Multimedia campaign aims to reinvent downtown

It wasn't long ago that downtown Wilkes-Barre was a virtual ghost town, even on the sunniest of Saturday afternoons. Blank storefronts, neglected properties, and virtually empty sidewalks made for an uninviting, almost eerie sense of desolation. It was as if the city was dead, its citizens, hermits. Now almost three years after Mayor Leighton's "I Believe in Wilkes-Barre" campaign met a lukewarm reception, the downtown is showing signs of life as it seems more are starting to believe.

Recently, three Wilkes-Barre-based entities came together in an effort to convert the remaining ...