Hamilton Street's Golden Era

Wetherhold & Metzger was one of the giants of Hamilton Street. The extended family operated two stores on Hamilton Street. When exactly was the height of the golden era I suppose is a frame of reference. I can tell you that as a early baby boomer, Hamilton Street was booming in the 1950's. With three large department stores, three large 5&10's, half a dozen shoe stores, half a dozen jewelers, women and men's stores, there was something for everybody. In addition to Hamilton, stores were also located on the number streets.

MOLOVINSKY UNIVERSITY
At 2:00pm this afternoon, I will present a 1930 map showing the business district of downtown Allentown. We will be meeting at The Coffee House Without Limits. The shop is located on 4th, just north of Tilghman Street, in the Alternative Gallery. You are cordially invited to join us.   

above reprinted from September of 2016

ADDENDUM JUNE 13, 2022: For many of Allentown's new residents, without the above frame of reference, today is the golden era for Hamilton Street. There are certainly many new buildings, but not much yet in the way of people or retail. The term urban office park is now being used. The developer is also building numerous new apartment houses. Although both the coffee house and university mentioned above have since closed their doors, this fall I hope to conduct an alumni meeting, at one of the new coffee houses at 7th and Hamilton Sts..

City Hall Insults The Neighborhood

This is a post which I spent a week trying not to write. It is a story of favoritism and abuse of power. About four years ago a homeowner, in a quiet south side neighborhood, moved out and rented the house to his brother. Under Allentown regulations this property hence became a rental property, and subject to license and inspection procedures. As it turns out, these brothers are childhood friends with an Allentown inspector. The second brother, the tenant, has been disruptive in the neighborhood by every criterion relevant to code enforcement. The property became unkempt and subject of numerous police calls, including the SWAT team. All calls for relief from surrounding properties seemed to end up with the family's inspector friend, and brought no relief from the problems. Allentown has been very pro-active with problem properties. In the first eight months of 2010, 342 properties received orange tags, forcing the property to be vacated. Most tags were issued for problems significantly more minor than those occurring in the subject of this post. This past October, the bank foreclosed on the property. The tenant legally became a squatter. A neighbor's complaint resulted in another inspector discovering that the bank owned property was an unregistered rental, and he issued a 30 day to vacate tag for illegal occupancy. It appeared that finally the neighbors would get relief from the trash, noise and police calls. The childhood friend inspector intervened, and the 30 day notice was never enforced. My efforts with the inspector on behalf of the other property owners (including myself) were to no avail. I have spent the week documenting the problem up the chain of command, right to the Mayor's office. Although the property is in gross violation of code, the illegal tenant is allowed to remain. Although in the last eight months police have surrounded the property several times in complete violation of the disruptive tenant ordinance, the occupant remains. In typical City Hall fashion, they have circled the wagons around the inspector, around their own. They are now actually trying to work with the bank and make him the homeowner. The top photo is the back yard on May 9, 2011, with years worth of garbage. You will be happy to know that a city contractor has now been hired to clean the property and cut the grass, at your expense. The City's course of action is a total insult to the neighbors. I did see some inspectors today, they were walking around my property. 

above reprinted from June of 2011

UPDATE SEPTEMBER 13, 2021: During the Pawlowski regime, city code enforcement was weaponized.  As both a landlord and blogger, I took on substantial personal risk to expose the Pawlowski regime for its corruption.  While the Morning Call borrowed some my other blog posts without attribution, they never once used ones about city hall shenanigans...That's why Pawlowski got away with things for so long. 

I'd like to tell you that city hall is completely cleaned up, but it isn't. Just two years ago I had to defend an east side woman from code abuse. While things are certainly better at city hall, it's still filled with people who were appointed and promoted during Pawlowski's three terms. While there's still a residual arrogance of power there, I'm hopeful for a more accountable city hall as time passes.  

Although the years have slowed this blog down somewhat, I'm still on patrol.

ADDENDUM JUNE 10, 2022: While there's a new mayor, any change remains to be seen. Matt Tuerk chose to keep everybody in place at city hall, including code enforcement. While I understand his reluctance against a clean sweep, some changes were in order. 

Tuerk has been preoccupied with inclusion and making all citizens feel welcome. While that's all nice and good, the time has come to start improving the rights of the property owners...The right to equal and fair treatment by all the departments within the city.

Molovinsky From The Bunker

When I started molovinsky on allentown in 2007, one of its missions was to expose Pawlowski for the phony that he was. At that time, community activists and fellow bloggers were still entranced by him. Within two years, blogger Bernie O'Hare starting noticing that little people in Pawlowski's way were squashed. We joined forces about Lanta and the bus stops, about the abuse of the minority merchants and other assorted bruised victims.

Yesterday I participated in an intensely heated court hearing for a homeowner, who I believed was being harassed to accommodate a code supervisor's friend.  A code officer testified that he noticed the violation over the fence from the adjoining property,  which is owned by this friend of the supervisor.  This adjoining property is a mess, but no enforcement ever seems to occur there. The court certainly tried to accommodate the city, by allowing the inspector to cite an item not on the complaint. The judge was finally forced to find the homeowner not guilty, when she produced a permit from 2002, demonstrating that the item was indeed grandfathered. Although the city had falsely testified earlier in the hearing that no such permit was ever issued,  the judge seemed to have no issue with that, or the other improprieties.  In addition to the code officer, the code supervisor himself attended the hearing. Neither the Director of Community Development nor the mayor were interested in my concern that the rights of a homeowner were being violated. I'm particularly offended by the notion of public officials using the machinery of the state to settle personal grievances.

During those pre FBI years, I referred to having a bunker to take refuge in. After the recent dealings with community development and code, I have once again opened the bunker, and am stocking it with provisions,  in case it proves necessary.

photo of blogger in bunker

From deep in a bunker somewhere in the Lehigh Valley, molovinsky on allentown provides a daily  dose of truth. Unlike the local newspaper which is overzealous in its promotion of the NIZ, this blog reports objectively on that program, which is siphoning off our state tax dollars.  Unlike the other media in the valley, this blog doesn't cater to any of the sacred cows, which normally receive no scrutiny elsewhere.

The blog is not monetized, directly or indirectly, in any way.  This commentary is produced five days a week.  
In the course of producing this blog, as outlined above, I have offended numerous people.  This is an unintended consequence, which does give me pause.  However, unless this blog can provide something unique, not otherwise available, there would be no justification for all the time and effort required.

above compilation is from two previous posts using the same photo in May of 2018 and October of 2019

ADDENDUM JUNE 9, 2022: Over the years, this blog's activism has produced a few dividends.  Although both the city and Morning Call will not acknowledge the accomplishments, I will list some of them here.

                     

* With the support from former LC commissioner Michael Schware, I saved the historic (1828) stone arch bridge by Union Terrace on Walnut St.

                      

* Although other people joined in, I started the movement to save Wehr's Dam, and then continued it myself, until the new SW commissioners recently pledged to honor the referendum.

                      

* Uncovered the previously buried spring pond (WPA) and buried boat landing (WPA) in Lehigh Parkway, and advocated for all the WPA structures throughout Allentown.

                      

* Publicized the dire condition of Fairview Cemetery, after which time Tyler Fatzinger assumed the mission.

                       

* Campaigned against the riparian buffers and for the traditional park system.

* Provided some balance and true cost to the taxpayers in regard to the NIZ and other local sacred cows and programs.

* Publicized and defended various victims of abuse by city government officials over the years when necessary.

Allentown Parks Can Kill Your Dog

Poison Hemlock has invaded the riparian buffers along the creeks in Allentown Parks.  These buffers are to accommodate the Wildlands Conservancy,  which essentially dictates all park policy, except recreation, in both Allentown and South Whitehall.  I suppose now the Wildlands can add pet killer to their dam buster credentials.

Allentown has been trying to control the problem by high rough cutting in spots where they see the hemlock.  The real solution is to go back to the way the parks were designed, without riparian buffers.

Frankly, I haven't had much success in curtailing the Wildlands Conservancy's influence in these park decisions. So far,  we lost two small historic dams, and the iconic Wehr's Dam is soon to go. We lost the view and access to the creeks in the park system, around which the parks were designed, by Harry Trexler's landscape architect. I have succeeded in creating a public record of these losses, and I will continue to speak out against how our parks are being compromised.

above reprinted from July of 2016

ADDENDUM JUNE 8, 2022: Park visitors may have noticed that the buffers have been cut down, except for a strip right along the creeks.  The cutting was done because the buffers were full of invasive species. Ironically, the remaining strips are almost exclusively Poison Hemlock, the worst of the invasives. More ironically, the park department has taken to planting the new trees on the outer edge of the buffer (instead of along the creeks), so now cutting the grass is so much more labor intensive. Thank the Wildlands Conservancy for this bastardization of the park system. The solution is to cut down the remaining strip, and start cutting the grass to the creek's edge, as prescribed by the park architect in the 1930's.  Furthermore, start planting willow trees along the creeks to combat erosion. 

Carry In/Carry Out Doesn't Work For Allentown

The current national park philosophy, adopted by Allentown, is Carry In/Carry Out.  In our environmentally woke time, the belief is that people will take their trash with them, after they guzzled their sports drink.  Allentown accordingly removed most of the trash containers from the parks, instead installing larger capacity containers, which only have to be emptied once a week.  While previously one man and a pickup truck removed the bags, now a dump truck, two men and crane are used to extract the 8ft. long bags from a pit below the containers. 

It all sounds wonderful, until you drive through downtown Allentown any Monday morning...It looks like there was a parade every weekend.  The litter in Allentown is astounding...Many throw their trash down even if there is a container within several feet.  Parents throw down their trash in front of their children.

Rather than less trash containers in our parks, we should have installed more.  There is nothing Allentown  can learn from national park bureaucrats.  Our traditional park system was second to none.

above reprinted from August of 2021

ADDENDUM JUNE 7, 2022: Early on Monday mornings, a park employee fills large containers gathering all the trash tossed down on both sides of Cedar Park over the weekend.  Although the department did add some containers back since the above post was written last year, littering is a reality in the new Allentown. As the department adds new events and recreational features to our parks, this problem will only increase.

Picnic Pavilion Blues

For the last decade the picnic pavilions below Cedar Crest College have been in a state of benign neglect. The park department stubbornly wants to replace these older pavilions with their lightning-friendly metal expensive replacements. 

Common sense would say why not just reshingle the older ones, and give them a fresh coat of paint. They have served the city well for eighty years, and still are eager to serve. However, the metal replacements have been put into the schedule years ago, and the bureaucratic way is to let the older ones decay until they're replaced with the scheduled new ones. 

Somehow I suspect that the replacements, when they finally do appear, will not last a fraction as long.

Students of the blog know that years ago I was very critical of Pawlowski and his succession of park directors, which were all of the same mold (Penn State recreation program) and hired by the same city manager. Had the FBI's menu been longer, they might have looked into some of those decisions and contracts.

I actually have a rapport with the current park director, and have not yet totally burned all the bridges with the new mayor. However, it is my avocation to champion for the traditional park system and the WPA. To that end, I will not compromise the mission with polite cordiality here on the blog.