Dressed Up With Nowhere To Go

Now that Lehigh Valley Airport has finished their recent remodeling, they're facing less destinations than they had in decades. It has become the airport to nowhere. Although much blame was assigned to the previous underperforming director, I think that the board must share responsibility for approving a succession of poor ideas, which were expensive to execute. The mother of bad ideas, of course, was taking the Fuller Land by force, necessitating a $26 million dollar compensation. An article in The Morning Call, which outlined cutbacks, failed to mention the cost of remodeling. I do credit the board with their decision to retain Queen City Airport, despite lobbying by Allentown Mayor and board member Ed Pawlowski. On the questionable side, they're considering spending even more money to build a customs station for international routes. One would think after you went broke dressing up in suit with nowhere to go, you wouldn't spend even more on a tuxedo.

Allentown Becomes A Monarchy

Park and Shop Lots

Downtown Allentown boomed for about 100 years. During the prosperity years following World War II, the two car family emerged. Several business leaders of Allentown realized both the parking problem and the potential to enhance sales. Park and Shop was begun by Harvey Farr, Donald Miller and John Leh. The current small parking deck at 10th and Hamilton, above the current uptown police substation, was the first deck in the country. To make the parking lots, shown in the postcard above, houses were purchased and torn down. Although the gentlemen mentioned in this article profited from their influence, they always provided solutions for the betterment of the community. They seemed to be a benevolent oligarchy. As the viability of the Park And Shop enterprise declined along with the intercity shopping, The Allentown Parking Authority was conveniently formed by local politicians, and it purchased the lots using Municipal bonds; The process allowed the aforementioned gentleman to land on their feet, in a downward market.

Flash ahead thirty five years to another downward market, and we have one gentleman, J.B. Reilly, buying up center-city with municipal bonds backed by state taxes. Reilly has purchased far more property than ever owned by Park and Shop. He has purchased virtually the four square blocks surrounding the arena, a significant portion of the Neighborhood Improvement Zone(NIZ). Again the process was facilitated by our elected officials. Let us hope that the new monarchy will be as benevolent as the old oligarchy.

At The Mayor's Pleasure

Yesterday morning, as is my usual routine, I wrote down a topic for today, and in true tabloid fashion, searched the molovinsky on allentown archives for a photograph. The premise was a speculation on why Fire Chief Scheirer was compromising fire staffing standards to endorse Pawlowski's budget. In addition to the short staff, we are short the fire station on the east side. Although I have a better picture of the former station, this was the only one the staff could locate. About mid-day, Emily Opilo, Morning Call Allentown reporter, wrote a blog post about Scheirer. She had located a public letter he wrote about ten years ago, to his wife. In it, he explains that if he is killed fighting a fire, it's probably because the department is understaffed. Powerful stuff Ms. Opilo unloaded. I decided that I would still go ahead with this post, because my slant was the perilous condition that having no firehouse imposed on the east side. Apparently, Emily Opilo and I had the same breakfast yesterday. An article by her on the missing fire house will appear in Tuesday's paper. Not only an article, but an excellent piece, questioning why the former fire house was allowed to deteriorate beyond repair, and acknowledging Dennis Pearson, for his consistent east side advocacy. The supposed delay constructing the new fire station is a one million dollar cost overrun on the estimate. Is this the same city in which a $77 million hockey arena will now cost $244 million, without losing a beat? If ever there was an example of misplaced priorities in a city government, the East Side Fire Station wins the national prize. My early morning speculation yesterday was that Chief Robert Scheirer was playing ball because he wants to be Allentown's first Public Safety Director. Sources at City Hall tell me that such a reorganization is probably not in the current cards, and he simply serves at the mayor's pleasure, to keep his chief's hat.

Downhill on Lehigh Street

During the early 1970's, Allentown demolished the entire neighborhood between Union and Lawrence Streets. It was, in a large part, home to the black community. How ironic that we destroyed the cohesion of a neighborhood, but renamed Lawrence Street after Martin Luther King. The only remnant of the neighborhood is the St. James A.M.E. Church. Going up the hill today we now have a vacant bank call center on the east, and the Housing Authority Project on the west. A whole neighborhood existed in from both sides of Lehigh Street, including black owned shops. The houses were old and humble, but people owned them, many for generations. Some blacks at the time wondered if the project was Urban Renewal or Negro Removal?

reprinted from May 2011

Bahá'í Gardens

The Bahá'í Faith World Headquarters is on the slope of Mount Carmel in Haifa, Israel. It was near there, in Acre, that Bahá'a'lláh, the most recent messenger of
G-d, was exiled during the Ottoman Empire Period. There, for his remaining years, he would produce the doctrines of the faith, The oneness of humankind. All His other social teachings are means of achieving and sustaining the practical unity of humanity so that people may fulfill the purpose of their creation, to peacefully carry forward an ever-advancing civilization. The faith began in present day Iran in the mid 1800's, and believes that G-d's word comes through a succession of messengers. Today, there are over five million followers, with Bahá'í Temples throughout the world.

Governor Pawlowski

With three posts written since yesterday, this blog was about to turn off the presses until at least Saturday night, when The Morning Call broke a new story. Seems as if Mayor Pawlowski has visions of himself in the Governor's Mansion. When asked for clarification by reporter Scott Kraus, he indicated that another run for mayor would come first in 2013. The next opportunity for Governor isn't until 2014. Just when you thought things couldn't get better.