Trolley To Dorney Park

When the Allentown-Kutztown Traction (Trolley) Company purchased Dorney Park in 1901, trolley companies were buying or building amusement parks all across the country. Perhaps the most famous was Coney Island. Usually located between two cities serviced by the company, it was a plan to increase weekend rider-ship. Passengers could spend a day at the park, swimming, picnicking, and partaking of the rides and amusements. Through merger, the trolley would become the Allentown-Reading Traction Company, whose line began just south of Hamilton, on 7th Street. The line went west on Walnut Street, and then followed the Cedar Creek to the park. The roller coaster was built over the tracks in 1923, the year that the Allentown-Reading sold the park to the Plarr family.  Trolley service would continue to 1934.


reprinted from 2013

Duck Farm and Hotel

At the beginning of the last century, Allentonians could take a day trip out to Griesemerville and spend the day at the Duck Farm and Hotel. The trolley, operated by Reading Traction Company, actually went through the Duck Farm building. That same trolley would continue west and go through or under the Dorney Park roller coaster. Today, Griesemerville is known as Union Terrace, or more precisely, Joseph S. Daddona Lake and Terrace.

The Hotel portion still exists as an apartment house. Heading west, cross the Reading Road stone arch bridge, built in 1824, and the former hotel is the first building on your right.

Note the bridge in the lower left of the above news clipping. This blog is proud to have played a part in preserving the bridge, and my hope is that the County of Lehigh will formally recognize the bridge's historic value, and secure it's future. Collectors of Lehigh Valley historic memorabilia can still find Duck Farm postcards.

news clipping courtesy of Danny Ruth 

reprinted from July of 2013

ADDENDUM JULY 4, 2022: The above post is reprinted to amend some recent posts on Allentown Chronicles concerning Griesemerville. The Pavilion featured in the clipping above was a dining destination, featuring duck from the farm. The separate hotel itself still stands, now as apartments.

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.

above originally posted in 2013

ADDENDUM JULY 1, 2022: When the above post was first written, Pawlowski's recreation trained park directors farmed many actual park decisions out to the Wildlands.  Although their influence has waned somewhat in recent years, these faux buffers remain a negative legacy. The buffers are faux because Allentown's storm system is piped directly into the streams, under the buffer weed wall. Those weed walls in turn have become hotbeds of invasive species, such as Poison Hemlock.  Now, as the downside of those invasives has become obvious, the department is cutting the grass back toward the streams, but still leaving the creek edge overgrown, hiding view and blocking access.  To further complicate the situation, in the last several years all new tree plantings were done away from the creek, at the outer edge of the then wide buffer...The end result is now cutting the grass is more difficult, with all the new trees in the path of the mowers.

The Depreciation Of Our Parks

John Mikowychok, the new park director, suggested that after the dam is demolished an interpretative sign could be placed there, with a photograph of the former dam. John, like his predecessor Greg Weitzel, likes interpretative signs. John and Greg have the same background, they both have graduate degrees in recreation from Penn State. Both were hired by our city manager from Philadelphia, and neither have a special feeling for the Allentown park system. Although there will be no measurable improvement to water quality, Lehigh Parkway will be depreciated in both beauty and ambience. While picture postcards used to show the beauty of the parks, now interpretative signs will show what we neglected and demolished.

photocredit:molovinsky

reprinted from September 2, 2013

ADDENDUM: Since I wrote the above post almost three years ago, we have yet another new park director, with the exact same background.  The dam was demolished,  the WPA wall collapsed, and has just been rebuilt.  The sewage still overflows from the manhole covers along the creek,  but all the parks have new entrance signs.

above reprinted from July 2016

ADDENDUM JUNE 30, 2022: I've been fighting for our traditional park system and the WPA for over fifteen years. The recent emphasis by the administrations and park department has been on new recreation fads and celebrations of new holidays... we now have skate parks and Pride festivals.  Meanwhile, the landings on the Parkway's Double Staircase still await repair, and a weed wall of invasive species still blocks both view and access to the creeks. Although I don't attend the events, I do monitor the impact on our parks the following day. Although I have no interest in the new recreation venues, I do monitor the state of the irreplaceable crumbling WPA structures. Although my repetitive recommendations have become less than welcome by our officials, I nevertheless submit them anyway.

When Lehigh County Valued History

Back in the early 1970's, a former teacher in Allentown's West Park neighborhood borrowed my photograph of a grain mill, and championed its preservation to the Lehigh County Commissioners. Her efforts resulted in Haines Mill being preserved. It was a time when the county commissioners understood the concept of history and uniqueness. The county now preserves farmland, with the pollyanna notion that farmers will spout there, wear straw hats, and sell organic vegetables on the weekends. Although 22,000 acres have already been preserved, the county just authorized additional $millions to that end. A comment in the Morning Call said that it will insure that we have food in the future. Amazing how little people know about how food gets to the supermarket in 2016. While there is nothing unique about this farmland, and nothing really guaranteed about the preservation, it seems like progress to the environmentalists. Meanwhile, the commissioners and Historical Society turn a deaf ear to Wehr's Dam and other irreplaceable structures, being needlessly destroyed.

That former teacher just passed away at 98 years of age. I still take photographs and champion for places that will never be again, but the current board of commissioners does not have the sense of history and aesthetics of their predecessors.

above reprinted from July of 2016

ADDENDUM JUNE 29, 2022: In 2016, I unsuccessfully attempted to lobby the county to intervene against the scheme to demolish Wehr's Dam. Only because of a complete change out of commissioners in South Whitehall is Wehr's Dam being saved, with no thanks to the County.

Jerry And The Cookie Lady

I'd usually pull in around 6:30 a.m., Jerry had the coffee made and maybe a deputy sheriff or two had already arrived. Downtown is nice in the early morning, most of the unsavory characters are not early risers. Jerry had opened the coffee and cold sandwich shop in around 2004 in the 500 Block of Hamilton Street. By 7:30 several City Councilmen, a few cops, a couple of gadflies and other assorted early morning types would be pontificating on solutions for Allentown. It sure didn't hurt Allentown to have twenty or so gainfully employed people start their day on Hamilton Street. Jerry had started his shop the old fashion way, with his own money. Toward the end of 2005, to accommodate several customers, Jerry made a few eggs on a flat George Forman Grill. Come 2006, the new regime insisted on a code compliant grill, exhaust and fire suppression system, for a couple eggs; The necessary architectural drawings alone would cost thousands. Because his location in the building didn't lend itself to a feasible exhaust system, Jerry was forced to relocate. Again, totally with his own money, Jerry moved his shop up to the corner of 7th and Hamilton. I'll spare all the details, but he could have built a nuclear reactor with no more bureaucracy. Jerry will never recoup his investment (his life savings) because the city closed the building in 2008 because of violations on upper floors which were not in use. That abuse of power is chronicled on several posts on this blog.

Vicky, the cookie lady, opened her very small shop about the same time the city was forcing Jerry out of business. Her shop, Vicky's Sweet Spot, opened in a building operated by one developer who received multiple facade grants from the city. These locations are easily identifiable from the same appearance, stained wood fronts. Although Vicky's shop is only about 250 sq. ft., only sold coffee and cookies, she received a $10,000 restaurant grant from The City of Allentown. Her grant and other similar ones are chronicled on several posts on this blog and of course she was introduced on Allentown Good News. I patronized her shop several times. The last time, right before she closed the business earlier this year, I noticed she was making eggs on a small grill.

I shouldn't have to elaborate on the conclusions, but there are so many apologists in this city, let me spell it out. One man invests his life savings, works his butt off, and gets nothing but grief from City Hall. Another person gets set up for a free ride at taxpayer expense. Vicky's, even after first opening, kept irregular hours and was often closed. I doubt if the whole show; rent, equipment, etc. used up the 10 grand; maybe that's why she called it the Sweet Spot.

above post is reprinted from August of 2009

ADDENDUM JUNE 28, 2022: Back in 2009 when the $10,000 grants offended me, I had no idea how it would turn out to be peanuts compared to the NIZ.  J. B. Reilly now has benefitted with over a $Billion dollars of privately owned real estate, funded with our diverted state taxes.

Back in 2009, Pawlowski and the establishment didn't appreciate my revelations at the time. Now,  J. B. Reilly and the establishment doesn't appreciate my posts.  I will always fight for a level playing field, and expose the tilts in the system, which the local main stream media chooses to ignore.