The Morning Call's Lost Memory

A lead story in today's Morning Call features the temporary construction jobs created by the arena, which will end by 2014. Although the article was written by two reporters, and included proud quotes from the city's community development director, none of them know or appreciate the thousands of jobs that block provided for over 100 years. The Palace of Sport and False Hope is not being build on previously vacant land, but on Allentown's mercantile history. While the reporters wrote about what the job means to one construction worker, they never showed the same sensitivity toward the displaced former merchants. Ironically, over the years, those 34 demolished buildings  provided the paper with many advertising dollars. We will see how much revenue comes to The Morning Call from the arena.

  

reprinted from January of 2013

2019 In Allentown

Ed Pawlowski is in the second year of his fourth term, an unprecedented record in Pennsylvania. Although people refer to him as the little Daley, a reference to his Chicago roots, he has never gained support outside of the Democratic stronghold of Allentown, which he rules without debate. The bloom is off the rose at the arena; 2018  showed only twenty three events beside the home hockey games, and most of them were poorly attended. The remaining merchants, in the adjoining blocks, resentfully refer to it as The Dead Zone. Although the new arena complex manager, and the new police chief, promise to work together to better safeguard the patrons upon departing, suburbanites continue to fear the place, and rightfully so. The Reilly Apartment Tower, once conceived as a hotel before being built in 2013, is receiving the national HUD award for providing in house daycare for single mothers. Cynthia Mota, president of City Council, promises to work with Aqua America about the water rates, currently highest in United States. City Center Two, vacant since being constructed in 2014, will become the new City Hall in 2020. In separate studies, prepared by both the Administration and City Council, taxpayers are expected to realize significant savings by the move. The current City Hall will become administrative offices for the Lehigh County Prison, one of the fastest growing correction institutions in the country.

above reprinted from January 2013
 

ADDENDUM JANUARY 30, 2024: The above  post was written in 2013, looking ahead to the future in 2019. Ed Pawlowski did not finish his 4th term, at least not in Allentown.  The arena never even did have 23 events besides hockey games in one year. Hamilton Street is still a dead zone, a $Billion Dollars and eleven years later. We had so many police chiefs since 2013, I can't remember all their names. Cynthia Mota is now the president of City Council. The prison, if not the hotel, retains good occupancy.

Allentown 1950

Sixty years ago downtown Allentown hummed. It was fueled by the vision of people who developed empires, not cookie cutter ideas from the National Magazines for Bureaucrats, like the arena. Shown here is the Transit Office and depot at the side of 8th and Hamilton. General Trexler had been a principle in the Trolley Company, which also built the 8th Street Bridge, to connect Allentown with points south, all the way to Philadelphia. In addition to being the terminal for the Philadelphia bound Liberty Bell, it also fed the merchants of Allentown with thousands of shoppers from its many Allentown routes. The shoppers now sit on the cold steel benches at the Lanta Detention Center on 7th Street, as the non-visionaries prepare to demolish the center of town, to build a monstrosity.

The light and shadows reveal that this is an early morning photo. In a few hours 8th and Hamilton (behind the trolley) would be clogged with shoppers                                                               

reprinted from December 2011

ADDENDUM JANUARY 29, 2024:A lot has changed since I wrote this piece over a decade ago, but also very little. Although we have a cookie sheet of new buildings, both commercial and residential, the town remains virtually empty. The arena is vastly underused, seemingly a prop to justify the NIZ scheme. Fortunately for the few principals involved, most criticism of the development is limited to this blog.

Allentown's Resignation To Crime

I do not believe that Mayor Tuerk and Chief Roca announcing the installation of gun shot detectors reassured too many citizens.  It seems that we have sub-contracted out the crime problem. I suppose the detectors will tell Promise Neighborhoods where they have to assign more mentors.

Tuerk is proving to have the wrong stuff for the job. Reilly's NIZ has so far escaped any serious crime in the Strata complexes. The Morning Call continues to cherry pick nice editorials, avoiding my ilk. Nevertheless, the evenings and weekends do not reflect a $Billion Dollars of taxpayer investment...it remains the valley's dead zone.

While I'm not sure how much stouter police enforcement would help, I know that the current plans are a case study in failure.

photocredit:LehighValleyNews.Com

Molovinsky Rejected By NASA For Seniors In Space Program

My quest to be a senior astronaut is officially over. Although I squeaked through the physical, I didn't do as well on the psychological profile.

Upon then arriving in Tallahassee,  I discovered that Governor Ron pulled the plug on my plan B.

I'm on the bus and should arrive back in Allentown around noon today.  I gave it my best, but I'm resigned to continue being a blogger.

Relics Of Our Past

One of the surviving relics of our industrial past is the right of way of former railroad spur lines. Allentown literally had hundreds of factories serviced by several spur routes and numerous rail sidings. The area between Second and Front Streets was crisscrossed with tracks.  Even the west end had service. A line ran behind the current site of B'nai B'rith Apartments, across 17 th St. and up along side of the dry-cleaners. The B'nai B'rith was the site of the former Trexler Lumber Yard, which burned to the ground in a spectacular fire in the mid 70's; The heat from the fire could be felt in West Park. The rails and ties are gone, long ago sold to scrap yards. In many cases the space occupied by the right of ways can still be seen to the knowing eye. They appear as alleys which were never paved. Here and there a surviving loading dock provides another clue. Show in this photo from 1939 are the Mack Truck factories on S. 10th Street, now part of the Bridgeworks Complex. Here the components for Mack Trucks were manufactured. The parts were then trucked to the Assembly Plant (5C) located on S. 12 Street, right off of Lehigh Street. "Built Like A Mack Truck" became a figure of speech across America. It was a prouder time than the lyrics from Billy Joe; little did we know that things could get worse.

reprinted from September of 2009