A Sign of the Times

Apparently, while myself and another one hundred citizens were pleading with City Council during the summer of 09, the Mayor was ordering a bronze thank you card. This plaque graces the rebuilt Ott Street bridge, which bisects Allentown's Amusement Park, formally known as Cedar Beach Park. From the paddle boats on the eastern end, to the new exercise apparatus at the western end, step right up, there's something for everyone. Extra parking permitted on the grass, between the trees.

As a local history buff, I'm familiar with a few other plaques which cite the then mayor, but believe that this one, immortalizing a city council, may be the first. Of course this may be the first city council to never vote no. The amusement park is water under the bridge. Although we ordered every conceivable item available in park recreation catalogs, it's now time to save the icons of our park system, the WPA structures. Hopefully this council will want to add it's name to those monuments.

WPA Meeting September 6, 7:00pm Allentown Library, lower level. Public and City Council invited.

Growth Industry In Allentown

Yesterday I went to the Social Security Office, across from the prison, to discuss my retirement options. I was given number 199. In addition to retirement, Social Security also dispenses money for disability. I would say from the gray hair, there were
about three of us contemplating retirement, all the others were for disability. A few middle age men were carrying their fake canes. The canes aren't fake, it's the disabilities. I saw one such gentleman walk in from the parking lot, clearly the cane bore no weight, and was merely a prop. Most of the people waiting were quite young, in their twenties. Disability has been expanded to include mental conditions such as depression, anxiety, additive personality and anger management. I will say many of them did look angry to me. It was hard finding a parking space. Business also looked good at the prison. If Johnny Manana's had gotten these crowds....

this post first appeared November 18, 2008

Comment Spawns Post

Occasionally, a comment results in another post. Yesterday, my post on the Poverty Magnet received a comment from someone identifying himself as a former council member.

former councilman said...
Anon 2:13 - You are right. With the current debt and baby boomers costs to medicare and social security only the middle class has enough money to pay the bill. Molovinsky writes a blog entitled "Poverty as a Growth Industry" and wants to avoid posts on taxes. He is living somewhere else. Ledebur thinks the tax cuts for the rich are to blame. He is wrong. It is Defense, Medicare and Social Security costs, current and those looming in the out years, that will bring this country to its knees.

August 6, 2011 5:42 PM

It is not apparent to me that the federal tax rates are related to the local poverty magnet, but former and current council members certainly contribute to that dilemma.. Actually, all council members, with few exceptions, are part of the problem, starting with Heydt's first term. I know that the former councilman commenting yesterday is in the problem group. The few exceptions have either passed away, or have enough accountability to comment by name. Since the Heydt era, the Community Block Grants have been used to subsidize various social agencies, which attract more poverty to the city. (Previously they were used for infrastructure) Each year the agencies and city officials meet in the council chamber. Have you ever watched the fish feed at the trout hatchery? I assume that the commenter feels that former councilman connotes expertise. I have attended too many council meetings to share that assumption.

second in the Bastard Series

Poverty As A Growth Industry

When I ran as an independent candidate for mayor in 2005, I was shunned for my politically incorrect statements. The Morning Call declined to run my photograph, allow me to participate in their sponsored debate, or profile my candidacy. Because I said that Allentown had become a poverty magnet, the NAACP president asked me to prove that I was not a racist. Since that time the community has learned that I never was a racist, the term Poverty Magnet is used by no less than Alan Jennings, but poverty continues as a growth industry. While the NAACP president was questioning me, he never disclosed that he was employed by Jennings. If organizations such as Jennings' Community Action Committee of The Lehigh Valley just serve existing poverty, or help attract more to the valley, remains a taboo question. As a center city property manager for many years, who asked thousands of people why they moved here, I knew the answer. Putting aside the Poverty Magnet, one thing is for certain; poverty is a growth industry. Jennings and other poverty entrepreneurs would have you believe that they alone provide for the poor among us. Actually the city, county and state have thousands of employees and millions of dollars for that purpose. Jennings' organization became so large, that when he complains of one cutback, another branch is receiving grants. Three years into the great recession, a state sponsored job training program is finally cutting back. Considering the want ads have been non-existent, who have they been training for what? Jennings will go on. Years ago Habitat for Humanity built a few houses on N. 5th Street. Although the newspaper article stated the new owners put in sweat equity, in fact, they could hardly get near the place. Different congregations were literally lined up and waiting to work, they needed a coordinator to keep it from being too crowded and dangerous. There is always a corporation or a church looking to feel good about itself. Occasionally, there will be a bastard like me, to question what's really going on.

this post was written with a grant from the Council of Bastards

N. 6th Street

Allentown has just designated the neighborhood west of the Jordan to 7th Street, and between Linden and Tilghman Streets, as Jordan Heights. The area encompasses the Old Fairgrounds Historic District. Allentown's old fairground, in the years between 1852-1888, was in the vicinity of 6th and Liberty. It was an open space, as is the current fairground at 17th and Chew Streets. When my grandparents moved to 301 Jordan Street, it was a modern house, just built in 1895. The suburbs then were between Jordan and 7th. The Jewish Community Center was built on the corner of 6th and Chew, today known as Alliance Hall.
I wish the Jordan Heights initiative well. There's a lot of history in those 24 square blocks, and hopefully much future.

excerpted from a July, 2010 post
photo N 6th St., 1949

A Memory Loss

I believe Milton Carrero is the new health reporter for The Morning Call. I suppose new is a relevant term. He's been there for six months now, by current Morning Call standards that might make him an old timer. He's been doing some good health stories about people, he might also consider one about the lack of institutional memory at the paper. Yesterday, his story about a caring Emmaus hairstylist, Shirley Klotz, was touching. She made a special effort for a client who lost her hair from chemotherapy. What might not be known, is that this hairstylist was also news years ago, while operating a salon on 15th Street in Allentown. At that time, she intentionally put herself between a client and an armed robber who entered her shop, getting shot for her good deed. The shop was directly across the street from Roy Afflerbach's house, then mayor of Allentown. The trauma chased her and her customers out of Allentown, to Emmaus. It also changed the perception of the neighborhood, from being away from the problem zone, to being part of it. Mr. Carrero not only interviewed a caring person recently, but a genuine hero.

Trexler Smiles, Landing Revealed

I believe that today, for the first time in decades, General Trexler had something to smile about. Most people never understood why three steps were near the lower entrance of Lehigh Parkway; they seemed to lead nowhere. This morning eight people joined a grass root effort to unveil, for the first time in decades, the structure I called the Boat Landing.

Buried under the dirt and grass were several more steps leading to a landing. Chris Casey was the first to arrive and cleared these steps and the first landing himself. A second set of steps led from the landing to the main landing on the creek. These second steps had a foot or so of ground and plants.

The quality and condition of the stonework is excellent, as was all our WPA icons. I will be polite and say only that it was a crime to have let this neglect occur. On the main landing the accumulated earth was two and half feet thick. The crew dug out the curving retaining wall several yards in each direction, and cleared off the top of the wall.

Eight people working four hours managed to reveal about one third of the landing at the bottom of the steps. It was a thrill to realize we were standing at creek's edge as the WPA architects had envisioned. I stood there often as a boy. There still remains a large portion of dirt to remove at the steps base, but you can now experience the Boat Landing.

The retaining wall and the landing continue for fifty feet or so in both directions. Unfortunately a huge tree has grown on the landing to the right, but the left appears reclaimable.

We who worked there today, hope to return and clear off the remainder of the dirt at the bottom of the steps.

Perhaps others will be motivated to clear off the remaining portion of the landing to the left. Now that might even be an idea for the City; imagine restoring an irreplaceable icon instead of buying something from a catalogue. I'm most grateful to all those who helped today, and will reveal their names with their permission.

ADDENDUM:Michael –

I just wanted to thank you for organizing today’s cleanup at the “Boat Landing” in the Lehigh Parkway. It’s not often that one gets to help unearth a treasure while barely leaving home, but that’s exactly what happened today.

It was truly impressive what big difference a small group of people can make. I can’t even estimate the amount of dirt that was moved with nothing more than a few shovels and a lot of hard work.

We can only hope that the City and the Trexler Trust will become aware of this location and start giving all the great structures in the Parkway the care they deserve.

However, the best part of the story for me came after we all left. I got home and my daughter Lucy (age 7) wanted to know how things went. We hopped in the car and soon we were walking up to the stairs leading to the landing. The sun was shining, and the sunlight trickled through the trees and onto the freshly-exposed stairway.

Lucy asked if she could go down to the landing by the water and next thing I knew we were both there at the waters edge, standing on what had been buried only a few hours earlier and marveling at the beauty of the location.

We spent a few moments there - a father and daughter both enjoying something completely “new” to us (even though the landing is over 70 years old). We talked briefly about what was – and more importantly what could be again.

Thank you for making that moment possible, and I hope many others take the opportunity to visit the landing in the near future.

Mike Schware

P.S. – After visiting the landing, Lucy and I walked further upstream and saw the remnants of the bridge to the island (near the water fountain). The remaining supports of the bridge confirmed what you had told me earlier about the island being much smaller years ago.

reprinted from October 10, 2009

I will be conducting a meeting on Sept. 6, 2011, dedicated to preserving the monumental WPA structures in our park system. The park department will send a representative. Please consider joining us, at 7:00 pm, in the lower level of the Allentown Library.