The Radiation Mystery: Wetherhold & Metzger

The Shoe giant Wetherhold & Metzger started in 1908 on Hamilton street's south side. When business began to prosper, they moved across to the more prominent north side of Hamilton Street. Their store at 719 Hamilton was recently demolished, along with most of Allentown's mercantile history. It was a two story store, with the children's department on the lower level. This post originally was scheduled for sometime in the future, and was to include a Buster Brown poster. Today's Morning Call has a story on the mystery radium 226 found in the debris of the former buildings, and I thought perhaps the molovinsky on allentown historical division could help. Wetherhold & Metzer's downtown store was quite the adventure for a kid. In addition to your mother's money being transported away in a tube system like the bank drive-ups use today, you could look inside your shoes and see your feet.

Needless to say, eventually these shoe fluoroscopes were banned, but for many years one stood in the lower level of 719 Hamilton Street. Many a child, including myself, saw our foot bones in our new Buster Browns. Wetherhold & Metzger also had an uptown store in the 900 block of Hamilton Street.

Betraying General Trexler

This evening many former supporters of the administration will gather in the Council Chamber to try and persuade City Council to reject the administration's water lease plan. These former supporters were on board when the mayor paved Cedar Park, and sent the merchants packing. Don't know if you have been on Hamilton Street lately? We have solved the seedy customer problem, there are no more customers. Things started going bad between the mayor and the supporters back with the Trash to Energy contract. Supporters or not, seems that they're particular about the air they breath and the water they drink. Bless them for thinking that democracy is in play this evening, or in Allentown. What they should be doing is speaking to an outside attorney about an injunction against the lease. Around 1900, General Trexler donated hundreds of acres along the Little Lehigh to protect the watershed for the benefit of Allentown's citizens. They should be petitioning the Trexler Trust to protect the intentions of the General.

The Morning Call Idea Contest

The Morning Call is in desperate need of ideas, especially for it's columnists. Ideas can be submitted as letters to the editor. Your intellectual property will be deleted from your letter, but reappear without credit or attribution, as a headline by one of their writers. Blogger Michael Molovinsky has won the contest several times. Only one submission per week will be accepted.

Yom Kippur 1973

On Yom Kippur in 1973 Egypt and Syria surprised Israel with a coordinated attack on two fronts. 80,000 Egyptian troops overran Israel's Bar Lev defensive line in the Sinai. 175 shells per second rained down on Israel's 500 defenders from 2000 Egyptian artillery pieces. On the Golan, Israeli tanks were outnumbered by the Syrians ten to one. It took Israel two full days, and thousands of casualties, to mobilize. By the time a truce went into effect three weeks later, Israeli commanders had marched within 25 miles of Damascus, and 63 miles of Cairo.

Shown above General Ariel Sharon with Defense Minister Moshe Dyan in Egypt

Bill White, Something Borrowed

Readers of this blog know that I was upset about the editing of my last column in The Morning Call. My premise was that there would be a political price to pay for voting for the water contract. I wrote that "One Councilman, Michael Schlossberg, who is going to Harrisburg unopposed as a State Representative, is resigning early from Council to evade this damaging baggage." The Morning Call changed the sentence to "One councilman, Michael Schlossberg, who is going to Harrisburg unopposed in the election for state representative, is resigning early from council." That deletion significantly changed the meaning, and compromised the cohesion of my piece. When I called in protest, the Your View editor told me that he accommodated another editor who requested the change. I didn't ask who he was accommodating. It is generally known that Bill White is now assisting with the Letters page. Tuesday's Bill White column questions if Michael Schlossberg resigned early to avoid the water vote. I must now ask Bill White if he edited my editorial so that he could use my question as his own?

UPDATE: My first reaction to the editing of my Morning Call article last week was that it was a gift by the paper to Schlossberg. My second reaction, upon reading White's article, is clearly stated above. I have just been told that Bill White was NOT the second editor. Although I'm compelled to post this update, the sentence in my editorial never should have been changed. If I over-reacted, it's based on the paper's history in failing to give proper attribution.

Weekly Reader

When I was growing up my parents would receive both The Morning Call and The Evening Chronicle.* This was their main source of news. Television in the late 40's and early 50's had national and world news, but there was no local programing in Allentown. The antenna on our roof would receive the three network (ABC, NBC, and CBS) stations from Philadelphia, and that was it. The morning and evening papers provided the local news, in addition to national and world stories. Hess Brothers and Leh's would compete with multiple full page Ads. We children also had our own little paper, Weekly Reader, handed out in the classroom every Friday. I think of it when I get the thin Morning Call on Mondays.

* The Morning Call and Evening Chronicle were both published by same company, Call-Chronicle Newspapers.

reprinted from March, 2010