NIZ & Arena Hype

Although the children selected for the arena training program won't be turned into donkeys, and made into slaves, there probably won't be any  NIZ jobs in their future. The 20 kids getting the vocational training camp scholarship are currently between 5th and 8th grade. While The Morning Call article regurgitates the Administration's propaganda that the arena zone will bring thousands of jobs and half a million visitors annually to Allentown, if there is any bloom left on that rose in four years, remains to be seen. For the 5th graders, I'm afraid the arena will already be closed by the time they graduate. If one of those children should happen to be a future engineer, he or she might find the current construction interesting. The undersized steel and prefab concrete panels along Linden Street are being supported by the diagonal braces, which in turn will frame the bleachers for hockey fans. Someone in the trades described it as a lesson in quick and cheap construction. Although I support vocational training, and applaud the Trades Council for their funding ($3,000), lets not get excited and call this Community Benefit. We have a few developers, building a few buildings for a few businesses, with a total few hundred employees. All this is being funded by state taxes. It is the nature of the politicians and developers to overstate the public benefit, but it shouldn't be the nature of the newspaper to amplify that hype.

UPDATE:  Sometimes I'm too nice, such is the case above.  In reality,  18 trade unions, although working on $600 million in construction, contributed a total of $3,000,  or $166 dollars  each.  For this paltry amount, the article states that  the deal was brokered by Pawlowski and Jeff Glazier of the School District Foundation.  Brokered by Pawlowski,  puffed by The Morning Call.  I don't fault the trade unions, I fault the newspaper,  for finding every press release by the city newsworthy.

Capernaum By The Sea

Matthew 4:13: And leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum,...

Capernaum, the city of Jesus, is on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee. The foundation of the Synagogue of Jesus, is beneath the ornate 4th century synagogue, partially restored by the Franciscans in the early 1900's.

Mark 1:21: he entered into the synagogue and taught

Nearby, the modern Church of St. Peter's House was built by the Franciscans in 1990. It's glass floor reveals the lower walls of the 5th century octagon church, which was built around the walls of St. Peter's House. Also there, shown in the photograph, is the Greek Orthodox Church of the Twelve Apostles. It was built in 1931, during the British Mandate period (1917-1948).

reprinted in honor of Father Alex Joseph

Mount Of Temptation

The Palestinian Authority unsuccessfully tried to increase tourism to Jericho this year, no rush, the town might be the oldest inhabited city on earth, 10,000 years. In 1895 the Greek Orthodox Church built the Mount of Temptation Monastery, where the devil tried three times to tempt Jesus during his forty days of prayer and fast. Steeped in both the Old and New Testaments, next to Jerusalem, it is the most excavated city in the Holy Land.

related post on Jericho

reprinted from December 2010

Light Rail, Circa 1935

The Lehigh Valley Transit Company ran a trolley between 8th and Hamilton and just outside Philadelphia between 1901 and 1951. In 1913 the company completed the 8th Street Bridge, which remains one of Allentown's icons to this day.



The Liberty Bell functioned as a trolley as it stopped in Coopersburg, Quakertown, Sellersville and the different towns along the way, but approached speeds of eighty miles a hour on the open track between them. At the last station in Upper Darby, passengers could transfer to a different company to complete the ride into center city Philadelphia.










Here in the Valley the company transitioned to buses by the early 1950's, and became part of Lanta in 1972. Lanta and Easton officials might take notice that the Allentown Ticket Office, shown in above photo, is only 75 feet from 8th and Hamilton, which was the center of the business district. The intercity rail beds are pretty much gone now. The same people who now advocate light-rail, couldn't wait to tear up the tracks and make bike paths.

reprinted from May 2010

St. Matthew's Monastery

St. Matthew's Monastery in Kurdish Iraq, one of the oldest Christian Institutions in the world, was built by Christians fleeing persecution in 363 AD. Today, 16 centuries later, Christians are once again seeking shelter there. In the last decade it has been estimated that half the Christians have left Iraq. Since the Baghdad Church bombing in October, some Christians are afraid to be seen wearing a cross; Others have fled with little more than the clothes on their back. Pray for them.

St. Matthew's is part of the Syriac Orthodox Church

reprinted from December 2010. Things have only gotten worse for the Christians in Iraq, many more have fled.

Allentown Injures Mayfair

While Mayor Pawlowski cuts ribbons for the hockey people, and pats himself on the back, Allentown health inspectors burped food vendors at Mayfair for $25 each. Additionally, they got out their thermometers and made sure everything was heated or cooled to their exact specifications. Over the years, I heard numerous complaints about the health department and their selective overzealous enforcement. I knew of several Hamilton Street merchants who had to make food a couple of degrees warmer or cooler, to sell in front of their business, although it just came from their kitchen inside the store. News of this sort of harassment circulates among vendors who do these sort of shows. Pawlowski should harass the contractor working on the 15th Street. The snail pace of that job, and the consequences to commerce on the southside, is an outrage.

photocredit:molovinsky/Allentown Fair 1999

The Unemployed Consigliere

Come the new year, and Bernie O'Hare could well be out of a job. How do you explain to unemployment that you're a consigliere, and have lost your influence at the government center? If Bernie fails to get the position renewed, it won't be from a lack of effort on his part. This week he actually compared John Callahan to Abraham Lincoln. Preparing for the worst, Bernie is willing to commute to work. In addition to Callahan, he will photograph and praise Tom Muller this fall, way beyond the normal bounds of good taste. The photograph shown here was taken yesterday. Bernie injured his back and was unable to exercise for three day, during which time he gained 70 pounds.