2nd And 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 November 2011

Downhill On Lehigh Street

During the early 1970's, Allentown demolished the entire neighborhood between Union and Lawrence Streets. It was, in a large part, home to the black community. How ironic that we destroyed the cohesion of a neighborhood, but renamed Lawrence Street after Martin Luther King. The only remnant of the neighborhood is the St. James A.M.E. Church. Going up the hill today we now have a vacant bank call center on the east, and the Housing Authority Project on the west. A whole neighborhood existed in from both sides of Lehigh Street, including black owned shops. The houses were old and humble, but people owned them, many for generations. Some blacks at the time wondered if the project was Urban Renewal or Negro Removal?

above reprinted from May 2011 

UPDATE MARCH 2, 2022: The housing authority now plans on demolishing their project on the west side of the hill, and replacing them with new units. They contend that the existing units are too old, althought the average row house in Allentown is at least twice as old. The new units will cost over half a $million dollars each.

A Road Runs Through It

Once, there was a time when gasoline was twenty five cents a gallon, there was no internet, and a family 

would go for a drive on Sunday. 

There was no traffic congestion or road rage. The cars were large, and they all came from Detroit. 

You could drive through a park, even an amusement park.

There was no rush to get back to the television... It was very small, with only a few channels. Life now seems to revolve around small silicon chips, I preferred when it was large engines. 

photograph shows the road through Dorney Park 

reprinted from December of 2010

Allentown"s Phantom Rejuvenation

Yesterday's Morning Call had a story on the PennDot study, which recommended four different options to handle the onslaught of traffic to rejuvenated center city Allentown. It's truly amazing how little $1Billion buys now a days. Believe it or not, despite the endless use of adjectives by the paper, the town is as dead as ever. PennDot, realizing that the study wasn't necessary, is never the less proceeding as if it was. One recommendation was actually for a bike lane on 7th street. When is the last time you saw a bike on 7th Street? Their consultant, from King of Prussia, thinks that patrons are going to ride their bikes down 7th Street to a show at the arena; I couldn't make this stuff up, where would I get such an imagination? Meanwhile, Pennsylvania has been ranked as one of the worst run states in the country, maybe it's because we hire consultants who recommend building bike lanes on 7th Street, to accommodate invisible arena patrons. So far, the best arena night hasn't come close to duplicating the traffic on a Thursday night,  back in the days of Hess Brothers. What we have is a bunch of new buildings, of no architectural significance, and a medium size arena, which gets  half full, 40 nights a year.

 

above reprinted from November of 2015

UPDATE FEBRUARY 28, 2022:  Activity wise, even before the pandemic, nothing changed in the five years between 2015 and 2020.  While the NIZ has made a couple millionaires now billionaires at taxpayer expense, lets hope that the rejuvenation comes before the new buildings start looking shabby.

Pray For Allentown

When Allentown Police Chief Charles Roca put up a Pray For Ukraine meme yesterday, my immediate thought was Pray For Allentown. I had just learned that in addition to the shots fired in Cedar Beach Sunday evening, there was another homicide, at an east side bar early Thursday morning.

In addition to putting out this blog every weekday, I also administer a large facebook group, Allentown Chronicles. The group majors in history, and minors in local politics.  Many of its members are former Allentonians, whose memory dwells in better days for the Queen City. Many of them would prefer not even to read about the town's current state of crime.

In addition to those members fixated on the past, there is a group which I refer to as the cheerleaders. These are current residents who compare Allentown to Philadelphia, Chicago and Detroit, and think Allentown is just experiencing urban problems that are part of life in all big cities. Many of them are either transplants, or too young to remember the good old days. One of the cheerleaders mentioned that there were only 6 fatalities in 2020. He omitted the fact that there were 63 shootings. The low kill rate is only from poor aim, and good ER work at the local hospitals.

This post is not intended to minimize the suffering occurring in Ukraine. It is also not intended to demean the empathy shown by Chief Roca to that tragedy.

I altered Chief Roca's meme by putting Allentown over it.

Morning Call's Social Agenda

The Morning Call's coverage of the Cedar Beach Park shooting incident started and ended with quotes from Pastor/Activist Gregory Edwards, who wasn't there, on the relationship between poverty and violence. In between, there were quotes from Enid Santiago, who wasn't there. Although Edwards' grandchildren were in the park(not him), so were hundreds of other children.  Enid Santiago was a candidate for state representative, who didn't even win the primary election. 

Why is the Morning Call featuring these people in an article about a seminal incident in Allentown?  And certainly, a drive-by shooting in an Allentown park is a seminal incident or a low point. Although nobody was actually shot, that was only by a blessing. The shooter was across the creek and bridge from the basketball courts, shooting a handgun. Nearby was the Destination Playground, full of children.

The Morning Call has been obsessed with what they promote as the new leaders in Allentown.  As a paying subscriber to the paper, I can tell them that I had enough, too much already, about their view of new leaders in Allentown. All I want to know is who the shooter was arraigned before, and what bail was set? It couldn't be too high!

artwork shown above by Mark Beyer