Author: jeff

ALLENTOWN, Pa. — A new 25-year lease will help the Museum of Indian Culture bring Allentown’s indigenous history to life, according to its executive director.

City Council members this month unanimously approved a new quarter-century lease — at $1 a year — for the museum in the Little Lehigh Parkway.

Pat Rivera, who’s served as the museum’s executive director for two decades, said her organization is “thrilled with” the new lease, as it can move forward with plans to “expand beyond our four walls (to) where the Lenape story actually happened.”

The museum recently received just over $1.5 million to build a Lenape village on three-quarters of an acre.

“We’re going to be able to take the landscape and the history and meld it all together.”

Pat Rivera, Museum of Indian Culture executive director

That land will include seven “educational pods” featuring demonstrations of indigenous “lifeways,” like fishing, cooking and making nets, Rivera said.

The demonstrations will show “how life existed primarily in the 17th century, the very start of when the European settlers got here and started with trade,” she said.

Courtesy

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Pat Rivera, Museum of Indian Culture

A concept plan for the Lenape Village established in April 2021.

“We’re going to be able to take the landscape and the history and meld it all together,” Rivera said. Once the upgrades are complete, “we’ll be able to reflect that history for generations to come. So we’re really excited to be able to share the Lenape story.”

The village is scheduled to open in the fall of 2025.

The money will also fund a new welcome center at the museum, an extension of the Lenape Trail and an audio tour, she said.

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