Markets Of Allentown's Past

When I was growing up my parents lived on two ends of Allentown, first the south side and then the west end.  I was fortunate to have experienced two great independent markets of Allentown's past.

The Lehigh Street Superette had a great section of small inexpensive toys for a small boy.  An easy walk from Little Lehigh Manor,  I could keep my Hopalong Casidy six shooter in caps, and replace my lost water pistol each summer.  The ice cream fountain featured hand dipped Breyers.  While the kids took a cone, the parents would have a quart or gallon scooped and weighed to take home.

Before  Food Fair was built farther west on Lehigh Street,  my mother would do all her shopping, except for meat,  at Lehigh Market.  Although I didn't pay too much attention, I do remember the cookie selection.

In the late 1950's my parents moved to the west end, and my times at Deiley's West Gate Market began.  Although too old to notice the toy selection,  the soda fountain became a hangout.

In addition to numerous corner markets, every section of Allentown had a popular larger independent, like Lehigh or Deiley's.   A few like Hersh's Market, have survived to this day.

photo of Deiley's Market in 1938

A Former Factory And Neighborhood Of Allentown, Pa.

The Wire Mill was a sprawling industrial plant along 13 acres of the Little Lehigh Creek, just east of Lehigh Street, near the current Martin Luther King Drive.  An 1899 map of Allentown contains the footprint of various industries of the time, and the Wire Mill was the most prominent.  The Lehigh Valley RailRoad constructed two bridges over the Little Lehigh, to bring its Barber Quarry spur line into and out of the plant. Began in 1886, it produced wire and nails until 1943, and then sat abandoned for another twenty years. During WW1, it employed up to 1,200 men around the clock, producing barbed wire for the trench warfare in Europe. The factory sat on the south side of the former Wire Street, which housed narrow row houses on the other side of the street, and the neighborhood above it.



That entire neighborhood was demolished in the early 1970's, as Allentown embraced the modern urban renewal models of the time. The old, modest neighborhood of small row houses, between Lawrence and Union Streets, and on both sides of Lehigh Street, between 4th and 8th Street, were bulldozed away.  It was, in a large part, home to Allentown's black community. How ironic that we destroyed the cohesion of a neighborhood, but renamed Lawrence Street after Martin Luther King. The only remnant of that community and neighborhood still there is the St. James A.M.E. and Zion Church. A former vibrant neighborhood was replaced by a sterile bank call center, sitting alone on a large vacant hill. That building is now the new Building 21 city operated charter school. I would have complained about that urban renewal plan if I was blogging back then. Now, 50 years later, I still consider that plan a failure. Hopefully, future bloggers will have something better to say about Allentown's current revitalization.

The Wire Mill was at the bottom of the Lehigh Street hill, shown above

reprinted from March of 2016

Allentown's First Black Bar

In a neighborhood that no longer exists, Allentown's first legal black liquor establishment had a short tortured run.

McLaughlin's Cafe was on the corner of Wire and Lehigh, at the bottom of the hill. Wire was the street that ran along the Wire Mill, another long forgotten part of Allentown's industrial history. By the mid 1950's, things were getting rough in the old bar. Police became a regular referee as fights and prostitution frequented the establishment. Finally the state liquor board decided to pull their license. 

The neighborhood had two complexions. There were the white descendants of the factory workers, and it also was the center of Allentown's small black population.

Hamp Webb was a popular figure in the black community. Just outside the straight and narrow, he was courted by the white officials for his influence with his community. Hamp operated unlicensed speakeasies with some success.

In the final days of McLaughlin's, they featured black entertainers from Philadelphia, and even referred to it as the Black & White Club. As McLaughlin's license was being revoked, he negotiated a sale to Hamp Webb.

The Morning Call reported that he fought to secure a license to provide a drinking establishment for his fellow Negroes, where they could congregate without being molested. After a court hearing, he was finally given the license in 1957, and Ham Webb Bar&Grill opened.

Hamp Webb was killed the following year in an automobile accident. While operation of the bar was taken over by his sons, they apparently didn't have local connections to deflect legal citations that came with operating a rough bar in a tough neighborhood. The property and license were liquidated at a tax sale in 1960.

Allentown Flood Of 1936

In 1936, northeast United States was decimated by extensive flooding. While Johnstown, Pa. and Nashua, N.H. made national news, Allentown certainly wasn't spared. While locally flooding of the Lehigh and Delaware received the most attention, the Jordan and Little Lehigh Creeks also caused widespread damage. Shown above is Lehigh Street, in the vicinity of the Acorn Hotel, south of the Little Lehigh. The building on the far left would become the Sherman Hotel, which operated for about twenty years, from 1942 to 1961. None of the buildings pictured still stand.

The low lying areas between the Jordan Creek and Lehigh River were flooded.  Numerous people were rescued by rowboat from porch roofs. At that time there was still many houses on the lower section of Hamilton and nearby Streets.

photo courtesy of the Schoenk family.

2nd & Hamilton

Up to the mid 1960's,  before Allentown started tinkering with urban redevelopment, lower Hamilton Street still teemed with businesses. The City had grown from the river west,  and lower Hamilton Street was a vibrant area.  Two train stations and several rail lines crossed the busy thoroughfare.  Front, Ridge and Second were major streets in the first half of the twentieth century.  My grandparents settled on the 600 block of 2nd Street in 1895, along with other Jewish immigrants from Russia and Lithuania.  As a boy, I worked at my father's meat market on Union Street.  I would have lunch at a diner, just out of view in the photo above.  The diner was across from the A&P,  set back from the people shown on the corner.  A&P featured bags of ground to order 8 O'Clock coffee, the Starbucks of its day.
please click on photo
photocredit:Ed Miller, 1953
reprinted from previous years

The Wildlands Conservancy, A Dam Shame

When I was a boy my mother would contribute to Father Flanagan's Boy's Town. It was an orphanage made famous by a movie staring Spencer Tracy as Flanagan. Years later it was discovered that Boy's Town had literally hoarded away rooms of cash.  So has it always been with sacred cows, they're not what they always appear to be. However, they do provide an easy opportunity for people (and newspapers) to feel good about themselves. Here in Lehigh Valley we have such a sacred cow, The Wildlands Conservancy. This week they have been featured by both an article and editorial in the Morning Call.

They are headed by Chris Kocher, another Father Flanagan. Father Kocher wrote in 2015 that whatever South Whitehall decided to do with Wehr's Dam, that the Conservancy would respect the decision. In reality they have been conspiring behind the scenes, before and since, to have the dam demolished. 

Pennsylvania brags that this state has demolished more dams than any other in the country. Years ago a high ranking state official lost a family member by drowning at a dam. He went on a Moby Dick like rampage against dams. Locally, the Wildland Conservancy adopted the cause, and has profited from it. They get to keep an administrative fee (15%) of the demolition costs. In Allentown they demolished the 9inch high dam by the Robin Hood Bridge, and the dam built to feed the fish hatchery.

While the Wildlands has been successful in influencing Allentown Park policy, their greatest success has been in South Whitehall. In 2014 they installed a son of their financial director as head of parks in the township. They then formulated a master plan for the park system in which the dam is removed. A cooperating long term commissioner, Tori Morgan, has aided their domination of the township. Morgan is now again president of the commissioners, and the park director, Randy Cope, is now in charge of the entire Public Works Department, The Wildlands was recently commissioned to oversee a $multi-million dollar project, building a greenway near the jeopardized dam.

Although the residents approved a grassroots referendum in 2016 to preserve the dam, the Wildlands has conspired against the picturesque destination with studies sent to Harrisburg. They claim that the dam isn't the low hazard, concrete fortress that it appears to be. Meanwhile, also in conflict with the voter's intent, the township has not been defending the dam. Randy Cope remains elusive about the dam's fate.

I have met with nothing but resistance from the Morning Call in notifying the public about this conspiracy. Although I provided a copy of a letter proving ex parte communications between the Wildlands and the State, the paper refuses to publish my letter.

This week the paper published a feel good article about the Wildlands and Earthday. While they show children playing in the Little Lehigh, they fail to reveal that such events are paid for by Nestle Bottling, which sucks the Little Lehigh almost dry.

Sacred Cows and complacent newspapers go hand in hand in deluding the public.

photo by K Mary Hess