As Allentown Turned Last Week

Last week I reported that the Morning Call was taking back their story about the immigrant deported to Guatemala by ICE, bit by bit. They started doing this after a national columnist, who the Call themselves have used in the past, reported that the story was fake. The columnist, Jonathan Turley, wrote that newspapers can't resist overlooking usual verification when the subject matter is ICE, or other social justice issues...It's called advocacy journalism. In the current MC article, the paper simply states,  The Morning Call has since unpublished those stories based on additional information that has come to light. While the original story was signed by reporter names, the current article is signed Morning Call staff.

Last week I got the following comment...Hey Mike if you ever need a break i started my own blog under Allentown Truth. While the blogger is anonymous, he uses the pseudonym Honest Abe. I always need, but never take a break. I have included Allentown Truth on the blog list located on the sidebar of my desktop version.

staff photo

The 37th Sport, Grass Parking

The theme of the SportsFest coverage on Sunday was that 36 different sports were being played at one location, CedarBeach Park. Anybody who drove up either Ott or Hamilton Street knows that records were also broken in Grass Parking. Rented security personnel continued directing vehicles to the meadow just west of the swimming pool, and up to the tree planted area toward Hamilton Street, until every square foot was jam packed. I'm conflicted about parking on the grass. Although MayFair through Sportsfest is certainly rough on the grass, it's only two months of the year, and thousands of people are served by the events. I do find it environmentally hypocritical to park on the grass, but institute a no mow zone denying access and view of the stream. Perhaps the Park Department should conduct a public input meeting on these issues. Could you imagine a meeting with citizens and the Park Department, without paid consultants, and projects which cost $millions? 

above reprinted from July of 2012 

ADDENDUM JULY 28, 2025: AwesomeFest is Sportsfest on steroids, which I suppose is a dirty word in sports competition. Although that former open space toward Hamilton Street is now planted orchard style with trees, the cars park in the park everywhere else, including on the grass along Linden Street. About twenty years ago, the Trexler Trust had a study commissioned which concluded that CedarBeach Park was being overused, and that was with a fraction of the current events held there now. Also, since that time, the Trexler Trust has relinquished any pretext of monitoring the park department for agendas outside of their founder's intent...on the contrary, they have become merely silent sycophants of the park department, with a big wallet.

Allentown's Council Of Disappointment

Allentown City Council never fails to disappoint. On Wednesday evening they voted to fund another non-profit to promote business on Hamilton Street. Although J.B. Reilly essentially now owns Hamilton Street, the taxpayers are once again providing a service to enrich him...we're also dressing up the buildings he doesn't own, to make the streetscape better for him. Council was told  "a thriving downtown is the heartbeat of a city, and that success would permeate throughout the entire city." 

Ce-Ce Gerlach wanted to know what color the people working for the new non-profit will be? In our Allentown, color is more important than actual qualifications. Cynthia Mota said "With this initiative, I'm excited that the wealth will be trickling down.” 

I see the this new non-profit as another job program, like Promise Neighborhoods. Although it won't fulfill the mission that it was created for, it will give some people a paycheck, and make other people feel better about themselves.

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The Morning Call and Matt Tuerk Jump In Ice Water

Many people, even a conservative independent like myself, are distressed about immigrants being sent to El Salvador and the new Alligator Alcatraz. While I fully support our beefed up southern border, some due process should be required for the current ICE grabs within the country. It appears as if the Morning Call went with a family's claim that their grandfather was grabbed in Philadelphia and deported to Guatemala. The family then updated their story that he was in a hospital in Guatemala, but didn't want to return to the USA. Guatemala claims that he was never there, in prison or hospital. Earlier in the month, Mayor Matt Tuerk asked a local judge to review ICE activity at the courthouse.

The Morning Call's disputed story on a supposed ICE-nap is featured on Jonathan Turley's column. Although the Call has walked the story back in bits and pieces, Turley thinks that left of center newspapers can't resist overlooking usual verification when the subject matter is ICE or other social justice issues, calling it advocacy journalism. 

I initially hesitated about this post... but then I recalled that about a decade ago, when I was championing for Wehr's Dam, the paper was resisting publishing a letter of mine on the Opinion Page. The editor claimed that my letter was just my opinion, not verifiable facts. Imagine sending an opinion to the opinion page!

shown above Kristi Noem and prisoners checking each other out in El Salvador

The Union Terrace Train

The Conrail engine backs across Walnut Street, as it delivers a flatbed of large granite slaps and blocks to the Wentz Memorial Company, by 20th and Hamilton Streets. Years earlier, the spur route extended across Hamilton Street and terminated at the building across from school district stadium, now occupied by the park department. On its run to Wentz, it went through the auto junkyard, continued on past the now closed Allentown Metal Works, and crossed the trestle in Lehigh Parkway. At Union Terrace the track was next to the former ice skating pond, behind the WPA Amphitheater Stage Mound. This photograph was taken by Dave Latshaw in the 1979, and is part of the Mark Rabenold collection. Rabenold is a local train historian, specializing in Allentown's former branch lines.

reprinted from September 2011

ADDENDUM JULY 23, 2025:In addition the little train trestle, there was also a small pedestrian bridge to Union Terrace from Walnut Street. Rather than being repaired, that small walk bridge was removed about a decade ago, isolating the park from Walnut Street. Restoring that bridge should be a priority of the park system.

End Of The Line In Allentown

Shown above is the former Wentz Tombstone shop at 20th and Hamilton Streets. Shown leading up to the workshop were tracks of the former Quarry Barber train spur.  Many years earlier, the line crossed Hamilton and served a former soda bottling plant on Linden Street, behind the stadium.  That building eventually was taken over by the park department, which allowed it to deteriorate, rather than replace the roof. The park department still believes in neglect, rather than maintenance.  

Before the flatcar with granite reached the tombstone plant, it traveled between the stage and pond at Union Terrace. Two small bridges crossed the waterway behind the pond, one for the train and one for pedestrians coming to the park from Walnut Street.

I have been campaigning to get the park department to replace the pedestrian bridge it had removed, rather than repair it about eight years ago. There is nobody in the administration that remembers the bridge, they're all newcomers to town. But I remember, and I don't mind reminding them.