Translating Molovinsky

My WPA walk this weekend was held in conjunction with Friends of the Allentown Parks, a city affiliated organization. Although I could organize and publicize the walks without Friends, we have a mutual interest. It's director, Karen El-Chaar, appreciates my knowledge and advocacy for the WPA, and I appreciate her potential influence to move the stone structures to a higher priority in the city's budget. This year, as we moved from site to site on the tour, I was rather blunt about the city's failure to maintain or appreciate the various structures. On each occasion, Karen politely rephrased my words more diplomatically. By the end of the tour, I was referring to her as my translator.

A Rewarding Weekend

molovinsky on allentown had a rewarding weekend. Pride badge number 1 is my pleasure to announce that the young woman who was bullied, and consequently lost her chance to achieve membership in the National Junior Honor Society, is now a member. Because of the girl's tenacity, and her mother's unwavering support, they did finally prevail upon the school system to revisit her tests for that marking period. Needless to say that girl aced them, and now has her certificate, truly earned under adverse circumstances.

Several years ago on this blog I printed excerpts from a 1920 journal, on a very long shot that some details might be heard out in cyberspace, and resonate with someone. Long and behold, out of nowhere, came a reply this weekend.

On Saturday I once again had the pleasure of showing a new group the former WPA structures in Lehigh Parkway. It remains a shame that the park department doesn't recognize the treasures with which it was blessed between 1935-1937.

Special Invitation To South Whitehall Commissioners

I'd like to especially invite the South Whitehall Board of Commissioners to my WPA tour tomorrow afternoon. Unfortunately, it's mostly a tour and history lesson about wonderful structures which previous park directors and officials allowed to be destroyed or filled in, for someone else's agenda. Tomorrow's tour is a repeat of the tour I gave last year, minus one feature. Last summer the Wildlands Conservancy gave the exact speech to Allentown City Council, which was used again on you this past Wednesday. Although the companion dam for the Parkway's WPA bridge was only 14 inches tall, demolishing it reaped the Conservancy a sizable grant, and administrative fees used for their salaries. The tour starts at the Robin Hood Bridge Parking Lot at 1:00pm, Saturday June 7, and ends up back there, in less than an hour.

photocredit: Wehr Dam by Gregg Obst

Endangered Site's Tour

On Saturday afternoon, at 1:00pm, I will lead the endangered WPA Site's Tour. The dam shown above, will not be on the tour this year. It has joined several other previous gifts by the WPA to the City of Allentown, which have been either discarded or destroyed. The tour takes less than an hour, and is a leisurely stroll along the creek, starting and ending at the Robin Hood Bridge parking lot.

The Park's Poor Priorities

About five years ago I started advocating for the WPA structures throughout the Allentown park system. Three years ago I organized a group which surveyed the structures in all the parks. At that time, I published a picture of the top wall at the Union Terrace Stairwell, on St. Elmo Street, which showed one stone missing. In the last two years, as you can see from the current picture, several more stones came loose, and mortar is missing from entire stone cap of the structure. In these past five years not one cent has been spent on the stoneworks. Two expensive patterned concrete walkways have just been completed on Trexler Blvd, leading from the west end to Cedar Park. The new park director, John Mikowychok, informs me that about $30 thousand has been allocated to repairs on the Fountain Park Stairwell. Unfortunately, over half the funds will be used for a consulting engineer. Needless to say, the park would be better off with all the money used for a stone mason. No disrespect to the engineer, but these structures are way beyond his paygrade; Just fix the things like they were.

This Saturday at 1:00pm, I will lead a tour of the WPA Structures in Lehigh Parkway. This is a repeat of last year's tour. I hope some city officials take the opportunity to join us and learn about these irreplaceable structures, with which they have been entrusted.

J. Molovinsky, Part 3, Wenz Company

This past weekend there was an auction at the former Wenz Company monument factory in the 1900 block of Hamilton Street. This facility has played several parts in Allentown's history, besides having produced thousands of tombstones. Enormous blocks of granite still remain from when it was the last stop on the Quarry Barber railroad branch line. Sculptures remain from the Phil Berman era, when artists used the Wenz equipment for monumental art. lastly, there are hundreds and hundreds of old tombstones, which were replaced over the decades, in local cemeteries with replacement markers. As mentioned in Part 1 of this post series, part of an old tombstone led me to discover my great grandmother's grave on Fountain Hill. That sculpture was made at Wenz, and Jennie Molovinsky's original stone also lies at Wenz's.

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 killed while being robbed on Basin Street. He is buried on Fullerton Avenue.

J. Molovinsky Part 2, Mt. Sinai

Jews have been buried in a small section of Fairview Cemetery, called Mt. Sinai, for over 138 years. Although the markings on several stones have worn away, Hannah Dreifuss was buried there in 1868. The September 10th Chronicle in 1875 reported that two members of the Jewish faith, prominent Hamilton Street merchants, Joshua Schnurman and Simon Feldman, purchased a section from Fairview Cemetery and applied for a charter for Mt. Sinai Cemetery, thus creating the first Jewish Institution in Allentown.
Fairview Cemetery itself was not formally laid-out until 1870, when the renowned architectural firm Lathan of Buffalo was hired to create the premiere resting place in the Lehigh Valley. The giants of Allentown would be buried there, among them Harry Trexler, the Leh's, and the Mack's of truck fame.
The History Lehigh County, published in 1914, notes Mt. Sinai contained 29 graves. Among them was Julia Wolf, who died in 1907. Her husband Morris served with the local regiment in the Civil War, and lived to be 98 years old. Feldman and Schnurman were among the earliest Jews in Allentown, immigrants from Germany who practiced the modern "Reformed" Judaism. These gentlemen and their extended family members would go on to form the "Young Ladies and Men's Hebrew Society" in 1883, a predecessor to the Keneseth Israel Congregation organized in 1903. Mt. Sinai remained the resting place for Reformed Jews till 1928, when Keneseth Israel established its own cemetery. Burials continued at Mt. Sinai through the 1940's as spouses and passing family members joined those previously departed in family plots. Today there are 78 graves. In July of 2006, thirty years after the previous burial in 1976, Joseph Levine was laid to rest at the age of 103.  The cemetery is not affiliated with any synagogue.

Editor's notes: The above is reprinted from 2009.  My search to find the grave of M. Azrilian led me to Mt. Sinai.  At the time,  the entire Fairview Cemetery and Mt. Sinai were in terrible shape.  Numerous posts on this blog led to story on the situation by The Morning Call.  Subsequently, I organized a meeting between the cemetery operator and the public.