Road Warrior Spills Beans

Craig Friebolin has a bone to pick with the Allentown Parking Authority. It was my pleasure to publicize his plans to crash one of their board meetings. His ears should pick up as he reads this post. Today Dan Hartzell, the Morning Call's Road Warrior, inadvertently tossed Craig a cookie, and it's my pleasure to point out the treat. Allentown doesn't mind being a little sloppy with testimony to City Council. In 2000 Council readily accepted that a majority of residents wanted a historic district, in spite of the fact that the majority was in the audience protesting. In 2005 Council accepted testimony from the Director of the Authority, then Linda Kauffman, that the majority of merchants supported a doubling of the meter fees and fines. I conducted my own survey, and discovered that in reality the merchants were never polled and were opposed. Although I presented City Council with names and addresses at the time, they chose to go with Kauffman's version.(new rates were to finance new parking deck at City Hall)

Today, in the Road Warrior Column, we learn that a majority of residents requested and approved the various residential permit zones imposed in the late 1980's. Although such testimony may have well been presented to and accepted by City Council, I know it isn't true. I managed numerous buildings in those zones at the time, and never was polled. If you live in such as zone, find it burdensome, ask your neighbors if they were polled.

WFMZ Stairs to NoWhere

STAIRS TO NOWHERE

Explanation from WFMZ

"We don't post all of our stories to the website, however it has
been brought to our attention that several people are requesting to see
this particular story. We have passed that information on to our web
producers and they will be adding it at some point today."


Received yesterday, Thursday, Oct. 15th. The story has not yet been added to their website.

Was Parkway Story Squashed?

When I saw the story on the 5 O'clock news, I realized I would need no tuxedo for the Emmy's, but they did cobble together a short piece and air it. A friend who stays up very late, emailed me that the segment did not appear on the 10 PM broadcast. I have confirmed, as The Banker wrote, that there is no reference at all on the web page, even on page two with stories about bread rising. Makes me wonder....

Just Got The Call

69 WFMZ TV is going to do a short blip on the Boat Landing excavation in Lehigh Parkway this evening.

TeNSion in BLoGOsphERE

Despite the best efforts of some well intended intermediaries, there still exists tension in the local blogosphere. Bernie O'Hare goes banana's when I write about events I didn't attend, and he did! So here's another one Bernie, don't slip on the peel. According to O'Hare, there was no article in today's Morning Call, Tony Phillips owned the room last night at the NAACP Debate. But don't count Pawlowski out with that constituency. Last time, and I was there in 05, Pawlowski made pandering an art form. He pointed out to the audience and said, "If i"m elected, there's a man who will work at City Hall, that women will work at City Hall." They both now do work at City Hall, and they remember. I suspect when local black people get inside the booth, they will not be able to resist voting for Tony. I recall black republicans last year saying that the historic opportunity to vote for Obama was irresistible. I would suspect the real value for Phillips last night was to energize him for the remaining two weeks of the campaign.

Andrew Kleiner and I have been having issues. Now I realize he's been studying environmental science now for five weeks, but I still thing I know a thing or two about the park. According to Andrew and the Wildlands Conservancy, without the riparian buffers being installed, our streams are doomed. Now I know the creek isn't measurably wider than it was 70 years ago. I know this because they haven't lengthened the bridge at Robin Hood, yet it still spans the creek. I think the old timers knew more about conservation than their given credit for. Replace the willow tree's which have died out from old age, hurricanes and disease, and you will stabilize the banks and yet still provide both visual and actual access to the water. The Conservancy and other advocates for the riparian buffer remain mute about the paving over of large sections of Cedar Park and the digging of wells by the County at the streams' headwaters in Lower Macungie. Until they're willing to speak out against the real threats to the park and stream, they compromise themselves.

Allentown's Park Plans

Allentown's park plans can best be described as schizophrenic. What made our parks so iconic was the visual contrasts between the woods, open spaces and the water. We are now getting the worse of everything. The streams will be hidden by plants, called riparian buffers. The open spaces will be either planted with tree's or occupied by some recreational venue. Although the beauty of the park system had more less survived for 80 years, it's glory days, like Allentown itself, will soon be but a memory.

In the 1950's my father's uncle worked for the park department. He would drive a tractor with a large gang mower behind, and cut large portions of Lehigh Parkway in a single day. Today, witness Cedar Beach area, all the open spaces have been planted with trees. Park workers must toil with riding mowers in and out and around each tree. The remaining open area will soon be occupied with the Destination Playground.


The open area between the creek and Honochick Drive on the west side of Ott Street will be occupied by three additional paved paths. Access and view of the water will be cut off by bushes.

The environmentalists are appeased by the riparian buffer and being allowed to plant more and more trees; they remain silent about all the paving. The recreationalists are appeased by paved paths and remain silent about losing the park's viewshed. The viewshed is what we see and what made our park system nationally known. The parks cannot be everything to everybody. Those who may have protected the parks in the past have become politicized. I find our parks too precious not to speak up.

Trexler Smiles, Landing Revealed

I believe that today, for the first time in decades, General Trexler had something to smile about. Most people never understood why three steps were near the lower entrance of Lehigh Parkway; they seemed to lead nowhere. This morning eight people joined a grass root effort to unveil, for the first time in decades, the structure I called the Boat Landing.

Buried under the dirt and grass were several more steps leading to a landing. Chris Casey was the first to arrive and cleared these steps and the first landing himself. A second set of steps led from the landing to the main landing on the creek. These second steps had a foot or so of ground and plants.

The quality and condition of the stonework is excellent, as was all our WPA icons. I will be polite and say only that it was a crime to have let this neglect occur. On the main landing the accumulated earth was two and half feet thick. The crew dug out the curving retaining wall several yards in each direction, and cleared off the top of the wall.

Eight people working four hours managed to reveal about one third of the landing at the bottom of the steps. It was a thrill to realize we were standing at creek's edge as the WPA architects had envisioned. I stood there often as a boy. There still remains a large portion of dirt to remove at the steps base, but you can now experience the Boat Landing.

The retaining wall and the landing continue for fifty feet or so in both directions. Unfortunately a huge tree has grown on the landing to the right, but the left appears reclaimable.

We who worked there today, hope to return and clear off the remainder of the dirt at the bottom of the steps.

Perhaps others will be motivated to clear off the remaining portion of the landing to the left. Now that might even be an idea for the City; imagine restoring an irreplaceable icon instead of buying something from a catalogue. I'm most grateful to all those who helped today, and will reveal their names with their permission.




ADDENDUM:Michael –

I just wanted to thank you for organizing today’s cleanup at the “Boat Landing” in the Lehigh Parkway. It’s not often that one gets to help unearth a treasure while barely leaving home, but that’s exactly what happened today.

It was truly impressive what big difference a small group of people can make. I can’t even estimate the amount of dirt that was moved with nothing more than a few shovels and a lot of hard work.

We can only hope that the City and the Trexler Trust will become aware of this location and start giving all the great structures in the Parkway the care they deserve.

However, the best part of the story for me came after we all left. I got home and my daughter Lucy (age 7) wanted to know how things went. We hopped in the car and soon we were walking up to the stairs leading to the landing. The sun was shining, and the sunlight trickled through the trees and onto the freshly-exposed stairway.

Lucy asked if she could go down to the landing by the water and next thing I knew we were both there at the waters edge, standing on what had been buried only a few hours earlier and marveling at the beauty of the location.

We spent a few moments there - a father and daughter both enjoying something completely “new” to us (even though the landing is over 70 years old). We talked briefly about what was – and more importantly what could be again.

Thank you for making that moment possible, and I hope many others take the opportunity to visit the landing in the near future.


Mike Schware


P.S. – After visiting the landing, Lucy and I walked further upstream and saw the remnants of the bridge to the island (near the water fountain). The remaining supports of the bridge confirmed what you had told me earlier about the island being much smaller years ago.