![]() “It will take everybody at the table to help turn things around,” says Mike McGee, executive director of the Riverfront Alliance of Delaware County, which promotes economic development. Recently, though, commitment and creative thinking from many quarters have begun to tug Chester from the bog. This city by the river, whose shipbuilding muscle had seen the country through a couple of world wars, fell into the clutches of receivership. In the depth and swiftness of its decline, Chester had-and has-plenty of company across America. The tax base shrank, the crime rate spiked, and survival became the order of the day. Once an industrial power-house, the city lost its bearings, a victim of urban upheaval and the changing economy. About four decades later, the sun disappeared from her hometown’s sky. The great jazz/blues vocalist Ethel Waters, a native of Chester, may have been the first to sing this classic song in public, doing so in a 1933 nightclub performance. ![]() “Don’t know why there’s no sun up in the sky / Stormy weather …” Chester Mayor John Linder stands in front of the derelict Deshong Museum.
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