A Citizen's Reply to Mayor Tuerk

When I read Mayor Tuerk's New Year message in the Morning Call last Thursday,  I thought that a citizen's reply was in order, and that I was just the citizen to make it.  As a long time activist and blogger, I think even our best elected officials benefit from a critique now and then.

Tuerk is hopeful that Allentown will receive a large grant for retraining people for employment. Allentown has no shortage of new buildings in center city, on the contrary. They are very unique, because they are publicly funded, but privately owned, and mostly by one man. When the legislation enabling this unique situation was slid through Harrisburg, the promise was that this windfall tide would raise everybody's ship. As it is turning out, the taxpayers got no relief, and we're hoping to retrain the jobless? In the real world, where politicians never dwell, those jobs in those new buildings require college degrees, and our jobless are apparently not interested in blue collar jobs, because industry can't find enough workers.

While the mayor wrote about firefighting, more personnel and equipment, he didn't say much about crimefighting.  This oversight came on the heels of a very bloody weekend, with six shootings.  While Tuerk probably wrote the editorial before the weekend, public safety has been on everybody's mind for a long time. Many believe that there is generally a lack of police enforcement, characterized by loud cars double parking.  We keep seeing reference to some supposed non-profits fighting violence. I can assure the mayor that citizens want the police doing that job. While those references to non-profits may pay good political dividends, they don't make improved public safety. 

Mayor Tuerk devoted considerable column space to trees and the environment,  but not one word about our schools. While the schools are separate from City Hall,  their quality goes hand in hand with quality of life in Allentown. Quality of life goes hand in hand with the perception of civility. Civility is perceived by clean quiet streets. 

Tuerk's column was preaching to the wrong choir. Those of us who still subscribe to our local newspaper don't care about grants and their usually false promise of a better life. From City Hall we want a better life in more simpler ways, like cleaner streets with more police cars.

photo of Tuerk at city council/molovinsky

Morning Call A Day Late And A Mile Off

A shooting in the 300 Block of Hamilton Street Thursday evening didn't make the paper until noon on Saturday, then it was described as on East Hamilton Street. The timely video report on WFMZ clearly showed the police presence just west of 2nd and Hamilton Streets. 

I do not believe that the Morning Call was intentionally downplaying the shooting.  Rather perhaps the reporter  didn't realize that East Hamilton Street is on the other side of the Lehigh River.  On Monday the Morning Call was still using the erroneous East Hamilton Street location.

Institutional knowledge of the town is getting thinner and thinner at 6th & Linden.  Of course now 6th & Linden is just a figure of speech, with the paper no longer having a physical presence there or anywhere.  I do however appreciate and admire that they still produce the paper under that handicap.

artwork by Allentown native Mark Beyer

Greetings From Northampton County

Over the last few days residents of Northampton County were greeted by the accomplishments of their elected officials by letter after letter in the Morning Call and anywhere else that would print them. These holiday messages came from Susan Wild in Washington, Boscola in Harrisburg and Mcclure in Easton. 

While those accomplishments may have resonated with some voters, I doubt that they impressed the depressed north of Easton along the Delaware.  Route 611, between Portland and the Water Gap has been closed for over a year. Although there is bureaucratic mumble jumbo about permits, clearly there is no influential important entity along that stretch. Even the iconic jazz spot, the Deer Head Inn, is shuttered.

During WW2 we built 2000 ships and 300,000 planes. How long would it have taken them to remove some rocks from a strategic road back then?

Welcome To The Vendig

In 1933, with the end of Prohibition, my grandparents(maternal) started operating the Vendig Hotel. They were the working partners, another immigrant family, here longer, were the silent backers. The hotel was directly across from the current Main Street Depot Restaurant in Bethlehem, which was the old New Jersey Line Terminal. With my grandmother cooking, they became well known for crab cakes and other shelled seafood. What wasn't known, was that she was strictly kosher, and never even tasted anything she prepared. As some may recall, my grandparents came from Hungarian Transylvania (now Romania) in the early 20's. Family lore* says Bela Lugosi visited the hotel. Lugosi was born in the same area of then Hungary, and started his acting career playing Jesus in Passion Plays. In 1931, after immigrating to America years earlier, he got his big break playing Dracula. Typecast as a villain, Lugosi was reduced in later years to drug addiction and playing in low budget monster films. He died in the mid 50's and was buried in his Dracula cape.

*My uncle, who as a boy lived above the hotel, had no recollection of Lugosi. The partner families would later merge through marriage, and 40 years later come to own the old vaudeville theater in South Bethlehem known as The Globe. It too is gone.                                                      

reprinted from 2008

Allentown Johnny Leonard

Born Johnny Lakatosh in 1902, Allentown Johnny Leonard fought between 1920 and 1928. Allentown became part of his fight name, to identify him from another Leonard of that period. Although the tough featherweight never got a title shot, he fought and beat some of the best, including the future champions. Fifteen of his fights occurred in Allentown, one at the Lyric Theater, now known as Symphony Hall. Many of his other Allentown fights probably took place at Mealey Auditorium, which was located in the vicinity of 4th and Hamilton. Allentown Johnny's record was 32/27/11.

reprinted from March of 2013

The Price Of Criticism

Being a watchman is not without cost. I would have little motivation to labour with this blog, five days a week, if I had to consider local government and the press off limits. I had requested pre-event publicity about the Parkway WPA Tour from The Morning Call. I sent the request to five staff members, covering all pay grades of decision. Although I received no replies, the paper demonstrated that they had both the resources and space for coverage, if they so desired. On Thursday, they dispatched a photographer to the park. Friday's paper contained about a half page spread, with two large photographs of a women and her dogs. A large vertical caption elaborated about huskies and next week's weather. This is National History Month, as another feature in the paper pointed out. Allentown's new generation, and its new residents, know little to nothing about the stone structures which are the signatures of our park system. Roosevelt, the depression, the New Deal, and the WPA might have some relevance during History Month. Today's WPA Tour didn't suffer from the paper's boycott of me, about 30 people attended. I suspect the paper will catch up on our WPA treasures, albeit minus myself. Allentown has just appointed a new park director. Let us hope he develops an interest in the treasures of Allentown.
UPDATE: I would like to express my gratitude to everybody who came out yesterday, to both support and learn about the WPA structures. I know that because of the nice weather and fishing season, parking was a challenge. I would also like to express my gratitude to Friends Of Allentown Parks, for adopting the WPA cause. I look forward in the future to conducting another such Discovery Walk. This coming fall we will conduct another Allentown WPA Association meeting, to which I hope to attract more converts. Again, thank you.

reprinted from April of 2013

ADDENDUM JANUARY 3, 2024: The Tuerk administration had shown no interest even in my early offers for park tours, and I assume that with my recent criticism of the administration, my stock is even lower.  Likewise, my rapport with the Morning Call has not improved.