A Personal Memoir

I'm not sure memoir is a good title, rather than facts and records, I have hazy recollections. Assuming my memory will not improve at this stage of the game, let me put to print that which I can still recall. In 1960 my father built Flaggs Drive-In. McDonalds had opened on Lehigh Street, and pretty much proved that people were willing to sit in their cars and eat fast food at bargain prices. For my father, who was in the meat business, this seemed a natural. As a rehearsal he rented space at the Allentown Fair for a food stand, and learned you cannot sell hotdogs near Yocco's. He purchased some land across from a corn field on Hamilton Blvd. and built the fast food stand. In addition to hamburgers, he decided to sell fried chicken. The chicken was cooked in a high pressure fryer called a broaster, which looked somewhat like the Russian satellite Sputnik. The stand did alright, but the business was not to my father's liking, seems he didn't have the personality to smile at the customers. He sold the business several years later to a family which enlarged and enclosed the walk up window. Subsequent owners further enlarged the location several times. The corn field later turned into a Water Park, and you know Flaggs as Ice Cream World.

I'm grateful to a kind reader who sent me this picture of Flaggs

reprinted since 2009

ADDENDUM: Allentown and its environs have changed considerably in the last 60 years. While Yocco's is still a very viable business in the suburbs, the center city demographic changes no longer supported selling hot dogs at 625 Liberty Street. After 85 years, that store closed in the summer of 2016.  Flaggs (Ice Cream World), rather than being outside of town, is now on the way to Hamilton Crossings.

Have Wrench, Will Travel

During the Pawlowski regime, the city vehicle maintenance contract was given to the mercenary contractor Constellis, which had absorbed the infamous Blackwater soldiers of fortune. 

One division of Constellis dedicated to such vehicle contracts is named Centerra. The annual Allentown contract is for $2.4 million, plus additional expenses. 

When the FBI came to Allentown to investigate Pawlowski the potential menu was very long, eight years of contracts. I was told recently by some current and former city workers that their work is sometimes hindered by a shortage of working vehicles. Also this summer Centerra employees threatened to strike over wages, supposedly less than industry standards. Ironically, their quest for higher wages was supported by the local municipal union and city council members, which will eventually increase the cost of privatization. 

While the current contract is good through 2023, hopefully the new mayor will evaluate what option is actually in the city's best interest.

Manny Pacquiao Not First Boxer To Run For President

In California these days, everybody walks around with a yoga mat strapped to their back. That certainly wasn't the case in the 1930's, when heavyweight contender Lou Nova studied yoga. Nova was the World Amateur Heavyweight Champion and a proponent of clean living. He won his first twenty two fights as a professional. His promoters said he perfected the Cosmic Punch. Only 6'2", he fought in the era of giants. He handed giant Abe Simon his first defeat after thirteen victories, eleven by knockout. Nova knocked out 6'4'' Max Baer twice. The 1939 knockout is one second away, in the above photograph. Baer himself had won the championship by knocking out Primo Carnera, the Italian giant who was 6'6" and weighed 284 lbs. Baer lost the championship to the Cinderella Man, Jim Braddock. Joe Louis took the belt from Braddock and held it for twelve years, being arguably the best fighter in history. Clean living didn't serve Lou Nova so well with the notorious dirty fighter Two Ton Tony Galento. Galento almost gouged his eye out, putting him in the hospital for weeks. Nova got his shot with Louis on September 29, 1941, but fell in six. Nova would go on to act in movies and even was a write-in candidate for President of the United States. He dropped out of the campaign because his mother was afraid he would catch a cold shaking so many hands. She wasn't afraid of him being in the ring with some of the toughest men in the world.

reprinted from December of 2012

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 its enemies too numerous, for any miscalculations regarding its security.

reprinted from April 2010

Ezekiel's Tomb

Ezekiel's Tomb is south of Baghdad, in Al Kifl. The tomb dates back to the 6th Century B.C., during the Babylonian exile. Prior to creation of Israel in 1948, 100,000 Jews still remained in Iraq; Today, there are eight.

Last year Hebrew lettering was covered over in fresh plaster, in a process to turn the ancient Jewish shrine into a mosque. Fortunately, word leaked back to Israel and to the Jews of Iraqi descent. That community's history in Iraq spanned 2,700 years, 1,000 years before the birth of Islam. The renovation is now under international scrutiny, and hopefully the Jewish elements will remain. The photo shows Iraqi Jews in front of the tomb in 1932.

Conflicting reports: There are conflicting reports, both about the condition and intentions for the shrine. Here is an article from The Jerusalem Post, dated May 2010, which claims that there has been no damage (recent) to Jewish inscriptions.
NY Times recent article, Oct. 19, 2010

reprinted from previous years

this post was pre-programmed to post on September 16

In The Public's Best Interest

I always snicker when I read that J. B. Reilly's latest proposal has to go in front of this commission or that committee. None of those appointed puppies have ever turned down one of Reilly's NIZ projects.  Shown above is the frame and plywood construction of the Strata Flats building #1. Many years ago when I built a very small four unit building in center city, I was told it had to be all masonry to meet fire codes.

The other day Matt Tuerk praised Reilly's City Center Development Company's completion of the Lanta Terminal. The terminal was reconfigured so that City Center itself could build yet another apartment complex. The compliment bothered me, because Matt may be Allentown's next mayor.  Councilperson Candida Affa followed suit with a comment that City Center gets it done right and fast. Our public officials and the people that they appoint are supposed to scrutinize development and construction in our city.  It is inappropriate for them to hold preconceived ideas that someone always does the job correctly.

Candida Affa was Ed Pawlowski's biggest fan on council, and the last member to concede that he violated the city's trust.  City Center construction may indeed do good work, but taking that for granted is not good policy.

This post is not meant to imply that plywood plaza shown above does not meet current codes. However, in this era of public/private partnerships, it is not in the public's interest to make assumptions that everything will done properly.

photo of Plywood Plaza aka Strata Flats