Saving Gracedale

I would like to congratulate the coalition of concerned citizens, who obtained the necessary signatures to put this most important issue on the ballot. My fellow blogger, Bernie O'Hare, has used his well crafted writing skills to defend the position of the Northampton County Administration. One can reasonably expect that the thousands of signatures you obtained beyond the requirement, will be more than enough to meet the numerical threshold. In regard to the Charter issue concerning the budget, all county function is connected to the budget. Everything that any county owns, does, or maintains, involves some cost. Gracedale is a long standing County institution. Its continuation is not a budget issue, but rather a question of county function. Should the County continue it's historic obligation to it's elderly citizens?

photo credit: molovinsky

A Personal Memoir

I'm not sure memoir is a good title, rather than facts and records, I have hazy recollections. Assuming my memory will not improve at this stage of the game, let me put to print that which I can still recall. In about 1958 my father built Flaggs Drive-In. McDonalds had opened on Lehigh Street, and pretty much proved that people were willing to sit in their cars and eat fast food at bargain prices. For my father, who was in the meat business, this seemed a natural. As a rehearsal he rented space at the Allentown Fair for a food stand, and learned you cannot sell hotdogs near Yocco's. He purchased some land across from a corn field on Hamilton Blvd. and built the fast food stand. In addition to hamburgers, he decided to sell fried chicken. The chicken was cooked in a high pressure fryer called a broaster, which looked somewhat like the Russian satellite Sputnik. The stand did alright, but the business was not to my father's liking, seems he didn't have the personality to smile at the customers. He sold the business several years later to a family which enlarged and enclosed the walk up window. Subsequent owners further enlarged the location several times. The corn field later turned into a Water Park, and you know Flaggs as Ice Cream World.

I'm grateful to a kind reader who sent me this picture of Flaggs

reprinted from March 12, 2009

Allentown Meat Packing Co.

My grandfather lived on the corner of Jordan and Chew, and butchered in a small barn behind the house. He would deliver by horse and wagon to his customers, corner markets. The house is still there, the barn, long gone. My father, and one of his brothers, acquired the H.H. Steinmetz packing house in 1943. Operating as Allentown Meat Packing, by 1950 they closed the slaughter house, and converted the front of the plant into a meat market open to the public. That continued to 1970, when it was leased to an operator who sold meat by freezer full packages. In 1975 the building was torn down, as part of a long term lease agreement with A&B, who wanted the space for parking. The photo was taken just prior to demolition.

The Butchers of Allentown

photograph by Bob Wilt
A&B (Abogast&Bastian), dominated the local meat packing industry for almost 100 years. At it's peak, they employed 700 people and could process 4,000 hogs a day. The huge plant was at the foot of Hamilton Street, at the Lehigh River. All that remains is their free standing office building, which has been incorporated into America on Wheels. Front and Hamilton was Allentown's meatpacking district. Within one block, two national Chicago meatpackers, Swift and Wilson, had distribution centers. Also in the area were several small independents, among them M. Feder and Allentown Meat Packing Company.

Knock Down At The Garden

You could knock Joe Louis down, the problem was when he got up. Shown above, Louis's former sparring partner, Jersey Joe Walcott, circles above Louis. Louis had returned from four years in the service, and resumed defending his title. Walcott himself would eventually become champion, but not this night, not against Joe Louis.

Madison Square Garden, December 5, 1947

A Morning Call Letter

Don't Make Political Dissent Yet Another Victim by Michael Molovinsky