DALLAS TWP. — When people hear the words “42nd Street,” they think of bright and flashing lights, New York City’s theater district and Times Square. But for Back Mountain native John Miliauskas, 42nd Street means countryside, community and home.
“It’s a unique street, a nice street,” said the East 42nd Street resident. “It’s a pleasant neighborhood, and everybody is courteous of each other.”
Miliauskas does not know where the unusual street name came from, but he enjoys living there with his wife, Dorothy. Now retired, he built the home when the couple was first married.
Jim Perna purchased a home on East 42nd Street about five years ago and recently decided to sell, although not because of the neighborhood.
“This is a beautiful street, a wonderful street,” he said.
Perna referred to it as a “joggers’ paradise,” explaining joggers, walkers and bikers are seen regularly getting their morning exercise in the area.
Although he has occasionally wondered about the origin of the street’s name, he never learned its story.
East 42nd Street crosses over Memorial Highway (415) into Lehman Township and becomes West 42nd Street. The only other numbered street in Dallas Township is Second Street, which crosses into Harveys Lake Borough.
The street name remains a mystery, even to Dallas Township Supervisor, Vice Chair and Assistant Secretary-Treasurer Elizabeth Martin. Unable to say how East 42nd Street got its name, she did confirm many of the roadways in the township were named after the area’s forefathers and people who owned farms there.
Luzerne County 911 Data Manager Andy Zahorsky spoke of this, as well, citing Roushey Street as an example.
Although the naming of East and West 42nd streets is a mystery to him as well, the Dallas native does have a few ideas on the topic, his best guess being military related.
“It was probably named for the 42nd Infantry,” he said. “Kind of like Memorial Highway was named for the war.”
Or, one of the original residents may have named it after their previous home.
“There were some streets up there that were originally dirt roads and they were named for people who had moved into the Back Mountain to remind them of their hometowns and where they were from,” Zahorsky said. “One I’ve always heard was, it was originally called Park Avenue, which was off Machell near Gate of Heaven. There was a family there who moved from New York who lived on Park Avenue and they wanted it named so it reminded them of New York.”
He said Park Avenue was renamed decades later to avoid confusion with Park Street in Dallas.
The only other plausible answer he could think of is that it was the 42nd street developed in the township. Because it straddles two municipalities, however, he said that is unlikely the case.
Other roadways in the area are named after U.S. presidents, Pennsylvania counties, trees, family members of developers and places that once existed along those roads.
Another area street name Zahorsky once pondered is that of Fairground Road, near the Dallas High School. This mystery, however, was solved when he learned the original fairgrounds did once indeed exist in that location.
“Some of it doesn’t make sense today, but it made sense 80 years ago when the fairground was there,” he said. “They just never adjusted it for what’s there today. So, a lot of stuff gets lost over time, and some stuff will never make sense.”
