An Attempt To Smear AlfonsoTodd

There is an effort under way to sabotage Alfonso Todd's candidacy by Bill Villa. Apparently, Todd has some issues with his driving record, which Villa managed to uncover, and distribute. I first started receiving emails from Villa smearing Todd several weeks ago. Alfonso is on Villa's enemy list, along with dozens of other people, who never in reality caused him any harm. When you're on Villa's list, he contacts your employer, and complains that you're sadistically provoking him, even though in truth he's harassing you. If the boss doesn't comply with Villa's demands, then the boss goes on the list, and Villa contacts the boss's superiors, making the same demand. It is in this way that all the local college deans made the list. Also included are ministers, priests and bishops. Todd decided to go public with this attack on him and submitted a comment to my blog. A little OT and I KNOW it won't make the Morning Call but this is how Candidates for City Council are treated.... So, I have received my first threat of BLACK MAIL since I began running for the office of ALLENTOWN CITY COUNCIL. Now, 3 people had warned me that this would happen and I was like OK. But when they dig up what they THINK is going to embarrass you and will make you drop out of a race that I KNOW will help Allentown,PA become a better place, then I have no choice but to do as I said I was going to do and offer full transparency ANSWER: Sure, parking tickets and a forgotten ticket. It happens and as a human (average person) I have made mistakes. I have paid or am paying my fines and i move on. It still has nothing to do with my desire to make Allentown, PA into a better place for my children, your children, and everyone else. My past has nothing to do with the great future I envison for Allentown. Thanks for the information by the way. It's appreciated! Alfonso Todd 484 619 6541 Todd's correct in that this would probably not have made The Morning Call. The only person less likely to be mentioned in the paper than me is Bill Villa, who has put most of their staff on his enemy list.

Allentown Becomes A Monarchy

Park and Shop Lots

Downtown Allentown boomed for about 100 years. During the prosperity years following World War II, the two car family emerged. Several business leaders of Allentown realized both the parking problem and the potential to enhance sales. Park and Shop was begun by Harvey Farr, Donald Miller and John Leh. The current small parking deck at 10th and Hamilton, above the current uptown police substation, was the first deck in the country. To make the parking lots, shown in the postcard above, houses were purchased and torn down. Although the gentlemen mentioned in this article profited from their influence, they always provided solutions for the betterment of the community. They seemed to be a benevolent oligarchy. As the viability of the Park And Shop enterprise declined along with the intercity shopping, The Allentown Parking Authority was conveniently formed by local politicians, and it purchased the lots using Municipal bonds; The process allowed the aforementioned gentleman to land on their feet, in a downward market.

Flash ahead thirty five years to another downward market, and we have one gentleman, J.B. Reilly, buying up center-city with municipal bonds backed by state taxes. Reilly has purchased far more property than ever owned by Park and Shop. He has purchased virtually the four square blocks surrounding the arena, a significant portion of the Neighborhood Improvement Zone(NIZ). Again the process was facilitated by our elected officials. Let us hope that the new monarchy will be as benevolent as the old oligarchy. reprinted from November 2012                                                                                                                                                                                                 UPDATE: There was never any criticism of the old oligarchy, because one of the members, Donald Miller, owned the newspaper, The Morning Call. Flash ahead thirty five years, and again there is no criticism of the new monarchy by The Morning Call. Instead, on the contrary, valid questions raised by the alternative media, such as this blog, are dismissed as misguided and snide. Morning Call readers know that Reilly acquired property, but they don't know that with three exceptions, he acquired all the property adjoining the arena block. They are given the deed transfer dates as proof of no insider information, while ignoring the real relevant dates when agreements of sales were pushed on the owners. This distorted reporting goes back to the beginning of the project. In the first meeting, between the former merchants of Hamilton Street and the Pawlowski administration, the merchants complained that they didn't know the identity of the real buyer. While Sara Hailstone admitted the buyer was indeed the city, and that the realtors involved were indeed strawbuyers, those details never made the paper, despite the reporter's presence at the meeting. Similar intimidation tactics were used by Reilly in assembling his current monopoly of adjoining arena property. Similar cover is again being provided by The Morning Call.

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 surviving uncle, who as a boy lived above the hotel, has 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 June of 2008

The Morning Call Can't Spell Molovinsky

Out of frustration, J.B. and Kathleen Reilly have stopped reading the political blogs that snidely refer to downtown Allentown as Reillyville or Reillytown, so writes Scott Kraus and Matt Assad in today's feature story. Although a large portion of the article defends against criticism from this blog, including the phrases Reillyville and Reillytown, reporters and editors have once again chosen to not give attribution to molovinsky on allentown. Although perhaps J.B. has stopped reading this blog, I know that Kraus and Assad are reading these words: So boys, here's the biggie you missed today. You forgot to mention that the City gave Reilly $20 million (loaned from National Penn) in seed money, with no specifications, which he used to buy those 32 properties for $15.1 million. I say the City, because the loan was made even before the NIZ Authority was formed. You forgot to mention that some of the owners displaced by Reilly's buying spree felt intimidated, supposedly even including the possibility of eminent domain. Although you keep parroting Pawlowski's premise of risk on Reilly's part, the only real risk was ours. Although you have presented a defense against all the apparent connections, the fact remains that we now have Reillyville.
UPDATE: Kraus and Assad write; records show he(Reilly) didn't buy his first new property until March 2011 — three months after the new downtown NIZ map was adopted, and a week after the city publicly announced it was shifting the arena downtown. Public records refer to deed transfers, but when were the Agreements of Sale signed? Reilly wonders why other developers are not taking advantage of the NIZ.  Perhaps because Reilly has already purchased all the adjoining blocks? Perhaps because they are not assured that their project will be granted the same NIZ Authority approval, necessary for  the tax debt funding, being enjoyed by Reilly?  

Cliffsmanship vs. Disingenuity

At Tom Muller's press conference announcing his candidacy for County Executive, he said he created a word, Cliffsmanship, to describe the dreaded reform slate of commissioners. I have a hard enough time using existing words properly, but I do know disingenuous when I hear it. Muller said he isn't interested in the national debate on spending, that's an issue for our representatives in Washington. However, supposedly he was interested enough in the national discussion to change parties back in May. Speaking of last spring, here's his story back then: Cunningham indicated today he would choose Thomas Muller, the county's director of administration. Muller is a Republican, so he would not be eligible for the permanent job, and said he would not be interested in it anyway. After that statement, Tommy apparently scampered down to the lower level of Government Center and changed his voter registration. He will now be negotiating with the County unions as a Democratic candidate for Executive; Donny Cunningham the Second.

A Personal Journey

I was at a party where the host recently acquired a lawn sculpture. Unknown to him, a section of it was comprised of an old Jewish tombstone, of a wife and mother who died at the age of 25 in 1918. It's a beautiful carving of a branch less tree trunk, symbolizing a life ended prematurely. I became concerned as to where this stone had come from. Who would know if their great-grandmother's stone was taken?
I had no idea where my great-grandmother was buried. I searched for this young woman's grave. Finally, Rabbi Juda directed me to the old Agudath Achim Cemetery in Fountain Hill. There I found the woman, M. Azrilian, with a new grave marker. Next to her lies Jeannie Molovinsky, my great-grandmother. 
My thanks to Rabbi Juda and M. Azrilian (1893-1918)

I wrote the above piece on July 18, 1997. In my search for M. Azrilian, I discovered Mt. Sinai Cemetery inside Fairview Cemetery on Lehigh St., subject of one my early posts. The photograph above is the Mt. of Olives in Jerusalem.                                                                           reprinted from 2008                                                                                                                     UPDATE:   My grandfather came to Allentown as a young man in 1893. After working and saving for a number of years, he brought his parents over from the Old Country. The former synagogue on 2nd. Street had just acquired their cemetery off Fullerton Avenue when his mother died. Jewish tradition dictated that a man was the first burial in a new cemetery, so she was buried in an old Jewish Cemetery on Fountain Hill. Several years later her husband, my great grandfather, was hit in the head with a pipe and killed while being robbed on Basin Street. He is buried on Fullerton Avenue.

Don Cunningham the Second

I always had an affinity for older objects and construction, they tended to be overbuilt. They were built to last, and past the test of time. New things are engineered for cost and landfills. Allentown will never again see the likes of the former multiple stone arch bridge which spanned the Jordan Creek on Linden Street. When Don Cunningham ran for County Executive in 2005, eight county bridges were deemed unsound by state inspectors, including the Linden Street Bridge. I learned from a source, high up in the new bridge project, that the historic bridge could have been repaired at a fraction of the cost of the new concrete slab monstrosity now in it's place. However, that would have interfered with Cunningham's plan for a ribbon cutting. Cunningham, and his project manager, Glenn Solt, went into the bridge business. They have already replaced fifteen bridges, seven of which didn't need replacing. They also want to replace the historic stone arch Reading Road (Walnut Street) Bridge by Union Terrace (Daddona Park). Yesterday, flanked by Ed Pawlowski and other members of the local Democratic Machine, Tom Muller announced his candidacy for County Executive. Muller was Cunningham's top administrator, and architect of the reassessment. Problem with the reassessment is that real estate prices have dropped so dramatically in the last seven years, that the values are very close to the 1990 previous assessments. Muller didn't have the flexibility to realize that market changes made the new assessments unnecessary. Yesterday, he also praised the unnecessary bridge replacement business. He's a bureaucrat straight through, apparently void of creative thought. Muller thinks that if something has been planned for years, you do it, even if circumstances change. He thinks that if the money worked it way down the tubes through the years, you spend it, even if the project is no longer relevant. Now, if only he had Cunningham's smile and played the guitar.                                                                                                                      UPDATE: I did not attend Muller's press conference yesterday, but Bernie O'Hare did. Bernie thought that Cunningham could walk on water, and will also try and sell you on Cunningham the Second. Today Bernie reports on Muller's speech, video records Muller's speech and prints Muller's speech.