NIZ Bitch Slaps Allentown Taxpayers

J.B. Reilly wants the best of both worlds; While poaching tenants with lower rents and paying his mortgages with state taxdollars, he now wants his property taxes reduced, based on the lower rents, instead of the construction cost which we are paying for. All our local politicians are complicit in Reilly's appeal to the assessment board. The NIZ was essentially designed with him in mind, and the entire NIZ Board has been carrying his water. I doubt that he would make this assessment appeal without their knowledge and approval. If the city and school district doesn't get the full anticipated taxes, WHAT IS THE COMMUNITY BENEFIT? Pat Browne, Ed Pawlowski, Michael Schlossberg, Sy Taub, ETC. should be ashamed.

The Hype and Reality of Allentown's NIZ

Allentown has certainly received mucho hype for it's new taxpayer subsidized growth. Mayor Ed pastes his facebook page with each new accolade. The challenge is not to confuse the hype with the reality. Locally, the hype was cultivated by placing the Morning Call in the NIZ, even though their building was on the wrong side of Linden Street. Likewise, the national stories are bandwagon writing, relying on google searches, vs. real research. The owners of the Cosmopolitan learned that the lunch dollars don't spread out everywhere. Allentown does have a new prime corner. In it's mercantile heydays it was 9th and Hamilton, with nationally renown Hess's. The new corner is 7th and Hamilton, with the taxpayer palace of hope. Shown above are Allentown's new players, cutting the ribbon for the Renaissance Hotel. Although it's future is somewhat doubtful, it will succeed in reducing the Hilton at 9th Street into a flop house. For those who prefer the hype, the Morning Call can be purchased everywhere. Save for this blog, reality is much harder to find.

Old Allentown's Inconvenient Truth

                                                   click photograph to enlarge

The merchants who built Hamilton Street counted on architecture to attract shoppers into their emporiums. Large neon signs wouldn't appear for another fifty years. The soffit and fascia shown above, halfway between 7th and 8th on Hamilton, is one of the most elaborate facades in Allentown. One thing you can say about Allentown City Hall, they never let culture, art, or history get into the way of their plans. As successful cities come to value and profit from their history more and more, Allentown keeps using the standard catalog of proven failures. I know from other projects on Hamilton Street that Pawlowski isn't big on history. The Cityline Building in the 800 Block was permitted to stucco over beautiful brickwork. Sad that the puppies, who are directors at the Art Museum and Historical Society, remain silent on the planned destruction. It's hard to describe the magnificence of the skylight shown below, also in the targeted block. It's very large in three sections, in pristine condition. Should be quite a snack for Pawlowski's bulldozer.
The bulldozer prevailed, and the former architectural treasures of our mercantile history were not preserved, save for this blog's archives. Above is reprinted from May 2011

UPDATE:  The post above, reprinted from May of 2013, was then titled Stealing Allentown's Treasures. This past weekend, a member of Old Allentown Preservation Association, and an active local Democrat, bragged on facebook about how he had recycled an old second floor office door from the demolished buildings in the arena zone. In truth, Old Allentown also turned a self serving, callous eye to the destruction noted in the above post. Although I'm glad the door was recycled, allow this post to note the irony and hypocrisy of the Association.

Pawlowski At Epicenter

Long before the NIZ, promoter and media consultant Alfonso Todd has been plying his trade from the upper floors of Hamilton Street. When I first met him he operated out of the former 1st National Bank building at 7th and Hamilton. At the time the former building was named Monument Center, and now is the site of National Penn, in Reilly's City Center 2. As Todd's promotions expanded, he moved to the current Hamilton Business Center, the large older office building at 11th and Hamilton. Todd and partners are now in the Somach Building, in still larger space, reflecting his determination to provide promotional services to the diverse market segments of the Lehigh Valley. Yesterday, as he kicked off yet another project, Mayor Pawlowski stopped by to wish the enterprise success. Although the mayor doesn't normally receive an abundance of praise on this page, his visit yesterday demonstrates that he understands that the future of Hamilton Street rests as much with the Alfonso Todd's of Allentown, as it does with the J.B. Reillys'.

Moshe Dayan

Moshe Dayan on born on a kibbutz near the Sea of Galilee in 1915. When he was 14, he joined the outlawed Haganah, an underground defense force to protect Jewish settlements from Arab attacks. Although caught and imprisoned by the British for two years, he would fight for them in Lebanon during WWII, losing his eye. In the 1948 War of Independence, he fought on all the fronts, defending Israel; by 1953 he was Chief of Staff of the Israeli Armed Forces. In 1956 he led the Suez Campaign.

In 1967 he was Defense Minister for the Six Day War. He remained in that position through the War of 1973. Although a genuine hero in every sense of the word, he was held responsible for the initial success of Egyptian forces in the surprise attack on Yom Kippur (1973), and would resign from his position.

Israel is too small of a country, and it's enemies too numerous, for any miscalculations regarding it's security.

reprinted from February 2013

Allentown's Tower Of Babel

I was at the Allentown Planning Commission meeting for the arena. To say that it was a rubber stamp procedure is exaggerating the commission's integrity. The only question they asked was how the garage door would look on the service entrance. Likewise, the chosen one J.B. Reilly, only gets green lights by all the bureaucracies; One only look at the wooden framed apartments on top of the steel first floor at 7th and Linden. Another developer, one from yesteryear, Bruce Loch, is not getting the same reception for his proposal. He's still trying to get to first base with his tower proposed for 9th and Walnut. He should make Reilly his partner. While I'm back on the subject of Reillytown, let me express doubt about the Lehigh County Community College announcement. Supposedly, their building on Hamilton Street across from the arena no longer suits their needs, but Reilly isn't interested. This blogger predicts that at the end of the transactions Reilly will in fact own the building. If the students study and follow that deal, they would get a real education.