Reviews & Comments
Carlisle, PA
Cultural desert for the arts... -
4/3/2009Carlisle, PA is a very pretty, historic town of just under 20,000 people not far from Harrisburg, and only an hour and half from Washington, DC, Baltimore and the outskirts of Philadelphia. It is the home of Dickinson College, and near to Gettysburg. It boasts a cineplex which runs the usual American blockbusters, but there is not art movie house. There are a few small musical organizations, but no professional theater. While Dickinson College events are open to the public, they are poorly advertised to the general public. The only the Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet offers peformances at a relatively professional level, and its company performs at the Whitaker Center in Harrisburg.There is a Blockbuster and a small video store. There are almost no good restaurants, by cosmopolitan standards: the gastronomical offerings go from coffee shop fare, and pizza parlor cuisine, to the standard chains like Abblebee's, Red Robin, Friendly's and Cracker Barrel and descending down towards the KFC, Taco Bell, and MacDonald's, with a few inferior chinese restaurants thrown in. On Pomfret street, you can find two passable restaurants, but only by comparison to the rest of Carlisle's generally lackluster offerings. The long and short is, if you are going to mind driving at least a half and hour to get to anything dimly resembling real culture, Carlisle is NOT the place for you!