Blame The Landlord

The Morning Call leads off the local section today with the story of the gym which snuck out in the middle of the night. Understandably, Joyce Marin, Community Development Director of Allentown, was a little embarrassed because she inadvertently helped promote the scam. Unfortunately, she reverted to one of Allentown's biggest excuses, blaming the landlord. The reporters write, "Marin added that the person (from Daro's) also said they closed the business due to problems with building's landlord." Joyce, please consider the following facts; The gym was collecting membership fee's the day before they moved. Supposedly this operator (Daro) has a reputation not fulfilling customer expectations. The previous operator Xertek (now called Coliseum at 15th and Green Sts) didn't have problems with the landlord for over nine years, and moved because of issues with the City Parking Authority. Flakey tenants come and go, but you're going to have to work with that landlord, who made a sizable investment, for years. By the way, supposedly the Brew Works hasn't been able to open at the golf course because of code violations ignored for a decade by their landlord, The City of Allentown.

City Promotes Thief

The City of Allentown, through it's Mayor and Development Director, apparently helped promote a thief. Daro's Fitness Center, after pocketing an untold number of yearly memberships, skipped out of town over Easter. Fitness members found locked doors and a storefront empty of equipment. Now I wouldn't condemn our officials for just a mistake of judgement, that's only human, but I condemn them for a pattern of arrogance. In my posting on June 27, 2008, I interviewed the previous operator of that location, Xertek Fitness. That gentleman invested nine years and $300,000 into that business. He was forced to move because the Parking Authority doubled the meter rate and preyed on his membership. Time after time this administration has let long term established businesses close, and then catered to or subsidized little fly by nights, and called this situation progress. I would humbly suggest that our officials interview the few remaining merchants of substance, find out their concerns, and address them. The image shown was highjacked without permission from Allentown Good News Blog, as was my taxes.

Stimulus Money Will Destroy Allentown

Alan Jennings and other bureaucrats in the poverty field are organizing to track down and receive every possible dollar from the Stimulus Packages being handed out by Washington. Like Manna from Heaven, these funds are coming much faster than anybody can track, and these existing agencies are geared to prosper. You heard the phrase shovel ready, how about poverty ready? Consider the time line on a current $1million plus handout for rental assistance payments through Allentown City Hall.

THE CITY OF ALLENTOWN WILL FUND NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATIONS WHICH HAVE THE CASE MANAGEMENT AND ADMINISTRATIVE CAPACITY TO GET THIS MONEY TO THE CITY'S NEEDIEST POPULATION QUICKLY. If your organization has never administered the types of programs as described below, this may not be the funding source for you to pursue at this time

Time Line.
April 6 Letter written by city
April 8 Letter mailed by city
April 10 Letter received by organizations on mailing list
April 20 COMPLETED APPLICATIONS DUE

10 DAYS = $1,129.049.00

Flash From Past

Occasionally, some of the older boys in Lehigh Parkway would get saddled with taking me along to a Saturday matinee in downtown Allentown. We would get the trolley, in later years a bus, from in front of the basement church on Jefferson Street. It would take that congregation many years to afford completing the church building there today. The trolley or bus would go across the 8th Street Bridge, which was built to accommodate the trolleys operated by Lehigh Valley Transit Company. Downtown then sported no less than five movie theaters at any one time. Particularly matinee friendly was the Midway, in the 600 Block of Hamilton. Three cartoons and episode or two of Flash Gordon entertained our entourage, which ranged in age from five to eleven years old. We younger kids, although delighted by the likes of Bugs Bunny, were confused how the Clay People would emerge from the walls in the caves on Mars to capture Captain Gordon, but our chaperones couldn't wait till the next week to learn Flash's fate. Next on the itinerary was usually a banana split at Woolworth's. Hamilton Street had three 5 and 10's, with a million things for boys to marvel at. The price of the sundae was a game of chance, with the customer picking a balloon. Inside the balloon was your price, anywhere from a penny to the full price of fifty cents. The store had a full selection of Allentown souvenirs. Pictures of West Park on a plate, the Center Square Monument on a glass, pennants to hang on your wall, and picture postcards of all the attractions. Hamilton Street was mobbed, and even the side streets were crowded with busy stores. Taking younger kids along was a responsibility for the older brothers, the streets and stores were crowded, but predators were limited to the Clay People on the silver screen.

At Least It's A Strategy

In 2005 I had a heated exchange with then candidate Pawlowski about Weed and Seed. After he would drone on and on about the benefits Allentown will derive, I called it a crab grass program. He thundered, "At least it's a strategy!" Politicians, and other merchants of the abstract, love presentations, strategies and proposals; they are the inventory of self-promotion. Last night, in regard to Michael Donovan's misfortune, Pam Varkony wrote, "If there is any upside to this, it is perhaps the extra police attention that will now be paid to Bucky Boyle Park and the surrounding neighborhood, which has been going down hill for a long time." I don't think so Pam, because the headquarters of our long term crime fighting strategy, Weed and Seed, is in that park. Allentown is long on motivational speakers, and short on solutions based on current realities. I don't think it will be much consolation to Michael or Pam, but lately a police car has been tucked up in the stadium property, near Muhlenberg Lake, waiting for speeders on Linden Street. I suppose we need income to pay the Weed and Seed Administrators.

Rainy Day Blues

The current owner of the New York Floral Company, in the current Holiday Inn at Ninth and Hamilton, after 22 years, is closing the shop. Scott Kraus, mincing no words, tells the depressing story at Mcall this evening. The owner candidly states that the "downtown business environment foundered" and that "Downtown has become a place to avoid." Despite this man's experience, Pawlowski insists that downtown is coming back and cites a new eatery on 9th St., the Cave, which is taking over the Loop, which took over the Hoop, which took over the Boop. Here's what Pawlowski doesn't know. The New York Floral Company was at Ninth and Hamilton before the Hotel, which started as a Hilton. It was the premiere florist in Allentown, although the crowds of shoppers on Hamilton Street made it difficult to access. Husbands and boyfriends would park where they could, and there wasn't even a Parking Authority. Denial is a river in Egypt.

photocredit: molovinsky

Time Capsule

Long time readers of this blog realize I occasionally revisit the streets of my youth, which seem idyllic in retrospect, although probably not at the time (certainly my shenanigans were not idyllic for my parents). My neighborhood was called Little Lehigh Parkway, and it was wedged between the southern top of the Parkway and Jefferson Street. Realtors now refer to this area as Little Lehigh Manor, but I have no recollection of that designation. The self-contained neighborhood even had it's own elementary school, where nursery rhymes of the time adorned the brick (they're still there)

As a little boy growing up, Spanky and Our Gang was a TV program, not an urban problem. When boys divided up to play cowboys and indians, being Hopalong was a coveted role. Our fathers experienced working in one of the most prosperous times in American history, post WW2. Children of Mack and Steel workers could well afford college if they so chose. Mothers could afford to stay home and watch their children grow and play.

Time has been most kind to my old neighborhood. A local leader told me that she is well satisfied with the current city government. The post war subdivisions, such as Midway Manor, remain oasis from the changes in central Allentown.

Hopalong Cassidy

Yesterday I went to the beauty parlor. About five years ago my downtown barber retired, and I was forced to go to a unisex shop. She assured me she also cuts men's hair, but I have yet to see another one there, but I don't go that often. I'm not sure what she calls her shop or herself, but I use the terms I remember from my childhood; My mother would go to the hairdresser at the beauty parlor. My mother would also take me to the Halloween Parade on Hamilton Street. Parades started at the fairgrounds and ran down Hamilton Street. The Street would be lined with people all the way downtown watching the parade, and hawkers would sell balloons and treats. One of last ones I remember featured Hopalong Cassidy, movie cowboy star of the 1930's. They featured his movies on a weekly TV show in the 50's, so I was very surprised about how old he looked in person. Years later, I heard that they had to tie him to the saddle, so he wouldn't fall off his horse during the parade. In recent years they had Sally Star in a parade down Hamilton Street, also long past her prime, but the people who remember her were afraid to go downtown. Last year organizers of the St. Patrick's day parade started a new tradition in Allentown, taking the parade west, away from downtown. My hairdresser noted that parade would go by her old shop on the way to downtown, and now by her new shop, to get away from downtown. Last month I got into trouble with some Union people over my photo from the movie "On The Waterfront", I said some relative was in the photograph. I don't want to say the same about a Klan photo. I know there is nothing racist about the organizers or the parade, but there might be something classist about the new parade route.