Dennis Pearson's Excellent Water Lease Explanation

The Allentown City Council is proud that it passed a budget council members claim is in the black. But it was done by leasing our water and treatment facilities to the Lehigh County Authority, which assumed the debt through its lease-purchase and compounded it with more debt ($320 million in total as compared to $167 million).
As an Allentonian, I am glad our financial situation is in the black. But continued fiscal responsibility is a necessity to keep it in the black. We don't need irresponsible actions that occurred in our past to be repeated in the future. But as an LCA user, I wonder how the authority will pay back the debt it assumed and what my share of the debt payback will be through my future user charges. You see, the pension debt has not disappeared. It was just transferred to LCA via the lease agreement.
Time will tell if the authority will be able to handle this debt to produce a soft landing for us water and sewer users in Allentown. What we don't want is a hard landing. A hard landing would be more expensive and stressful for consumers. We don't need irresponsible actions that occurred in our past to repeat in the future.                                                          
Dennis Pearson

The above appeared as a Letter To The Editor in The Morning Call on Sunday December 8th, 2013

I Must Respectfully Decline

                                                      photo by Tami Quigley

Last spring I conducted a well attended tour of the WPA structures in Lehigh Parkway for  Friends Of The Allentown Parks. We ended the tour at the last WPA structure built in Allentown, the Robin Hood Bridge. This fall I unsuccessfully tried to save the dam, which was built with the bridge as part of the beautiful setting. The Wildlands Conservancy had a grant to remove the dam, from which they also harvest administrative fees. In a crass act of destruction they removed the dam, and piled the broken dam rubble around the beautiful stone piers, destroying a classic view which Allentown had enjoyed for over 70 years. A naturalist told me the other day that the project even disappointed from his environmental point of view. The stream is no deeper, the silt didn't reduce, and a large portion of the former stream-bed is exposed. Although I recognize and support Friends Of The Parks as a most worthwhile organization, I must respectfully decline their invitation to conduct another tour this coming spring. It is apparent that this Mayor, City Council and even the new park director have no appreciation of the irreplaceable gifts that were bestowed upon our park system so many years ago.

Just Out Of View and Gone In Allentown

The photo above means a lot to me, for the things just out of view and now gone. You're at the crossing tower on Union Street, near 3th. There's another gate stopping the eastbound traffic, which has backed up toward the Jordan Creek. The same train has also blocked traffic further down the line, at Basin Street. It's the early 1950's and the tracks from the two rail lines, Lehigh Valley and Jersey Central, cross here. At the end of Union Street you can make out my father's market, Allentown Meat Packing Company. The whole side of the building is a sign, painted directly on the brick in red and silver, Retail Meats, Wholesale Prices. You'll pass Morris Black Building Supply and The Orange Car before you get there. You'll also have to cross another set of tracks, which was the Lehigh Valley old main, before they built the Railroad Terminal over the Jordan Creek, at Hamilton Street. Our commercial past is now consigned to memory and future urban archeology.

Moving Allentown's Freight

The Lehigh Valley Transit, in addition to moving people on the trolleys, also moved freight. In Allentown, the freight house was behind Front Street, near the former A&B meat plant. The Kutztown and Reading Trolley Company also had a freight house in west Allentown, which would decades later become the home of former mayor Joe Daddona, at Union Terrace. UPDATE: Forty five years later, in 1951, we're back at the freighthouse. Notice that a window has been added on the building's side, with only the memory of the earlier sign still present. In another year, both passenger and freight service are gone, with the end of the trolley era.

East Side Memories

Man! How things have changed - Cigarette in ash tray - two chili dogs and black coffee - and he had a cigarette dangling from his lips as he made your doggies from the open grille - Man! what a sauce. Just doesn't exist today. Must have been those ashes!!
photograph and commentary by Carl Rubrecht

reprinted from February of 2012

Molovinsky's Nostalgia Train

I suspect that this blog will be spending a lot of time in the near future in the distant past. Frankly, I don't see much news to report on. I'll leave the arena news and Pawlowski's proclamations to The Morning Call. In a few weeks he'll be cutting the ribbon on the 15th Street Bridge, and we'll hear about infrastructure, and what he could do for all of Pennsylvania as governor. In truth, that bridge was on the books since 1985. In truth, they accomplished more work in a week on the high priority arena, as South Allentown dangled for almost three years without the bridge. In the picture above we're back in 1946. Allentown would be serviced by trolleys for another six years. In center city, the main north and south lines were on 6th and 7th Street, as were the stores. Here, the trolley is on 6th, between Turner and Chew Streets. Graf Court, one of Allentown's first apartment houses, shown on the left side, is still there. Out of view, on the upper right side, was the Jewish Community Center, now Alliance Hall.

click on photo's to enlarge images