I'll take credit for the check-in desk at City Hall, it was originally installed to keep me out. With news of Ed Pawlowski's upcoming release, I'm reminded of how much less I scrutinize city government.
I recently visited a city council committee meeting to congratulate Ce-Ce Gerlach, and commented on the long neglected WPA stairwell in Lehigh Parkway while I was there. I only know a few people in current city hall, and sadly we have lost one of them.
I do not know who the current city planner is, but I do know that he is superfluous. City planning is being done by J.B. Reilly's City Center R.E.. While Pawlowski enriched his campaign funds at our expense with city contracts, Reilly is enhancing his real estate portfolio at the expense of city planning. While a new art museum may make his holdings near 10th and Hamilton appear more classy in a news release, it won't change the needle in reality. But what concerns me is the downgrade to 5th Street, the Baum School and the Art Park. It also greatly reduces future prospects for the Post Office, the most architecturally signifiant building remaining in Allentown.
The above 1934 photograph of the art deco post office is the contractor's documentation of the project's progress. The back of the photo states; Taken Sept 1 - 34 showing lobby, floor, screens, desks, completed & fixtures hung
“I recently visited a city council committee meeting to congratulate Ce-Ce Gerlach…”
ReplyDeleteThey do have email for that sort of individual, politically-oriented thing.
I’m still debating whether her becoming a state rep is a good thing for Allentown. Obviously, the negative is that she’s not the sharpest tool in the shed to send to Harrisburg (although she’ll fit in with her new colleagues quite well).
The positive is that she’ll no longer be on city council and voting on policy in city hall.
That said, until we know who is appointed into her spot on council, we won’t know if there is any real upgrade there.
Allentown seems to have an endless supply of stupid when it comes to its elected (and appointed) officials.
The PO is vulnerable. No doubt about it. Location would make you think that it is the perfect link for some sort of community center between the Lehigh Historic Society and the Art Museum and maybe even the Baum School, but I would bet that none of these organizations have ever discussed the possibilities of a possible partnership to use the PO. PS- moving the art museum is a dumb idea by a developer who found a museum director to fall into his plan.
ReplyDeleteCommunity Center? That’s a hard pass for me. Successful cities don’t have “community centers”.
DeleteUnlike CeCe’s dream of a community center on every corner, the success of Allentown will ultimately be scored by how few of them exist, not how many.
The city has to have a goal that is something beyond adding to the poverty magnet that MM warned of decades ago.
anon@9:08: My congrats to Ce-Ce was made privately, between the committee and council meeting, for which I did not stay. I suspect her replacement will not be an "upgrade" by your score, and more-so, only a Republican would fit that bill for you. That is the good news... I read some of the comments by Allentown Republicans on local Facebook groups, and they have no opinion other than R is good, and D is bad.
ReplyDeleteI’d vote for a candidate of any party that promoted good policy. Right now, that tends to be more republican since I can’t get past the democrat stance on open borders and defunding the police.
DeleteIn Allentown, we need more policing and less transiency. Current democrat policy promotes the opposite.
Democrats have had total control in the city for two decades, and it’s been two decades of decline. If insanity is doing the same thing over and over and hoping for different results, then Allentown City Hall is the asylum.
The only thing city politicians point to as a success is the NIZ construction. They shouldn’t. The NIZ is the state equivalent of welfare for failed municipalities. It should be viewed as a symbol of shame, not success. It’s basically using taxpayer money to pay people to build where nobody is willing to risk their own cash.
Instead of using the NIZ as an opportunity to focus on the surrounding neighborhoods, city leaders have now squandered a decade of that opportunity and allowed it to become a crony-driven system that only seems to benefit a small few who are not even city residents!
As to the post office, I see no politician of any party with a vision to re-use and save it. Certainly there is nobody in Reilly’s Planning Department that is going to step up for it either. That would take thinking outside the box. As we can tell from every building he has constructed, there is nothing remotely unique or special about what he builds. He remains the Baron of Bland.
My advice would be to take lots of additional pictures now while you can, because I don’t think it’s still there in another decade.
The process for appointing a replacement for CC on Council should be entertaining.
ReplyDeleteJet the popcorn ready.
Meanwhile an empty PP&L Building looms over the former All American City.
ReplyDelete