooms upstairs.

when glenn went through some old stuff recently, he found a business card with a 1930s photo of the hotel on one side (i'll scan it when i can) and some words about it on the other, including "rooms $1.50 to $3.00 single, $2.50 to $5.00 double". we were going to show it to the current proprietors and ask them to honor their advertised rate, but there was no one at the desk. we went down to the restaurant in the basement (remarkably dangerous steps), but the waitresses didn't know how to get ahold of anyone who worked upstairs. they didn't seem to know anything at all about it, except that they thought rooms were rented by the month only. we talked to the cooks in the notkitchen, but they weren't any more help. they all enjoyed the card, though.