The Puppets of South Whitehall

If anyone doubts that the South Whitehall Commissioners are merely puppets, serving one special interest or another, just read this article about the Jordan Trail, being supervised by the Wildlands Conservancy. Close to a $Million dollars will be spent on this project to appease the Wildlands, while the same commissioners felt the voters should decide about Wehr's Dam. The referendum on Wehr's is as disingenuous as local government gets. They know that the voters will reject a tax increase to keep the dam, while for a Wildlands pet project, the public gets no say. The Wildlands has its own agent in the township, who is paid as park director by South Whitehall.  He hopes to have all the funding in place by year's end for the Wildlands trail. While tens of thousands of people visit the historic dam every year, how many will walk the Wildlands trail?

The Misconception of Hamilton Street

There's not many mid size cities that can boast having two national chain stores within one center city block, Allentown could. Not too many cities could say that one of those stores was one of the biggest producers in a chain of over 7000 stores, Allentown could. There's not many cities that are ignorant enough to tear down their most successful block, a virtual tax machine, Allentown is. This horrible mistake took a combination of political arrogance and public misconception. The arrogance is well known, so let me concentrate on the misconception. The perception was a few undesirable people, buying cheap things. The reality is Family Dollar sells the same merchandize in their suburban and rural stores. Rite Aid fills the same prescriptions and sells their standard merchandize. The new upscale stores, visioned for the arena front, will never produce the sales tax produced by Family Dollar and Rite Aid. The arena will never have that amount of employees, nor produce that much earned income.* The traffic congestion and lack of parking for arena events will destroy the new restaurants. Welcome to the white elephant, welcome to the ghost town.
Shown above and below is the early morning delivery to Family Dollar, every week of the year.
*sales tax and earned income currently going to city and state will now go to debt service for arena
reprinted from December 5, 2011

ADDENDUM: While The Morning Call promotes Allentown's new NIZ zone, only this blogger documented the reality of the former Hamilton Street. While the Moravian Book Store could be restocked from a small hand basket once a month, the previous Family Dollar Store needed a full tractor trailer every Sunday.

NIZ Return On Tax Dollar

Call it Allentown's NIZ, or J.B. Reilly's City Center Real Estate, by either name it's subsidized by the tax payers of Pennsylvania. That $70 plus Million Dollars a year would be going into education or infrastructure, instead of into the arena and Reilly's debt service.

On Saturday, I visited our business district both in the afternoon and evening. For the afternoon excursion, I can report that there was absolutely more foot traffic and activity before the revitalization. Although, there is some more activity during the weekend evenings, the return on the taxpayer investment is meager by any standard. I guess my best image on Saturday night was Don Saylor standing in front of Roar, explaining to some street person that the restaurant has valet parking. That's a sight you would have never seen when he operated the Shanty on 19th Street.

If we already spent a $Billion for the little we got, what would it cost to duplicate all those people walking around in the artist renderings approved by the ANIZDA, and promoted by the Morning Call?

Shown above waa a time when people came to Hamilton Street on their own,  without our taxes subsidizing private business interests.

City Council Votes NO

In a action that was unthinkable for the past 10 years, Allentown City Council voted NO on an administration proposal. The park department wanted to commission a study on their parcel behind the Hamilton Family Diner, to see if it was feasible to again reuse that area for their trucks and machinery. The buildings were flooded in Hurricane Sandy in 2012, and a number of trucks were destroyed. Some council members, rejecting the study proposal, claimed that because the facility was in a flood plain, nothing there should be renovated. I disagree. Until the early part of the 20th century, almost every industrial building was built in a flood plain, both for power and transportation. Hurricane Sandy did not ruin those buildings, they were ruined by neglect. The roof singles on the older brick building were in a terrible condition, with large bare patches. I posted about this neglect years before the flood. The mold contamination came from normal rains, not the flood. Just as the city allowed the former 15th Street Bridge to decay from neglect, it was the same with that park building.  Likewise, the trucks should have been moved prior to the storm, as they had been for years before.  Although, I agree that they can save the $3,950  consultant study, my vote would be to replace the roof, and rehabilitate the building.

On a side note,  the sentencing for those that Pawlowski led astray, has now been postponed from July until November.  That would suggest that the mayor may be charged later than sooner. Maybe the no vote was city council rehearsing for the long haul.

ADDENDUM:  The blogger at  LVCI disagrees with my take on the issue.  Yes, although it is in what is now referred to as a flood plain,  at one time the brick building was the Pepsi Cola bottler, and serviced by the Barber Quarry rail spur.  The location is near both Cedar and Trexler Parks, and proved an ideal location for decades.  The issue isn't whether to locate a facility there, but rather to take advantage of an existing facility.  Currently, the heavy park trucks are stored in Lehigh Parkway,  and it is believed that their weight  may have contributed to the WPA wall collapse.

The Lehigh Valley, From Factory To Warehouse

I was born in late 1946. Growing up in the 1950's, the Lehigh Valley was teeming with factories. Near my home in South Allentown was Mack Trucks and General Electric. Lehigh Structural Steel was along the river, and just beyond was Western Electric. Dozens of sewing factories employed thousands of women. Up to 30,000 people once worked at Bethlehem Steel, which stretched from the Hill To Hill Bridge down to Hellertown.


The next generation of business, like Kraft Food, was less industrial, and located here because of location and the ethic of the residual work force. Yesterday, we learned of a proposal to tear down Kraft, and replace it with warehouses. If not for our central location in the dense northeast, I fear we would be in dire straights. We are now becoming a major distribution center. Too bad that almost of the products being distributed are made in China.

Lehigh Valley Sold Down The River

While Nestlé Water is finding resistance all across America, one locality sold it's residents out, and we be it. When Don Cunningham was County Executive, he welcomed this siphon of natural resources with open arms. Although Donny and his easy smile remains popular, he's the ultimate go to boy for corporate interests. He has been rewarded, being appointed executive of the regional development authority. Nestlé has been further legitimized in this locality by the Wildlands Conservancy. This bastion of hypocrisy hosts children education days, sponsored by Nestlé, where children are taught by the good environmentalists of the water corporation. Nothing says nature like water bottled in plastic.

You won't read these truths elsewhere in the local media.  While you have to be both independent, and a bastard, to tell it like it really is, truth is most people don't care.  Give them a free bottle of water and they're OK with it.  Give them some free music, BBQ, and beer, they'll dance in the street.

The NIZ and Affordable Housing

Ce-Ce Gerlach has been trying to wrestle some concessions from the ANIZDA concerning affordable housing, more less as a community benefit for the little people. After all, big bucks are piling up in Reilly's account. So far, she has gotten a little lip service, but I'm afraid that's all that's coming her way. As Sy Traub likes to point out, Allentown has a lot more gentrifying to do before it need concern itself with the little people. She should have have been at the Business Matters NIZ debate, when a NIZ spokesman called the former merchants and their customers a cancer. Sy Traub was on the show and didn't object. The only objector at the time was this blogger, and i don't even agree with Ce-Ce on the affordable housing. Allentown has an abundance of affordable housing, that's why poor people keep moving here. Besides, the little people will be living in Strata 1 and 2 soon enough. It's one thing to induce companies to locate downtown, but it's another thing for those office workers to want to live there. Ce-Ce need not worry about gentrification forcing lower income people out of center city. Reilly did dislocate some tenants with his failed attempt to build a mega project along Walnut Street, but even he knows that the revitalization has peaked.

NIZ Debate: l to r;  Tony Iannelli, Steve Thode, Sy Traub, Michael Molovinsky, Mike Fleck