The Fountain Of My Youth

Just west of the Robin Hood Bridge is a fountain which quenched the thirst of my summer days. Built during the WPA era, it overlooked the creek. Although the water was turned off years ago, so now is the view. The weeds and assorted invasives growing are not a riparian buffer. Science says that a buffer has to be 25feet wide to be of any value. A reader described this thin strip of wild growth as neglect, masquerading as conservation. All it does is block both the view and access to the waterway. It denies our current citizens the beauty and experience for which the parks were designed. Although the Wildland's Conservancy would like you to believe that the Allentown Parks are there to be wildlands, in reality they were designed by landscape architects, to provide the citizens of Allentown with what Harry Trexler called serenity. He did also appreciate conservation, but for that he created the Trexler Game Preserve, north of Allentown. There are places in the parks which can accommodate the riparian buffer zones, without compromising the intended public experience of waterway view and access. Riparians could be created and maintained in the western side of Lehigh Parkway, between the pedestrian bridge and Bogerts Bridge. In Cedar Park, the riparian section could be in western side, between the last walking bridge and Cedar Crest Blvd. It's time that the parks were given back to the citizens of Allentown. They are not funded, or intended by our tax dollars and the Trexler Trust,  just to be a venue for the Wildland's Conservancy to harvest grants.  Let a child again giggle by the creek's edge. Let us get back our intended park experience.

reprinted from August of 2013

ADDENDUM: I have lobbied the park department to leave the creek accessible in a couple small areas in Cedar Park.

Lesson At Dieruff

A Dieruff High School social studies teacher would not have to take his class very far for a lesson in Allentown's history. Although never elected, East Side activist Dennis Pearson has been complaining for thirty years that the East Side always get short changed in Public Works. Such was the case in the mid 1930's, during the WPA work in Allentown. Roosevelt's New Deal program built the elaborate walls in the south side's Lehigh Parkway. Central Allentown received the magnificent Lawrence Street stairwell. The culturally elite of west Allentown received the Union Terrace Amphitheater, envisioned for Shakespeare. Pearson's east side got a few scattered steps to nowhere. The steps remained, and thirty years later Allentown built Dieruff High School. With expansions and renovations, some of the steps now adjoin the school. Flash ahead to the summers of 2009 and 2010.




I lobbied Allentown City Council members to appropriate some of the $millions of dollars in Cedar Park plans to begin preserving the irreplaceable WPA structures, starting to crumble throughout our park system. East Side elected councilman, Michael D'Amore, assured me that he only signed off on the Administrations plan, with the stipulation that the steps in Irving Park-Dieruff area would be restored at the same time. The work in Cedar Park was completed last year, including $millions of dollars with of recreation equipment from catalogs. The deterioration of the steps around Dieruff continues. Now there's a lesson in government!
photos courtesy of Mark Thomas

reprinted from September of 2011

ADDENDUM: Flash ahead again four more years, and the steps at Irving Park are now finally being repaired, using a $20,000 grant from the Trexler Trust. Although the grant was secured through Friends Of The Parks, it's actually also the fruit of my labor. That organization's director learned of the plight of the WPA structures through meetings I conducted at the Allentown Library in 2011. I then took her on a WPA tour of the parks, and we have been collaborating on the WPA ever since.

At the city meeting last week, I asked the councilmen to compare $20,000  from an outside source, to repair something as tangible as the stone structures, to the $1.4 million of city money, to buy land that we didn't need, nor are using.  I explained that the consequence of the WPA neglect was that our largest park, Lehigh Parkway, is now virtually inaccessible.  Considering that I had approached both previous park directors about the WPA, with no success, I asked council to appoint me special WPA envoy, and to instruct the new director to consider my suggestions in both her plans and budget.

Council didn't respond to my request. I think that maybe they were preoccupied with the mob behind me, the ones with the pitchforks and torches.  As things simmer down from news of  the FBI investigation, and council has to deal with the business at hand,  perhaps they will reconsider my offer.

above reprinted from August of 2015

UPDATE JULY 15, 2021: Since this was written seven years ago, Mayor Ed is in the pokey. Although convicted for receiving payoffs on about ten contracts, I believe that the FBI actually had a much larger menu of corruption from which to choose 

Because of my blunt outspokenness,  city council never acknowledged my work with the parks and WPA structures.  However, the former director of Friends Of The Parks, Karen El-Chaar, is now park director, and she does have an appreciation of the WPA.  The problem now is budgetary,  appropriating funds for repairs. Several structures remain in peril...I will continue to speak out.

The Morning Call's Mistake

Mike Miorelli, editor of the Morning Call, had a recent piece where he touted the paper's Town Square, as a place where the community can be heard. He did add the following caveat.

Some of you haven’t always been happy when submissions were rejected for various reasons. Some may have been too promotional. Some alleged things that were not verified by our reporting.

"Not verified by our reporting" is quite a story in itself. If something was reported, there would be little need for a member of the public to write in. But more importantly, just because their reporters couldn't verify it, doesn't mean that it isn't true. I have a long standing spat with the paper about Wehr's Dam. When their reporter asked public officials if they if did anything behind the scenes, the officials replied "certainly not." Public officials not admitting to their shenanigans is par for the course. One would think that a paper which was oblivious to a corrupt mayor for over a decade, might realize that public officials don't admit and confess to every reporter's question. 

The paper could simply add a disclaimer that the opinion expressed is that of the writer, and not theirs. They could say that they have not verified the information in the letter. In truth, their editorial page is not a town square, but an echo chamber. It echoes their opinion, or the opinion of their pre-approved go to submitters.

Brightline Of Florida

While Biden and the new administration are promoting their $Trillion dollar infrastructure program,  and an improved Amtrak would supposedly be a benefit,  the Republic Of Florida has its own program, with no cost to the taxpayers.

The privately owned high speed train has been operating since 2018 between Miami and West Palm Beach.  Richard Branson, who spent this past weekend near outer space, envisioned a high speed Virgin Train brand between Orlando and Miami. While Virgin is no longer involved with the project,  the extension from West Palm Beach to Orlando is being built.  The Brightline extension requires seventeen new bridges and 170 miles of track. The new track is next to the old existing single track, now in use for freight.

The project is not without controversy. While very few towns would have a station or benefit from the high speed line, the train will be speeding through them.  A concern is the danger imposed by such high speed at all the crossings.

The new bridges are a massive undertaking. Shown above is the bridge construction over the Crane Creek in the Space Coast area.  A temporary bridge was constructed to hold the massive equipment necessary to build the new bridge.

Florida was developed a century ago by Henry Flagler and his train company. Private enterprise does still exist.

Crimes By The Wildlands Conservancy

photo by Tami Quigley

The top photo shows the Robin Hood Bridge, before the Wildlands Conservancy demolished the little Robin Hood Dam, just downstream beyond the bridge. The dam was only about 10 inches high, and was built as a visual effect to accompany the bridge in 1941. It was the last WPA project in Allentown, and considered the final touch for Lehigh Parkway. Several years ago, the Wildlands told the Allentown Park Director and City Council that it wanted to demolish the dam. The only thing that stood between their bulldozer and the dam was yours truly. I managed to hold up the demolition for a couple weeks, during which time I tried to educate city council about the park, but to no avail. If demolishing the dam wasn't bad enough, The Wildlands Conservancy piled the broken dam rubble around the stone bridge piers, as seen in the bottom photo. I'm sad to report that the situation is now even worse. All that rubble collected silt, and now weeds and brush is growing around the stone bridge piers. I suppose the Wildlands Conservancy considers it an extension of its riparian buffers.

The Wildlands Conservancy is now going to demolish Wehr's Dam at Covered Bridge Park in South Whitehall. The township commissioners are cooperating, by having a grossly inflated price associated with repairing the dam, to justify a disingenuous referendum. Sadly, by next spring I will be showing you before and after pictures of that crime.

top photo by Tami Quigley

above reprinted from August 2016

UPDATE: To everyone's surprise, especially the Wildlands Conservancy and the South Whitehall Commissioners, the referendum to save the dam was approved by the voters in November of 2016. The Wildlands Conservancy and the South Whitehall Commissioners are now conspiring to have the dam demolished anyway, by exaggerating its problems with the Pa. DEP...I have documented the communication between the Wildlands, State and township,  As for Lehigh Parkway, the Wildlands Conservancy should be made to remove the former dam rubble that is despoiling the vista of the Robin Hood Bridge piers.  I have been trying to interest the Morning Call about the voter suppression in regard to the Wehr's Dam referendum.  In today's paper there is an article about the danger high hazard rated dams pose to residents downstream.  I hope the paper's article today is a coincidence, and not intended to serve the Wildlands conspiracy about Wehr's Dam.  BTW,  Wehr's Dam is rated low hazard, because it poses no danger to residents.

reprinted from November of 2019 and before

Crime And Punishment For Allentown

Readers of this blog, and the facebook group Allentown Chronicles that I moderate, know that I shy away from crime reports. Quality of life in Allentown certainly hasn't improved in the last decade, despite all the new construction on Hamilton Street. 

The map shown above was produced by WFMZ to illustrate a spat of stabbings and shootings the other night in center city.  The recent May primary election featured several candidates who advocated defunding the police, in favor of more assets going to social agency intervention.

At the western end of the map is the West Park neighborhood, where I lived for over a decade. As a resident I would take more comfort in more police, not more social workers.  

While the defunders made the most noise during the primary campaign, fortunately, they didn't get the most votes. Come 2022, I hope that the new mayor understands that he has a mandate to increase the police presence.