Stupid Is As Stupid Does

This past May I conducted my fifth in a series of town hall meetings which I call Allentown Speak Out. This one concentrated on the parks and Bicentennial Field. With 30 plus people in attendance, I asked Tony Phillips what he could do for us; he replied that we should organize and make our feelings known to City Council. I told him that we are the public, he represents us, and that he should take the ball. As he stood blankly by, Michael Donovan said he would prepare a resolution. Six weeks ago he told over 70 people who attended his Park Committee Meeting, in the Council Chamber, that they should organize and make their feelings known to City Council.

Tony has made page 1 in both The Morning Call and the local blogosphere for two days in roll now. He never made the front page before, actually he has hardly made the paper at all, always promising to start his campaign in another week. Some pundits think the real issue is that he was set up; I felt it was his judgement. Today I learned that the famous conversation took place on his own campaign facebook page; now I think the issue is his intelligence.

Tough Crowd

Lately I've been thinking a lot about my mother's cousin Abe Simon. After knocking out Jersey Joe Walcott he got a shot at Louis and the title in March of 41. Louis knocked him down in the first round and Abe took the 8 count grinning. He battled Louis for the next 12 rounds. All boxing fans know he didn't win, but he did earn another shot at the title. Its not easy for a conservative to be on the Lehigh Valley Blogosphere, I'll grin and bare it and hopefully make a point or two about really improving Allentown.

REPRINTED FROM JUNE,19, 2007

King of the Gypsies

According to my mother, a Gypsy king was buried in Allentown in around 1960, she knew about such things. She was born in Galgo, Hungary, an area of Transylvania, now part of Romania, near present day Gilgau. In Galgo, the Jews and Gypsies lived on the edge of town. In the early 20's, my grandparents, along with their Gypsy neighbors, came to Bethlehem to work at the Steel. On weekends, to make extra money, my grandparents would open their house and show Hungarian movies. None of their relatives, Jew or Gypsy, save one cousin, survived the nazi's; even the cemeteries were desecrated. As you can see from the document above, my grandfather earned his citizenship the hard way.

REPRINTED FROM DEC. 23, 2007

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 dozens of spur routes and rail sidings. The area between Second and Front Streets was crisscrossed with dozens of spur lines. 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.

Beating World's Smallest Horse

Last night I attended the fair. This morning's Morning Call has a feature called Midway Callaway. It's about making cotton candy while wearing rubber gloves, putting it into a plastic bag and selling it behind a glass window. Brian (Callaway), that's not cotton candy, that's not a food joint, it's not even a midway. What I saw last night, despite perfect weather, was a sparse crowd on a sterile strip with glass and formica food trucks.

The night I took the attached photo, in the early 70's, music blasted from the hoochy-koochy shows. Andre the Giant easily defeated his opponent and Willie Restum held court outside the Beer Garden. Generations of Allentonians would gather once a year for a community reunion. I hope somehow there's still more to the fair than my aging eyes can see, and that today's children can still make a tradition out of it's current incarnation.

photocredit: stage on midway outside Hoochy-Koochy Show, Allentown Fair, early 70's, by molovinsky

An Unauthorized Interview

There is a nice little authorized interview with Greg Weitzel, Director of Parks, on Andrew Kleiner's blog. (www.rememberkleiner.blogspot.com) Here is an unauthorized one, maybe even worse. This morning at the Rose Garden, after Weitzel generously afforded me some time, he asked if our conversation would be on my blog, I made a gesture indicating it would not. Although I meant my answer at the time, as I drove back to the bunker where this blog is created, his words kept repeating in my reluctant mind. I say reluctant, because it was my intention to decompress for a few days with my historic type postings on Allentown's better days. Upon reflection, I found Weitzel's words need some discussion; maybe sort of an unsolicited reality check for him and a flag for us.

Weitzel claimed that the Rose Garden neighbors are delighted with the improvements in the garden, and that their property value will increase because of it. He stated he can prove property values go up with improved parks, citing several studies. MR. WEITZEL, PLEASE UNDERSTAND THAT THE ALLENTOWN ROSE GARDEN WAS MAGNIFICENT, AND YOU COULD NEVER IMPROVE ON IT. It was my hope, and all of us who rallied to defend this gem of Allentown, that your plans didn't destroy the classic ambience that people have been coming to admire for 80 years. Please try to understand that any study or statistic you could cite does not apply to Allentown's Rose Garden, and it's surrounding beautiful neighborhood. It makes me very nervous that you cannot differentiate between the iconic Allentown Park System and the generalizations citied in your college textbook. Do yourself a favor, and don't tell the neighbors that you have improved their property values, you will only peeve them off.