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History of Jewish Family Service Building
Circa 1994, the Jewish Community Center, in ensuring its future, found itself involved with our community's past. As part of a Building Campaign, the JCC trustees purchased a property at 71-73 W. Northampton St. This structure, after renovation, became the new home of Jewish Family Service. Many were already familiar with this prominent 19th century building, due to its location next to the entrance to the new JCC parking lot.

This building was constructed in 1874 as an investment property by Andrew Todd McClintock, an influential lawyer and member of one of Wilkes-Barre's ruling families. McClintock was a patron of architecture long before he built this structure - he lived in the building which is Wilkes University's McClintock Hall, a Greek Revival home he had remodeled in 1863 by NY architects Vaux and Withers, one of the most important firms in the nation at that time. His law office was next door in the building that had been renovated to serve the Baltimore Company.

Our new building was designed by Bruce Price (1845-1903), a famous American architect of the 19th century, who conducted the early part of his career in Wilkes-Barre. Price later went on to design such important structures as the First United Methodist Church on N. Franklin St., the Chateau Frontenac in Quebec City, Quebec, and a series of renowned "Shingle Style" homes in Tuxedo Park, NY which greatly influenced a young architect named Frank Lloyd Wright. 71-73 W. Northampton St. was designed after Price returned from a trip abroad and it is the first of his works to show the influence of the designs he had seen in Europe. The red bricks and the black glazed patterning are reminiscent of the work of the mid-19th century High Victorian Gothic Style architects, whose work Price had admired in England. Above the windows one can see white and green tiles set below the brick arches, another English feature which Price later used on the facade of Bedford Hall, the Wilkes-owned building at the corner of South and River Streets. Price eventually moved his home and practice to New York City, where he became a leading society architect and where his daughter, Emily Post, later gained fame for her writings on etiquette.

When the National Park Service established the River Street National Historic District in 1905, 71-73 W. Northampton was designated a significant structure, the highest appellation possible because of its great importance. The previous owners, Drs. Sanford and Jeffrey Sternlieb, recognized their building's significance and stripped off the paint which had obscured Bruce Price's original polychromatic detailing. Now the JCC is also contributing to the preservation of Wilkes-Barre's unique building heritage.