Stairway To Shame

In the mid 1930's, Allentown, and especially it's park system, was endowed with magnificent stone edifices, courtesy of the WPA; Works Progress Administration. This was a New Deal program designed to provide employment during the aftermath of the depression. Stone masons from all over the country converged on this city and built structures which are irreplaceable. The walls and step structures in Lehigh Parkway, as the Union Terrace amphitheater, are legacies which must be protected. Pictured above is the grand stairway from Lawrence Street (Martin Luther King Drive) up to Union Street, built in 1936. The steps are in a state of disrepair. They lead to the great Union Street Retaining Wall, twenty five feet high and two blocks long, which was completed in 1937. I call upon the Trexler Trust and Allentonians of memory, to insist that these steps are re-pointed and preserved. The current Administration knows nothing of our past, and really has no commitment to our future. Save the things in Allentown that matter.
reprinted from September 2008

UPDATE JUNE 2015:It's seven years later, and I'd like to say there has been some progress, but it hasn't happen. While Pawlowski is on his third term as mayor, we're on our third park director, and not one $dollar has been spent on one WPA project, in all these years. Actually, the state of our historic structures has significantly declined. An indifferent administration allowed The Wildlands Conservancy to demolish the scenic Robin Hood Dam, which was only ten inches high, and was the companion piece to the Robin Hood Bridge. Built in 1941, it was the last WPA structure completed in Allentown. Union Terrace, which was the last large scale WPA project, built in 1937, is rapidly deteriorating. While the park department concentrates on playgrounds and parking lots, it's losing the stone structures which make the park system iconic. They will never be able to be replaced.

Model Suspect Exonerated

Up to last week, I had never heard the term model used for a suspect. But model suspect was the term a Whitehall police officer used to describe Christopher Fitzgerald, because he was polite, compliant and even cried. His high priced, melodramatic defense attorney, also put on a first rate performance. In a passionate — and loud — crescendo to his closing speech, he implored the jury to find Fitzgerald not guilty, so that he could continue his career path of becoming a police officer like both his parents."Do not put an end to the dreams of this young man today,"  So, young Fitzgerald joins the OJ Club.

If you're ever behind someone who stops his car and jumps out with a Glock, fear not, that's a model suspect. In a few years, if you're stopped by a cop,  who is holding a Glock and crying, fear not.

ADDENDUM: Ed Pawlowski had doubled down on his support for police chief Fritgerald by posting the Morning Call article link on his facebook page. Ed, junior wasn't innocent, he just wasn't convicted.

Allentown School Board, Witness To Slander

I have heard that lately Allentown School Board meetings have become quite ugly. Members of Power Northeast, wear masks and turn their backs to the school board, demonstrating against what they describe as toxicity and condoned racism in the district. The Resurrected Life Community Church, led by Rev. Gregory Edwards, has become aligned with this movement. They believe that the district has turned into a pipeline to prison. They believe that they have to push back to push forward. Many of their grievances are aimed directly at district superintendent Russ Mayo, actually describing him as guilty of sweeping problems under the rug. While the school board mostly listens silently to these accusations, Scott Armstrong responds.

At last night’s school board meeting a group of protestors made slanderous accusations against the district’s superintendent. I know those remarks had to hurt him deeply. He is a man who has dedicated his life to public education, and he is in the field and at the helm of the ASD for all the right reasons. No one is perfect, there is always room for improvement and solutions can be found. However, those who cast the accusations should understand the road to understanding is not paved by slurs. I chose to speak out against the slander, for the only thing worse than the insults is the silence of those who know the charges are false.    Scott Armstrong

I believe that Jude-Laure Denis, leader of Allentown's Power Northeast, and Rev. Edwards, would be better to continue working on the real issues, rather than scapegoat the district and particularly the superintendent. Although architecturally we look like just a large town, demographically, we have the issues of any large urban city. Allentown is mired in poverty, and those problems which often present themselves in the home life of the students. These problems are shared by all urban areas. The church has embraced and established their RLife programs of pre-school and learning summer camp. These are the types of actions that have meaningful results. The Allentown School District has concerned administrators and caring teachers, what it needs is partnering parents and community.

ADDENDUM: I have decided to link to a YouTube of part of the school board meeting. Addressing the  board is Pastor Paul Patrick.  Although he cites bible passages, I find his berating less than spiritual.

Weekly Shooting Map In Allentown

Readers of molovinsky on allentown know that I normally don't publish a police blotter, preferring to concentrate on our white collar criminals. One can only wonder what effect a half dozen shootings, on the Gateway to Allentown, has on the Renaissance. While the administration touts another new restaurant in the NIZ, the residents of Allentown cower inside their apartments. Our police chief, recruited by national search consultants, except for defending his son, has been invisible and apparently ineffectual. Ed Pawlowski's campaign to become a senator has garnered no enthusiasm, perhaps he should concentrate on being a mayor.

Trial In Mayberry

For famed criminal attorney Jack McMahon, who travels the country "looking forward" to tough murder cases, this must seem like a week in Mayberry. Called Fire and Brimstone by fellow attorneys in Philadelphia, discrediting a couple of Lehigh County detectives, to acquit his client, is child's play for him. This is the same attorney who only a few years ago got Kermit Gosnell, the abortion doctor in Philadelphia, acquitted of most charges. As is his style, he has successfully defended the police chief's son with the media, outside the courtroom. Yesterdays Morning Call headline called the defendant "a good kid." Aren't we glad that Pawlowski hired a national search consultant to bring this chief and his family to Allentown?

ADDENDUM: According to Morning Call reports, Judge Banach had to reprimand the chief for having uniformed officers come into the court room to shake his hand.  Cheesy lawyer orchestrated theatrics, by the self serving chief.

Allentown Needs A New Police Chief

The high price Philadelphia lawyer is telling the media that the police chief's son would never pull a gun on a cop. Well, actually, he did, that's why he's on trial. The cops were undercover, and the defense is saying that he didn't point the gun at them, he only displayed it, because he felt threatened. I don't know if the defendant really felt threatened, but the detectives did, and drove in reverse to get out of harm's way. The father, between the lines, suggested that perhaps his son is actually the victim of racial profiling. If Allentown needed a national search to find a police chief was questionable. If Allentown needed to import a former Philadelphia cop from Texas is questionable. If we need a police chief defending his son's aggression with the race card is not questionable.
 
photo from The Morning Call

 UPDATE: "He is not some thug, not some bum," McMahon said. "He is a man of character, a man of integrity, a man of honesty Thus spoke the expensive Philadelphia criminal lawyer today about his client.  However, the defense is mostly referencing the father's supposed character, as if the son must have the same traits.

Why Allentown's Monster Eats Its Young

Pawlowski has ordered the Allentown Parking Authority, whose street cleaning revenues were down in 2014, to pony up with more money for the city in 2015. To help meet this demand, the meter rates have been doubled, and the enforcement period extended to 10:00 pm. The Parking Authority, with the knowledge and approval of both the administration and City Council, fabricated a merchant survey endorsing the increase.

As reported to date...guests at the Allentown Brew Works have received parking tickets as late as 9:30pm. Someone is obviously checking meters late at night now. There are no "Arena Nights" at this time of year. There are a few concerts scheduled over the next few months.      Rich Fegley, co-owner Allentown BrewWorks

One would think that a city with a $billion dollars of new development would not have to resort to such tom foolery. One would think that a city, which only two years ago touted leasing its water system as the financial silver bullet, would not have to sabotage its own merchants with punitive parking rates.

thoughts from Rich Fegley and Michael Donovan were gleaned for this post.

A Tailor From North Street

The Allentown Housing and Development Corp. recently purchased a home at 421 North St. That block of North Street was destroyed by fire, and the agency has built a block of new houses on the street's south side; it will next develop the other side of the street. The deed transfer caught my attention because Morris Wolf lived in the house in 1903. Wolf signed up with the Pennsylvania Volunteer Cavalry on July 18, 1861, in Philadelphia, when he was 22 years old. He was a private in Company A, of the 3rd Cavalry. This unit was also known as the 60th Regiment and was later called Young's Kentucky Light Cavalry.It defended Washington, D.C., until March 1862, then participated in many of the war's most famous battles: Williamsburg, Antietam, Fredericksburg and Gettysburg. Wolf had signed up for three years and was mustered out Aug. 24,1864.

Recently, to commemorate Memorial Day, the local veterans group placed more than 500 flags at Fairview Cemetery. If that wasn't enough of a good deed, the group also set upright more than 300 toppled grave markers. Visiting Fairview recently, I saw they had not overlooked the graves of either Mr. Wolf, or another veteran, Joseph Levine. I have concerned myself with Allentown's Fairview Cemetery for the last few years. I first became interested in the small Jewish section, called Mt. Sinai. This was the first organized Jewish cemetery in Allentown. Currently, all the synagogues have their own cemeteries, and Mt. Sinai has been mostly unused for many decades.

Mr. Wolf lies next to his wife, Julia, who died in 1907. Morris would live on for 30 more years, passing away in 1937, at age 98.
Mr. Levine, a World War II veteran, and his wife, Ethel, were the first and last people to be buried there after almost 25 years of inactivity. When Ethel died at age 93 in 2000, it was the first burial at Mt. Sinai since 1976. Joseph was 103 years old when he passed away in 2006.

The Housing and Development Corp. and North Street are now part of Allentown's new neighborhood initiative called Jordan Heights.Although soon there will be a new house at 421 North St., there is a history that will remain with the parcel. Once a tailor lived there who fought in the Battle of Gettysburg.

reprinted from 2011