Faith Baptist Church (Allentown)

There is a small church on the 200 block of N. 12th Street, which is served by a humble man, Pastor Robert Hargrove. Pastor Hargrove has been ministering to his flock at Faith Baptist Church for over 40 years. Years ago, when I managed buildings in the neighborhood, I had the privilege of meeting the pastor and seeing his concern for others. While his congregation was small, his outreach in the neighborhood was large. In addition to running a summer program for local kids, his church door was always open for those in distress.

While his formal congregation was mostly black, it seemed that most of his outreach helped the poorer whites in the surrounding blocks.

Over the years he kindly allowed me to conduct a few community meetings at the church, on topics such as Fairview Cemetery and the removal of bus stops.

While the large churches with the politically astute leaders get most our attention,  many people in need often turn to the small neighborhood churches, such as Faith Baptist.

Morning Call Christmas List

The remaining staff at the Morning Call was concerned that their mother ship, Tribune Publishing, was going to end up in the hands of a hedge fund known for cost cuts. In the Morning Call's case, there was little left to cut. The reduced staff works from home, with the presses in Jersey City, which are programmed by computers in Chicago. 

There is now news of some wealthy white knights interested in saving the chain. More encourgaing is that there is a particular investor interested in the Morning Call. While all these suitors should mitagate the staffs' worries, as a local pundit my concerns remain.  Jeff Bezos, with pockets as deep as they come, has not changed the agenda journalism of the Washington Post. 

While I'm glad the Morning Call will be purchased and survive, I still dream of more objective journalism locally.

Biden Invites Central America To United States

If America thinks that there is an immigration crisis, they haven't seen anything yet.  At the press conference yesterday, Biden tutored Central America on how to gain entry to the United States...send your young children first.  Biden said that he isn't going to allow a young child to starve to death and stay on the other side (of the border).  He also mentioned that Fort Bliss in Texas will provide 5,000 spaces to properly house children.  Needless to say that both proclamations will increase the flow of  children significantly.  

The notion that he will discourage the flow of immigrants by improving conditions in Central America is ridiculous. 

For someone whose past loose words helped created the current crisis,  yesterday's performance was very disappointing.  

Apparently United States will continue to have to wait for leadership on this human tragedy. 

Trolley Demise In Allentown

A local young urbanist speculated that automobiles put the end to trolleys in the Lehigh Valley. He was half right, actually it was the Mad Men from Detroit. In the early 1950's, Americans were still a one car family, even in the prosperous Lehigh Valley. The mass transit system was still full of the other family members, still using the system for work, shopping and school. Between the late 1940's and 1953, Hamilton Street had both trolleys and buses. In the late 40's, General Motors and others wined and dined transit officials all over the country, exhorting the benefits of their buses. Shown above is a Lehigh Valley Transit work car, towing a trolley to Bethlehem Steel to be scrapped. The photograph was taken in 1952 on St. John Street, heading toward the Fountain Hill route. In June of 1953, the last trolley would run on Hamilton Street.

Saturday Afternoon Matinee

Occasionally, some of the older boys in Lehigh Parkway would get saddled with taking me along to a Saturday matinee in downtown Allentown. We would get the trolley, in later years a bus, from in front of the basement church on Jefferson Street. It would take that congregation many years to afford completing the church building there today. The trolley or bus would go across the 8th Street Bridge, which was built to accommodate the trolleys operated by Lehigh Valley Transit Company. Downtown then sported no less than five movie theaters at any one time. Particularly matinee friendly was the Midway, in the 600 Block of Hamilton. Three cartoons and an episode or two of Flash Gordon entertained our entourage, which ranged in age from five to eleven years old. We younger kids, although delighted by the likes of Bugs Bunny, were confused how the Clay People would emerge from the walls in the caves on Mars to capture Captain Gordon, but our chaperones couldn't wait till the next week to learn Flash's fate. Next on the itinerary was usually a banana split at Woolworth's. Hamilton Street had three 5 and 10's, with a million things for boys to marvel at. The price of the sundae was a game of chance, with the customer picking a balloon. Inside the balloon was your price, anywhere from a penny to the full price of fifty cents. The store had a full selection of Allentown souvenirs. Pictures of West Park on a plate, the Center Square Monument on a glass, pennants to hang on your wall, and picture postcards of all the attractions. Hamilton Street was mobbed, and even the side streets were crowded with busy stores. Taking younger kids along was a responsibility for the older brothers, the streets and stores were crowded, but predators were limited to the Clay People on the silver screen.

The Neighborhood School

In 1949 the school district built the Lehigh Parkway Elementary School. It was the new modern one story type  It was tucked up at the back of the development of recently built twin homes. All the kids  could walk to school without leaving the neighborhood or crossing a large street. The photo is May Day 1952, on the playground behind the school. The neighborhood houses can be seen in the background. May Day was big then, so were the unions; Most of the fathers worked at the Bethlehem Steel, Mack Truck, General Electric, and a hundred other factories going full tilt after the war. The houses were about 8 years old, and there were no fences yet. The kids would migrate from one yard to another, and every mother would assume some responsibility for the herd when it was in her yard. Laundry was hung out to dry. If you notice, most of the "audience" are mothers, dads mostly were at work. The neighborhood also had its own Halloween Parade and Easter egg hunt.