Boxing Eggs

When I was a little boy, I would work at my father's meat market, boxing eggs. The job was pretty straightforward. I would take eggs from a big box, and put them in small boxes with folding lids, each of which held a dozen. If I did a whole crate without breaking an egg, I did a good job. The real adventure was the drive to the shop. We lived just off Lehigh Street, and would take it all the way to Union Street. The many landmarks are now gone forever, only remaining in my camera of the past. Shown above in 1952, is the portion of Lehigh Street near the Acorn Hotel, which is not visible in the photograph. Before reaching the Acorn, you drove under The Reading Railroad bridge overpass, which recently has been dismantled and removed. That line served the Mack Plant on S. 10th Street. Just beyond the area pictured, the Quarry Barber railroad spur also crossed Lehigh Street, at the bridge over the Little Lehigh Creek. That line also crossed S. 10th, and served Traylor Engineering, now known as the closed Allentown Metal Works. Just last week Mitt Romney was there, to rebuke Obama's former visit to the site. Mayor Pawlowski is now rebuking Romney, but none of them really know anything about it's past. A half block away, on overgrown steps built by Roosevelt's WPA, a thousand men would climb home everyday, after working at Mack and Traylor. Freight trains, on parallel tracks, from two different railroads, were needed to supply those industrial giants.

After my father rounded the second curve on Lehigh Street, we would head up the steep Lehigh Street hill. It was packed with houses and people. At the top of the hill, we would turn right on to Union Street. Going down Union Street, Grammes Metal was built on the next big curve. Grammes made a large assortment of finished decorative metal products. Beyond Grammes were numerous railroad crossings. The Lehigh Valley Railroad tracks crossed Union, as did the Jersey Central and several spurs, near Basin Street. It was not unusual to wait twenty-five minutes for the endless freight trains to pass. A two plus story tower gave the railroad men view and control of the busy crossing. A few more blocks and we were at the meat market, in time for me to break some eggs.

reprinted from August 2012

Money No Object For Allentown Public Housing

Cumberland Gardens, operated by The Allentown Housing Authority, was constructed in 1971. Remodeled several times since, it now is going through a three phrase total rehab. The unit cost of this current renovation is $228,000 per apartment. After the first section was completed in 2012, Mayor Pawlowski said, "And the second and third phases I think will not only be more amazing, but transformative to the city of Allentown," Transformations are expensive! Most Allentonians live in row houses built between 1895 and 1930. Many of us would consider a kitchen and bathroom from 1971 modern. The Housing Authority places most it's clients out to private landlords, with vouchers. This system places the cost of excessive wear and tear with the private sector. Considering how much the Authority spends on their own units, they should out source all their clients. Allentown would be a better place with a smaller, less ambitious housing authority; That would be transformative.

Bernie O'Hare also covers this story.

Allentown Memorabilia

The time and market for Allentown memorabilia has come and gone. With a changing population, and the graying of the native town folks, objects of our history are destined for the landfill. Even the local historic society concentrates on shows of general interest, such as Abraham Lincoln. In addition to having been a retail mecca, Allentown manufactured a large assortment of products. Allentown was stamped on tools, knifes, and metal products of all kinds, distributed nationwide. A local regional food product was the hard pretzel, a variation of the traditional German soft pretzel. Allentown had several pretzel companies. Miller's operated out of their factory at 732 Tilghman Street, between 1944 and 1978. In the coming months this blog will profile some of these Made In Allentown products, before litter and meaningless slogans became our legacy.

Clueless On Penn Street

The Allentown School Board took the first step tonight toward approving the KOZ for the Phoenix Mill apartments. They approved a deal sweetener, where the developer will pay 110% of the current tax during the KOZ period, in exchange for burdening the district with countless more children. The City of Allentown represented the interested party, stating with a straight face that the type of loft apartments planned will not attract families with children. One board member actually asked what the city is doing to provide affordable apartments in center city. Actually, there is a special low income rental district, it is from Front Street to 17th, between Walnut and Washington, plus large sections of the east and south sides. The proposal passed 6 to 2.

A Principal's Bad Lesson Plan

When Zahorchak replaced Keith Falko as principal of Allen, this blog posted that it was a mistake. At that time I was in communication with several teachers, and knew what a masterful job Falko was doing with a difficult assignment. For today's post I have no such insider information, just his statements to the press. Apparently, Mr. Mayfield wasn't feeling the love from superintendent Russ Mayo. With that sort of attitude I don't think Mayfield's departure is such a great loss. When Mayfield was hired did he disclose that he needed to be bottle fed regular reassurance? Should students be encouraged to quit whenever they don't feel the love?  An article in today's Morning Call speculates that perhaps the turnover in principals at Allen is the fault of the school administrators, or even the school board. Much was written last fall about Mayfield being the first black principal at Allen.  Perhaps relevant experience should be the primary criterion.

UPDATE: Joanne Jackson, ASD School Board member, tells me that Mayfield did communicate his grievances to Mayo, to no avail.  Jackson believes that Mayo did undermine Mayfield, and likewise alienated other principals and supervisors.

photocredit:The Morning Call

The Hope and Change of Allentown's Transformation

Last week I had a letter to the editor in the Morning Call. It was a rework of an earlier blog post, in which I state that although there will be more lunch business from additional office workers, that will be the extent of any spinoff. I called the arena itself a white elephant. Yesterday, I bumped into an acquaintance at the supermarket, a card carrying liberal type. We usually disagree about things in a cordial fashion. In a less than friendly manner, he told me that my letter in the paper was "Just nasty." I asked him if he though that the arena projects would change things, and that Allentown would be a day destination and a nightspot?

He replied, "No, not right away, but maybe with time, you gotta start somewhere."

I told him that it either works or it doesn't. Furthermore, it will have it's biggest draw when new, and that the bloom will fade fast. He's hoping that I'm wrong.