Lewisburg's Piers Art Park Blends Murals, Markets and Public Spaces Downtown

Tucked off Market Street along Cherry Alley in downtown Lewisburg, Piers Art Park doesn't announce itself. You have to know to look: park off North 5th Street, walk east, and suddenly an arc of 32 concrete monoliths rises from what was, for decades, a neglected stretch of industrial remnants. What were once coal trestles are now the backbone of a growing public arts space, and the Lewisburg Downtown Partnership is well into an ambitious plan to make sure they stay that way.

From coal yard to community canvas

The piers themselves date to the 1920s. They first appeared on Sanborn Maps in 1925, labeled as coal trestles within a working coal yard that once included sheds, an office, and a scale house. Two trestles served two separate railroad lines: one connected to the Pennsylvania Railroad, the east-west line now preserved as the Buffalo Valley Rail Trail, and one connected to the Reading Railroad, which ran north-south. That infrastructure is long gone, but the concrete monoliths remain, and the Lewisburg Downtown Partnership has called them "one of the most prominent industrial ruins in town."

For years, the site sat overlooked. As the partnership's own materials put it, "the Piers Art Park has been a neglected, underutilized hidden gem in Lewisburg." That assessment, blunt as it is, captures exactly why the transformation now underway feels significant to the people steering it. "Our goal is to transform what has been just a space, into a place," said Lynne Sobel Ragusea, Main Street Coordinator for the Lewisburg Downtown Partnership.

The mural that started everything

The park opened last year, but the story of its arts identity began with a community conversation and a well-timed grant search. "People were talking about putting a mural on the piers, and so I started searching for grants to try and get a mural on the piers. We got a mini-grant through the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and that just kind of got the ball rolling," said Sobel Ragusea.

That grant led to one of the park's defining features: a mural painted across 18 of the 32 concrete piers by local artist Steve Gibson, founder of the Milton Art Academy in Milton. Gibson says the piers caught his attention long before the park took shape. "When I moved to the area back in 2008, I was immediately curious about the piers. I love that attention is being put on them with concerts and events, and am really happy to contribute something so more people can find them and also say, 'what the heck are those things?'"

His reaction captures the dual purpose of the mural: it draws people in while inviting them to ask questions about what they're seeing. The 18 painted piers are part of the same arc of 32 monoliths, meaning the mural coexists with the raw industrial structures still standing unpainted beside it.

Infrastructure upgrades opening new possibilities

Since the park opened, the Lewisburg Downtown Partnership has been working through a list of physical improvements. A new bench swing has been installed, paths have been paved, and the park now has electrical service connected to a stage. That last upgrade is, by Sobel Ragusea's own description, among the most consequential changes the site has received.

"Now that we have access to electrical, we can set up sound systems, so we can have all kinds of performances here, so I'm really looking forward to that. Great space to set up our lawn chairs and everything like that," she said. Before the electrical hookup, amplified programming simply wasn't possible; this coming warm season will be the first in which the stage can be fully used.

Funding for these improvements is coming from a four-year, $100,000 grant the partnership received in 2023. As of this spring, the LDP is in year two of that grant cycle, using the funds directly on park projects. One priority in the current phase: the partnership is working with a local committee to put together a bid for artistic lighting on the piers. "We're really hoping that in the next year we'll get some fun, interactive, or not, but some fun or interesting lighting to go up on the piers area or maybe out into the park," said Sobel Ragusea.

Programming vision: motion, music, and community classes

The physical upgrades are designed to support a programming calendar that is still taking shape. The Lewisburg Downtown Partnership has expressed interest in adding a "motion in the park series" at Piers and is exploring the possibility of working with the local arts council to bring a few music-in-the-park concerts to the site. The envisioned activities extend beyond ticketed events: community Yoga, Tai Chi, art classes open to the public, and site-specific art installations are all part of the partnership's stated vision for the space.

Sobel Ragusea has been direct about what she wants the park to feel like during the summer months: "I definitely want to make sure that we are inviting people down to this space throughout the summer as a great place just to hang out and enjoy themselves."

Piers Art Park within Lewisburg's broader mural scene

The park sits within a downtown that has cultivated public art across multiple blocks and venues. Cherry Alley between North Third and Fourth Streets carries the informal nickname "Modern Art Alley," a nod to the concentration of work along that corridor. Elsewhere in the walkable downtown core, murals can be found inside the restored art deco Campus Theatre at 413 Market Street, on the exterior of Sculptures Studio at 111 Market Street, at The Brasserie Fine Dining at 100 Market Street, on White Pine Alley, and at the Donald Heiter Community Center at the intersection of North 5th Street and St. John Street. Piers Art Park is both a destination on its own terms and a natural anchor for anyone doing a self-guided tour of Lewisburg's public art.

Finding the park

Access is straightforward: use the public parking lot just off North 5th Street and walk east toward Cherry Alley. The Lewisburg Downtown Partnership can be reached at (570) 523-1743. With electrical now live at the stage and a lighting bid in progress, the park's programming calendar for the warmer months ahead is the most ambitious it has been since the site opened, and the 32 concrete monoliths that prompted all of this are finally getting the attention Steve Gibson hoped they would.