Trolley Demise in Allentown

A fellow blogger, a younger urbanist sort, speculated that automobiles put the end to trolleys in the Lehigh Valley. He was half right, actually it was the Mad Men from General Motors. In the early 1950's, Americans were still a one car family, even in the prosperous Lehigh Valley. The mass transit system was still full of the other family members, still using the system for work, shopping and school. Between the late 1940's and 1953, Hamilton Street had both trolleys and buses. In the late 40's, General Motors wined and dined transit officials all over the country, exhorting the benefits of their buses. Shown above is a Lehigh Valley Transit work car, towing a trolley to Bethlehem Steel to be scrapped. The photograph was taken in 1952 on St. John Street, heading toward the Fountain Hill route. In June of 1953, the last trolley would run on Hamilton Street.

Dinosaur in Digital Age

I am for sure a dinosaur in the digital age. Although I did purchase a small compact digital camera about three years ago, I remain in the point and shoot mode. To be honest, the pictures were fine, especially for a blog which uses images only about 2X3 inches. Never the less, being an old camera addict, I have begun to research available digital alternatives. There is a new photographic phrase called street photography, and descriptions of camera's most suited to that pursuit. As an old photographer from the street, I find that amusing.
UPDATE: We are fortunate here in the valley to now have two full service photography stores. Both Cardinal Camera's new branch at the Promenade, and Dan's Camera City, have the inventory and expertise to help any dinosaur. I'm impressed with the compact Olympus Pen series, featuring interchangeable lenses and a large 4/3 sensor.
molovinsky/Boston Common, 1967

Who Needs Shopping

It was my intention to do a couple of posts on the old line Allentown merchants, both of them. I called the first The Gems of Allentown, although it dealt with yarn. I chose that title because the second post was to be on Salomon Jewelers. Salomon and Tucker Yarn were all that was left of Allentown's merchants, from before the Pawlowski era. Yesterday, I received a comment from a reader called The Voice of Reason

I recall that about 35 years ago, bethlehem had a grandious plan to reinvent downtown Bethlehem. The area between Center, Church, Union and the Monocacy Creek was to be razed and rebuilt with a mall, a convention center, a performance center, parking decks, office towers and residential buildings. The model was beautiful and you could hardly recognize the "old" Bethlehem.... Fast forward to 2011 - It took twenty-five years to finally develop the section between Guetter and Main. It took longer to replace the void at the NE corner of Broad and New. An office tower and a failed attempt at a "mall" remain in the other section. Luckily, cool heads prevailed and the rest of the plan was scrapped. Can you imaging a Main Street without the Sun Inn? Imaging a Main Street without any of the Victorian buildings that exist from Broad to Church. These buildings arguably make bethlehem unique ....
I hope against hope that there may be a similar awakening in Allentown; just because you can do something, doesn't mean that you should. VOR

Yesterday, an article in The Morning Call reported that Salomon's are leaving Allentown.* He has sold his Hamilton Street building to developer J.B. Reilly and will relocate the business west of the city. Salomon hit no home run on the sale. Reilly recently paid as much for a building, across from the arena block, which has been boarded up near 7th and Linden for years. It's apparent to me that Salomon is less than enthusiastic about Allentown's transformational plans, at least as a merchant. Who needs shopping anyway?
Salomon will remain open during the holidays through June

Jersey Joe

It took five attempts and 20 years for Jersey Joe Walcott to finally win the Heavyweight Championship, at age 37. After only one title defense, the rematch against former champion Ezzard Charles, Jersey Joe stepped into the ring with the hard punching Rocky Marciano, who was ten years younger. Marciano was knocked down in round one, for the first time in his career. Although Walcott would gamely defend his hard won crown, the end came in 13th round, shown in the classic photo above. In the following rematch, Walcott's career would end, after being knocked out in the first round.
enlarge photo by clicking

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 it's run to Wentz's, 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.

A Rude Visit

When Irene stormed through Cedar Park, she knocked down and broke a number of the old willow trees. The sight of these magnificent trees along the creek banks, is the view-shed cherished by us proponents of the historical park system. As a boy in 1955, I remember the same damage in the aftermath of Hurricane Diane. Many of the remaining willows are now about 75 years old. Although they held the creek banks together for three generations, they have lost favor to riparian buffers.


It's nice to sit by the bank under a willow tree and watch the ducks swim by. Hopefully, somewhere along the banks of the Little Lehigh and Cedar Creek, there is still some open space for a few new weeping willows.
please click on photos to enlarge

The End of the End

Yesterday, The Morning Call had a story about the trolley era, including some excellent pictures. Although I take exception with some details in that article, it has motivated me to publish this picture from 1951, which I had intended on using after the bulldozer. Not only are the trolleys gone, but soon all buildings shown here will also be gone. The exception is the Farr Building on the far left, and the Dime Bank, not shown in this picture. Although people still walk and shop the historic busy block, soon it will house the Pawlowski Palace of Sport, laying dormant every day, and I suspect many evenings. It is the end of the end.

WPA Fountain Park Tour report added to post below.