Homeless and Roller Hockey on Jordan Creek

This past Friday I visited the Jordan Meadows pathway for the first time.  The pathway itself is on the west ridge above the creek, while the large homeless encampment is down the slope, on the creek itself.  The city organized a trash pickup over several days, the last occurring on Friday. I passed a few do-gooders with a photographer in tow.

While the park department has built a large multi-sport complex on the east side of the creek, the purpose of the west side walk path, beyond accommodating the homeless, isn't clear to me. While the east bank sports a new lighting system,  the only recent investment on the west side was by Nat Hyman, to his lawyer. Hyman, after donating land for the walkway, feels forced to sue the city to maintain quality of life for his tenants, impacted by the homeless encampment. Rather than relocate the homeless, the city is encouraging the situation by supposedly supplying porta johns and trash containers. A previous homeless encampment near Basin Street, which was not impacting any rent paying tenants, was dismantled by the city to facilitate a commercial real estate deal. Furthermore, they built that commercial developer a $million plus private bridge off Martin Luther King Blvd.

As an advocate for the traditional park system, the placement of the sports complex puzzled me.,,Bucky Boyle served the area for years. Saturday found me back at Jordan Meadows, this time on the east sports complex side. Speaking to guys playing both handball and basketball, none of them have ever seen any activity at the roller hockey field. Hopefully that will change, because the city has just reconfigured the field for soccer.

Crime In Cedar Park

Subscribers to this blog know that for years I have been advocating for the park department to keep the large pavilion in the picnic grove. Instead, with typical bureaucratic mentality, they submitted the structure to benign neglect, intent on replacement. 

That former beautiful structure met its demise yesterday.  A park employee gave me the company line that it wasn't safe. What won't be as safe is its metal lightning rod replacement. In addition to bad planning, talk about bad timing!! Now, after all these years, they tear it down right before the picnic season begins?

While some in the administration don't appreciate my unsolicited sidewalk supervision, I actually have been holding my tongue on many items. If I printed my punch list for the parks, I'd have to have five posts a day. Like Popeye, now-a-days I only speak out on the things I can't stand anymore.

A Meat Market In Easton

When I was in high school my father owned a small meat market in Easton. It was called Melbern, and was on South 4th Street. That small row of old buildings was replaced in the early 1980's by the current KWM Insurance Agency. I spent my high school summers working in the meat market, and exploring Northampton Street on my lunch breaks. 

Recently, I returned to retrace my steps. Back then I would walk down to the circle for lunch, usually stopping to visit a friend who worked at the lunchmeat counter in the five and dime. The circle is still busy with a lunch crowd, even without a NIZ subsidized by Pennsylvania taxpayers. 

The buildings, for the most part, are original and charming. Easton is up and coming, because it wasn't lucky enough to become revitalized with sterile towers of architectural mediocrity.

I even stopped in to visit Sal Panto at the new city hall. I suspect he saw me coming through a surveillance system, because his secretary assured me that he wasn't in. 

 reprinted from April of 2018 

Freight train crossing river in Easton in 1939

Allentown's $10Million Dollar Joke

Allentown is embarrassed about the Gateway appearance entering downtown Hamilton Street from the west.  Allentown has a lot to be embarrassed about, but the condition of the sidewalk is the least of its problems.  People are concerned about the lack of people on Hamilton Street, and more so, the character of the ones that are there!

Our city leaders and planners are taking about a new sidewalk and new trees. Over the years I have seen them reconfigure that sidewalk at least half a dozen times. Add trees, cut down trees, wrong trees, right trees, add bricks, remove bricks, and never have those things mattered.  

What's sad is these planners know that it doesn't matter, that it's a joke, yet they still do it.

If the new buildings in the above rendering of the new Gateway sidewalk/tree project look lifeless and nondescript, it is because those new buildings are lifeless and nondescript. If I have offended any of the planners, then we're even.

above reprinted from December of 2022

ADDENDUM APRIL 30, 2025: A current piece in the Morning Call is about Urban Forestry. Apparently, there is a grant for sidewalk trees. I can tell you that today's trees are tomorrow's sidewalk replacement, and in Allentown that is generally at the homeowner's expense. Trees and sidewalks are not compatible for the long term.

Weber, The Wizard

During the vaudeville heyday of stage magic, star magicians such as Thurston and Blackstone, while performing at the Lyric Theatre(Symphony Hall), could be found staying and visiting at the Weber household in Allentown. Herman L. Weber, a contemporary and friend of Houdini, was known as Namreh, the Magician and also as Weber, the Wizard. Twice, during 1930's and 40's, he traveled coast to coast with his traveling magic show. Allentown has a rich tradition of magic and a long standing chapter of the International Brotherhood of Magicians.

Herman Weber lived on N. 17th St., and had two sons, Robert and William

reprinted from December of 2008, in memory of Robert and William Weber

Neuweiler Nights

The Limey drove an old Plymouth to work. My friend Johnny walked 3 blocks to work. I rode the bus. We all slaved in the dye house at Third and Allen Streets in Allentown about a hundred years ago.

Danny Bokeko, Subby, Joe Alizirri Jr., Jimmy the numbers runner, and George ("me rent and me eats") were some more of us.

We were all pretending to be tough guys. But Johnny really was tough. It was the way he had been brought up. Yet, although he was a bruiser, he was amazingly tolerant and gentle (in contrast to his dad). He was actually John Eugene Vasilik, III. When you called him on the telephone, his father John, Jr., usually answered and you had better ask for John Eugene Vasilik, THE THIRD. The whole enchilada! "WHO do you want--the father or the son?" "Why don’t you ask RIGHT?"

Johnny’s father was shorter than his two sons, but a nasty SOB if there ever was one. He was continually belligerent and would never back down. He badmouthed a bartender at the Dial Inn down in the ward one night and got beat up. The very next day he was back at the Dial Inn tormenting the same guy, arguing, provoking, and cursing--just totally nuts!

The Limey would pick me up at night and we would hang on the corner at 3rd and Hamilton Streets with Johnny. There was always something happening. We got to know the cops fairly well. Sometimes we would sit in Jim The Greek's. The cockroaches were big as mice. Johnny was always hungry and ate with impunity. I would only have bottled soda.

I worked at the Allen Dye House for two and a half years and then my father died and my brother and I took over the business that my Dad had started from our home. So I sort of drifted away from the colorful life down in the ward. Two years later Harry Birch (The Limey) went back to England and Johnny left the dye house to work at Neuweiler’s Brewery with his Dad.

Johnny’s father had a round depression sunken into his forehead about the size of half a golf ball. Very noticeable. Johnny never knew the story behind it. Can you imagine even ASKING? Johnny worked in the brewery while his Dad drove a beer truck. So how did their coworkers differentiate between these two Johnnies? They called the FATHER, "John." And they called the SON, "Hole-In-The-Head," or just "Hole."

After Johnny needed to wear eyeglasses, however, they began calling him, "Four-Eyes." Some time later he thought he would outfox them by getting contact lenses. You guessed it. Johnny had earned the moniker, "Contact."

Everyone called me, "Clint," because I resembled a guy on a TV show, "Clint and Bullets." I had never seen the show. Maybe it is just as well.

Two days after the September 11th tragedies, a phone call from England came on my answering machine. It was The Limey, Harry Birch; after all of these years asking for Clint and wishing me well.


NARRATIVE BY WILLIAM WEBER, WEST PARK ICON, HISTORIAN AND REALTOR OF CHOICE (BONDED REALTY)

reprinted from April 20, 2009, in memory of William Weber