Stairway To Shame

In the mid 1930's, Allentown, and especially its park system, was endowed with magnificent stone edifices, courtesy of the WPA... Works Progress Administration.  This was a new deal program designed to provide employment during the aftermath of the depression.  Stone masons in this city built structures which are irreplaceable.  The walls and step structures in Lehigh Parkway, as the Union Terrace amphitheater, are legacies which must be protected.  Pictured above is the grand stairway from Lawrence Street (Martin Luther King Drive) up to Union Street, built in 1936.  The steps are in a state of disrepair.  They lead to the great Union Street Retaining Wall, thirty feet high and two blocks long, which was completed in 1937.  I call upon the Trexler Trust and Allentonians of memory,  to insist that these steps are re-pointed and preserved.  The current Administration knows nothing of our past, and really has no commitment to our future.  Save the things in Allentown that matter. 

above reprinted from September 18, 2008 

UPDATE MAY 20, 2021:Although it would take me many years, and along the way I inadvertently offended many people,  eventually I got the steps at Fountain Park and a few other structures repointed. However, much more needs to be done to maintain this irreplaceable legacy in Allentown. Just recently a corner of the stage wall at Union Terrace crumbled.  I will through this blog continue to advocate for these structures and the traditional park system.

Come November we will have a new mayor, but he will hear from me an old message.

Wildlands Conservancy Suffers Setback

Less than two months ago Tori Morgan was chosen as Lehigh Valley's 2021 Woman Of Influence.  What that really meant was that she was in her twelfth year of steering deals in well heeled South Whitehall. 

Traditionally, residents in wealthy bedroom communities don't get too involved in local government.  If the streets are kept clean,  their civic attention concerns only the quality of the school system. When the new Parkland High School was built, one contractor publicly noted that money was apparently no object in the township. 

Morgan allowed the park department to be taken over by the Wildlands Conservancy. They designed the new park masterplans (spending plans) and now administer the contracts.  Save but for me, there has been no public scrutiny of that scheme.  At least up to now, the Wildlands Conservancy has enjoyed sacred cow privilege with the Morning Call.  With Morgan's defeat in yesterday's primary, I believe that some of the shenanigans in South Whitehall will finally come to light.

What woke up the township's public is the massive development project coming at Walbert and Cedar Crest Blvds.  Concerned residents realized that their commissions were imbued with entrenched arrogance.  

Shown above is Wehr's Dam.  Although it was saved by voters' referendum,  dam removal is a Wildlands obsession. They continued back channel with the state to circumvent the referendum's intent. The township's public works, rather than defend the dam's structure,  is partner to their scheme.  I'm hopeful now that the iconic destination will survive for future generations.

The People's Candidate

In the late 1970's, neighbors would gather in the market on 9th Street to complain and receive consolation from the woman behind the cash register. Emma was a neighborhood institution. A native Allentonian, she had gone through school with Mayor For Life Joe Dadonna, and knew everybody at City Hall. More important, she wasn't shy about speaking out. What concerned the long time neighbors back then was a plan to create a Historical District, by a few newcomers.

What concerned Emma wasn't so much the concept, but the proposed size of the district, sixteen square blocks. The planners unfortunately all wanted their homes included, and they lived in an area spread out from Hall Street to 12th, Linden to Liberty.* Shoving property restrictions down the throats of thousands of people who lived in the neighborhood for generations didn't seem right to Emma. As the battle to establish the district became more pitched, Emma began referring to it as the Hysterical District.
Emma eventually lost the battle, but won the hearts of thousands of Allentonians. Emma Tropiano would be elected to City Council beginning in 1986, and would serve four terms. In 1993 she lost the Democratic Primary for Mayor by ONE (1) vote.

Her common sense votes and positions became easy fodder for ridicule. Bashed for opposing fluoridation, our clean water advocates now question the wisdom of that additive. Although every founding member of the Historical District moved away over the years, Emma continued to live on 9th Street, one block up from the store. In the mid 1990's, disgusted by the deterioration of the streetscape, she proposed banning household furniture from front porches. Her proposal was labeled as racist against those who could not afford proper lawn furniture. Today, SWEEP officers issue tickets for sofas on the porch.

Being blunt in the era of political correctness cost Emma. Although a tireless advocate for thousands of Allentown residents of all color, many people who never knew her, now read that she was a bigot. They don't know who called on her for help. They don't know who knocked on her door everyday for assistance. They don't know who approached her at diners and luncheonettes all over Allentown for decades. We who knew her remember, and we remember the truth about a caring woman.

* Because the designated Historical District was so large, it has struggled to create the atmosphere envisioned by the long gone founders. Perhaps had they listened to, instead of ridiculing, the plain spoken shopkeeper, they would have created a smaller critical mass of like thinking homeowners.

reprinted yearly since 2010

No Respect For Voters

 

Lehigh Valley Controller Mark Pinsley has demonstrated over and over again little to no respect for the voters.  When just elected as a South Whitehall Commissioner, he announced his candidacy for state senator.  When that attempt failed, he began his campaign for county controller.

When a drug fueled Dorney Park patron was shot and killed on Hamilton Blvd. by a South Whitehall police officer, Pinsley, although a township commissioner, stood with the protestors.  Although entitled to his personal sentiments,  he knew that there would be litigation against the township.

Pinsley has a paid facebook promotion criticizing  two commissioners (Kelly and Wolk), while endorsing two others for re-election (Morgan and Setton).  He writes... Commissioners Kelly and Wolk have both fought to rebuild the Weirs (sic) Dam, costing South Whitehall taxpayers $600,000-$1,000,000*. The cost for taking it down? $0. That amount of money, especially for a municipality, is incredibly substantial: COVID relief, tax credits, roads and bridges, infrastructure. All of these crucial programs could have been thoroughly paid for by this new funding, and yet it's wasted on a needless damn (sic) in an underfunded park.  Pinsley totally ignores the fact that voters chose by referendum to keep the dam.  He thinks that votes for him and his political minions are valid, but for other things that he doesn't want or like, the votes don't count. 

* The cost of the dam repair has been greatly inflated by those trying to circumvent the intent of the referendum. When the township decides to finally respect the voters' wishes, the actual repair will cost a faction thereof.

Defending Zion

With the election of two Muslim congresswomen, one of which is Palestinian, Israel as the oppressor is a front and center topic.

Most of all the world loves to read about a Jew bashing Israel. Al Jazeera routinely uses Jewish writers for that purpose. They're not that hard to find, the far left and Jews go together, like pastrami and rye bread.  They portray themselves as progressive and anti-zionists.

Over the years, the Morning Call has featured numerous anti-Israel columns.  While the writers change, the tradition continued.  The letters are often signed at the end associating the writer with some organization that sounds sincere about peace, but in reality, is anti-Israel.

Israel is low-hanging fruit. Jews have been portrayed as greedy for two thousand years, so why shouldn't they also be land grabbers?

In reality, Israel is eager for a sincere partner in peace.  Their withdrawal from Gaza was only met with the election of Hamas, and its dedication to Israel's destruction.  By the way, that's not Tel Aviv shown above, but Gaza City.

reprinted from February of 2019

Jews In Jerusalem

Except when barred by one conqueror or another, Jews had lived in Jerusalem since King David. Prior to Jordanian rule in 1948, there was a Jewish majority for 150 years. In 1864, eight thousand of the fifteen thousand population was Jewish. By 1914, two thirds of the sixty five thousand residents were Jewish. In 1948 the United Nations Partition Plan divided the British Mandate of Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab. Jerusalem was to be initially an international city, with access guaranteed for all. This plan was rejected by the surrounding Arab nations, which attacked Israel in concert immediately upon the UN vote. When the truce was declared, Israel had survived, but East Jerusalem(walled Old City) was in procession of TransJordan. The Jordanians subsequently destroyed over 50 synagogues in the Jewish Quarter, which dated back to the 1400's. For hundreds of years both Christians and Jews were prohibited from building higher than Muslim structures. The few synagogues which survived were the ones built mostly below street level. The oldest surviving synagogue, The Jerusalem Synagogue, was built by the Karaite Jews in around 900. Shown above is the Ben Kakai, a Sephardic Synagogue built in the 16th Century.

Perhaps the most famous synagogue destroyed by the Jordanians was the Ashkenazi Hurva Synagogue built in 1720, it's dome visible in the top center of this photograph from the 1920's. It's replacement was completed in 2010.

This post was first printed in April of 2010, and titled The Synagogues of Jerusalem