Allentown's Prime Time

During Allentown's prime time, it prospered as an enlightened oligarchy. Allentown's leaders would meet for lunch at the Livingston Club on S. 7th Street, and decide what this town needed to do to remain The All-American City. John Leh, Donald Miller and Harvey Farr owned the Park&Shop, and made sure that there was adequate parking for all the merchants. Although an eccentric outsider, Max Hess Jr. did more than his share for Hamilton Street. Not only did Hamilton Street prosper, but so did everyone else, living and working on the side streets leading to Hamilton. Although the oligarchy died off, and the Livingston was torn down, democracy doesn't seem to have served Allentown very well. We now have a strong arm-mayor and a subservient City Council. If the current project, with no cost limits, transforms Allentown remains to be seen. I remain doubtful that any benefits will spread down the side streets.

The Real Neuweiler Story

A feature story in today's Morning Call omits the fact that several years ago the City of Allentown stole the brewery from the rightful owner. Just as merchants of Hamilton Street were never allotted the opportunity to benefit from city arranged grants or the NIZ, the former taxpaying owner of the brewery was never given any assistance. Mayor Pawlowski can't stand private investors, if he didn't give you a grant, you're not worth much. In the early 70's, the City and Redevelopment Authority gave control of the Neuweiler Brewery to a friend. Under the City's watch, windows were removed and exterior walls broken through to remove the brewing tanks and piping for scrap. All metal, wires and any object of value were crudely ripped out in an orgy of demolition. With a large opening in the back wall smashed out, the basement was used as a free landfill by a roofer.

What should be mentioned about the XXXX roofing property is the fact that when I was involved with the brewery property in front that the owner at one point had compiled evidence of the roofers illegal disposal of environmental hazards and that when the evidence was to be presented to the City that he was not only arrested, for issues regarding the building, but the evidence was just disregarded. That property would stockpile environmental hazards in the back and then when the pile got large enough a large dump truck with a front end loader would show up. A bunch of work would go on out back and "poof" no pile of garbage. Also, when he would do slate roofing (which is covered in petroleum) he would just dump it on the rear of the property and when the piles would get high, he would level the property off, even into the railbed in the rear. (anyone that doesn't believe me on this one, go take a walk on the rails behind the property you will see it). former caretaker of brewery property

 Still the building remained iconic, because of it's rich industrial architecture. In 2003 a New Jersey investor bought the building for over $200,000 in the condition shown in the photograph. The building has been in that condition since the late 70's. His hope was at some point the City would appreciate the landmark. and cooperate in its revival. He must have found the building citations from the Pawlowski administration mind-numbing; Can you image being held responsible for carnage committed by a previous owner under the City's watch? Mayor Pawlowski, afraid someone might want to invest private money in Allentown and pay real estate taxes, had the Neuweiler owner jailed when he came to Allentown to discuss the property. The city, through the Redevelopment Authority, then seized the brewery. The former Neuweiler garages, behind the brewery, were sold years ago to a roofer. A couple years ago the City purchased the roofer's property for close to a $million dollars, reuniting the parcel. The Morning Call story today is about the hope and potential of the site, but I thought you might want to know about the City's complicity in it's sordid past.

portions of this post are reprinted from May 2008
UPDATE: The following was received as a comment on June 14,2012, by the former caretaker of the Neuweiler property:The Neuweiler property has many many secrets hidden within it that the City does not know about environmentally. The bottling house along Front St at one point was cleaned up the DEP (state) and was an absolute disaster then. I remember a few years ago, as well as in the ‘80s, that they City made the comment about just tearing it down. I made myself a little phone call to them and needed to inform them that if they would demolish the building that they would have to completely rebuild the roads around the building and regrade the property seeing as the building is holding them up. Regarding the former owner of the larger buildings, the building was not actually purchased, the mortgage was. Mr. Kellner bought the mortgage in foreclosure. The owner, Hanna Industrial Properties, fell on hard times with the loss of his primary funding source. Once Mr. Kellner took over the property the City was giving him fines of thousands of dollars a month because of appearance issues with the property. I have a copy of the inspection report that the fines were based on, it is ridiculous. Since they took over have they done anything to alleviate the code violations that exist? Lead by example. The City actually took the property via eminent domain as the original site of the arena project. for some reason, their sights were then changed (no pun intended) to the Center Square one. The developer of the Arena fronted the near $1M to purchase the 16 W Liberty St property, the rear parcel, in the form of a loan to the Redevelopment Authority. They last year, defaulted on that loan. The last year that Mr. Kellner owned the property, the City even went as far as to demolish the iconic Neuweiler smokestack. How did they do this you may ask, they went back into the archives and decided to act on a raze or repair order from 1979, mind you the demolition occurred around 2007 or 8. We had an engineer come out and certify the structural integrity of the property as well and they demolished it anyway. I personally showed at least 20-30 real estate developers through this property in the almost 5 years that I was involved in it, most of them sent through City Hall or the county. Each one of them had the same thing to say, there is no money to be made there. There is no way with the amount it would cost to just renovate the building and convert it into anything that the rental that would be required to fund the project would be too high for the area. This is without the environmental issues. My question is, how is the City going to make this happen? My thought is that this is Phase 2 of the City's NIZ project, the arena being Phase 1. I also just took a look at the “study” that was done by cornerstone for the property and just right off the top of my head I find it very shady. There are parts of the building that were obvious issues that were omitted or made to be less than what they are. John P. Chapkovich

A Woman of Letters

Barba-Del Campbell was in the hallway at the overflow Council meeting this past July on Cedar Creek Park. She handed me a handwritten letter which I put into my pocket. I met Barba-Del a few years earlier at the first meeting for the Lanta merchants. There were at least two passions in her life, activism and art; Apparently, she had a long relationship with both. This past summer, The Morning Call had a feature story about her role in commemorating Paul Robeson with a postage stamp.

I typed and printed Barba-Del's letter and faxed it along with my own to the Morning Call. Both our editorials appeared side by side in the paper. My effort resulted in a handwritten thank you note. Barba-Del didn't have a computer. I would print out pieces I wrote on the merchants or on the parks, and leave them at her "office", that would be the first table to the left at The House of Chen.

There will be a gathering this Saturday in her memory at the restaurant. Barba-Del is on the far right in photo above, which was taken after that Lanta meeting by participant Bernie O'Hare. Ann Elizabeth Schlegel and Heather Sincavage also remember this remarkable woman.

ADDENDUM:  I STOPPED INTO THE HOUSE OF CHEN TRIBUTE TO BARBA-DEL TO PAY MY RESPECTS,  THERE WERE HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE IN ATTENDANCE.
Heather Sincavage reflects on the memorial service


reprinted from March 2010

At The Trough

Uncle Sam has given the Lehigh Valley $3.4million dollars to study development. Our tax dollars will be spread out among the bureaucrats, and those in training, to insure that nothing tangible results from the money. Those in charge are experienced in the art of nebulous double talk. Holly Edinger, from the Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corp. said "This spending from HUD will enable the Lehigh Valley to have an unprecedented community conversation about our future." Allentown will use our share to study the now closed factory, where both Obama and Romney had press conferences. Community Development Director Sara Hailstone said "What this will allow us to do is bring jobs back to the core where people can walk to work and walk home from work and we believe that is one of the most sustainable projects we can be involved with." Actually, Sarah, in a time long before you, workers did just that, using the WPA Fountain Park Steps. Using our share to repair those steps would actually produce a return on both the money and your words. Phil Mitman said "This is really about our taxpayer money coming back to the Lehigh Valley." I suppose Phil's right, at least the money is being wasted in the valley.
Alan Jennings and Renew LV are dancing in their underpants about the HUD grant. Most of grant will fund the salaries in various such organizations to conduct public input meetings and other abstractions.
This post is a commentary on a Morning Call article by Scott Kraus.
 reprinted from November 2011
UPDATE July 9, 2012  I've known of Holly Edinger since 05, when I ran as an independent candidate in Allentown,  she  worked for the Chamber at that time. She has also since served on the Allentown School Board.   Today, she pretty much had The Morning Call to herself. Now working for the Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corporation, an article featured the planned dog and pony show, as part of that organization receiving a $3.4 million dollar grant on regional planning. When the article mentioned affordable housing, I said, here comes Alan. Jennings showed up in the next paragraph. She also had the editorial space, to lip synch the regional patter. If any of this sounds familiar, it's because it is. Back in November, I first wrote about the grant. titling the above post, The Three Cities, hence the photo chosen. Here we are, eight months later, and you can go over to Steel Stacks Wednesday evening and give your opinion about the Valley's future. Will they entertain opinions about using our tax dollars for such grants? Now, there's an expensive question.
UPDATE: Although the original post from last November mentions Ms. Edinger,  as does  yesterday's update,  she is not the issue of this post; I have changed copy in the above update accordingly.  The issue is taxpayer value from such organizations, meetings and planning.  I'm sure that she is a conscientious employee of the LVEDC, performing the assigned task in a competent manner.

Only The Best for Public Housing

For an Allentown historian with an interest in photography, the photo above is as good as it gets; Eleanor Roosevelt visiting Allentown's new public housing project in 1942, Hanover Acres. I snatched the photo off The Morning Call this morning; Paul Carpenter has a column where he brooded about public housing recipients complaining that they can't smoke, while living on our dime. I'll do him one better. They're now griping about it in new housing, Overlook Park. Hanover Acres and the newer project, Riverview Terrace, were both torn down several years ago to construct new townhouses. It's supposedly a mixed income project, with homes both for sale, and Section 8 rentals.

Over the years Hanover Acres became a "terrible" place to live, a crime-ridden eyesore. Overlook Park, the $88 million development that's sprung up in its place, however, is "beautiful." Daniel R. Farrell, executive director of the Allentown Housing Authority, described turning Hanover Acres into Overlook Park as "an amazing transformation."The development features 269 rental apartments and room for 53 single-family homes.

It was built by Pennrose Properties, which specializes in politically correct and politically connected housing for profit. They have done well in Allentown with Mayor Ed. Not long before Hanover and Riverview were demolished, they were completely remodeled, with high end kitchen cabinets and counters. Shown below is yours truly, in Little Lehigh Manor, built in 1944. Those brick houses of the same vintage are still new enough for home buyers today. Most of Allentown's existing row houses were built between 1895 and 1930. If Carpenter is upset about smoking, he should drive over to Overlook Park and see what they're smoking in.

The Sign of The Beast

The following was written by Dennis Pearson, and is a reaction to the Department of Parks wanting various Neighborhood groups to organize their sports programs under the city's umbrella. This was recommended by a consultant hired by the City. Just like Allentown to pay a consultant on how to fix something which is not broken. Yesterday I checked out the $77,000 expense at Franklin Park. Apparently, we purchased a few pieces of playground equipment from the same vendor that Weitzel always used. More Shenanigans, although he departed already. Glad to see Dennis Pearson fighting this latest nonsense from the Allentown Park Department. Pearson's been fighting the good fight for decades. Thank you Dennis.
  Allentown is buying into municipalization of as much of the activities in this city as possible. In otherwards you can't buy or sell without the mark of the beast. That means that someone in City Hall or some national group would have the say. There would be no place for independents or enterprising groups not approved by City Hall. If this system was present in 1957 my dad would not have formed the East Side Rams. The City would have stopped him. Especially if he was not one of their favorite clientele. The East Side of Allentown was once able to support 4 youth organization programs. East Side Rams, East Side Youth Center, East Side Memorial Little League and Midway Manor. Could this ever happen again, not under this structure and in this economy. And I hate to see the East Side Youth Center facilities seized like Castro did to American Companies in the 1960's because the City which is not known for sound decision making wants to municipalize all activities and control who plays where. Personally as a former coach for the now-defunct independent group known as the East Side Rams I dedicated myself to teach sound baseball and basketball practices to those who played for me. I would never allow parents to influence who would start or play where. I would never put a child in a position he could not handle. I practiced my teams a lot far more then they do today to work on the deficiencies of players that needed help. But I never held back the better players because of the poorer players. Perhaps under this new municpalization plan I wouldn't have ever been given the opportunity to coach because of City politics in the selections. You know I have never been appointed to an important agency in this city ... My success has been with independent agencies which these grabbers of power and decision-making would love to control completely as well. Forming these groups according to their rules and they putting their own people in charge. I hope that those who currently serve on Council don't buy into this nonsense. If they do then they again are showing how little they know. Let's stop this socialistic move. And people should know this ,,, My behavior in the community forums I participate in is neither Republican or Democratic... I am a citizen who does his citizenship duty and takes his responsibilities seriously. I remain vigilant of my liberties which other of lesser knowledge and mind want to take away. Dennis Pearson