From Homeless To School Director

This is my second post on Ce-Ce Gerlach; The first was this summer, when I covered her block party fundraiser to buy uniforms for the students. Yesterday, I decided to sit down with Ce-Ce and learn more about someone in Allentown's future. She has been instrumental in attempting to share Allentown's good fortune from the arena's NIZ, with the city's less fortunate inter-city residents. Ce-Ce talks their language; She lived in her car for six months, about five years ago. Only 27 years old, she has emerged as a spokeswoman and advocate for Allentown's silent majority. Coming from the poor side of the tracks in Washington D.C., she knows first hand how little of opportunity can spill over from affluence, to a nearby population mired in the poverty cycle. In addition to being a leader on the coalition for community benefit from the NIZ, and the school board, she is on the city's Human Relations Board. She's open to more responsibilities, and even elected offices, in her mission to improve lives in downtown Allentown.

Temporary Inconvenience

Urban renewal projects are nothing new to Allentown. Every couple decades some Mayor thinks he has a brighter idea. In a previous post, I showed the historic Lehigh and Union Street neighborhood, totally destroyed by city planners. Today, an under used Bank calling center sits awkwardly alone on that Lehigh Street hill. The picture above shows another hill of merchants and residents, fed to a mayor's bulldozer. The picture is from 1953, and shows Hamilton Street, from Penn Street down toward the railroad stations. At that time we still had two stations, The Lehigh Valley Railroad and The New Jersey Central. The current closed bar and restaurant occupies the Jersey Central. Everything on Hamilton Street, west of the bridge over the Jordan creek, with the exception of the Post Office, was demolished up to Fifth Street. Government Center would be built on the north side of the street, and a new hotel on the south, to accommodate the many anticipated visitors. Recently we had to remove and replace the facade of the county courthouse, which leaked since it was constructed. The hotel is now a rooming house.

Unannounced plans are underway for a new hotel to service anticipated visitors to Pawlowski's Palace of Sports. It will be up to some future blogger to document how that hotel becomes a rooming house.

reprinted from July of 2011

Junkyard Train

Today, once again we ride a freight train of Allentown's great industrial past. In the early 1970's, the Redevelopment Authority tore down the neighborhood on either side of the Lehigh Street hill. At that time they had persuaded Conrail to move the the Barber's Quarry Branch line exclusively to the southern side of the Little Lehigh. The branch had crossed over and back to service the great Wire Mill. After crossing Lehigh Street, the train would proceed along the creek passing under the 8th Street Bridge. At the 10th Street crossing it would service another great industrial giant, Traylor Engineering.
In 2009 President Obama visited a successor, Allentown Manufacturing, which has since closed. The line would continue along the creek until it turned north along Cedar Creek to Union Terrace. After crossing Hamilton Street by the current Hamilton Family Diner, it would end at the current park department building. Nothing remains of the line, the tracks were removed. The Allentown Economic Development Corporation recently received a grant to rebuild the line to 10th Street, even though the plant Obama visited has closed. The neighboring former Mack Plant now houses a go cart track. How the money will be squandered remains to be seen. The top photograph was taken by local train historian Mark Rabenold in 1989. It shows the later relocated section of the track that was just east of the Lehigh Street crossing.

UPDATE: The County Commissioners recently denied a request by AEDC to grant KOZ status to the closed Metal Manufacturing building. Although the company never cited lack of rail service or property taxes as the reason for closing, the rail grant is still on the table. $Millions of $Dollars would be needed to lay bed and track from 3th and Union to S. 10th Street, to service an empty building; Truly, The Track To Nothing.

reprinted from October 2012

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.