The Jeff Sessions' Session

I have a confession, I don't watch much current television.  Most of my viewing is limited to retro shows, from the days of my youth.  The current agenda driven news,  both liberal and conservative,  I find annoying.  However, I did watch some of the Senate Committee grilling of Jeff Sessions on Tuesday morning.

Senator Sessions expectedly replied, over and over, that as Attorney General he would enforce the law,  regardless of how he may have voted on the matter, while serving in the Senate. What a surprise that a conservative senator has a conservative voting record.  Before being a senator,  he served as Attorney General in Alabama. The Senate hearings seem to be an opportunity for grandstanding, with little other purpose.

New Jersey's Cory Booker has publicized his upcoming crucifixion of Sessions.  Booker will make history today, and testify against a fellow senator in a confirmation hearing. While Cory concerns himself with smears against Sessions from thirty years ago,  he had no issue with Eric Holder wanting to transfer terrorists from Guantanamo to New York City, and afford them protection under US justice codes.  Sessions favors retaining the prison at the Naval base in Cuba.

photo of Senator Sessions in Iraq

The Daughters of Zion

On Monday morning, the entire media, including conservative outlets, were abuzz with Meryl Streep's speech bashing Trump.  Being a certified bastard,  I wasn't impressed that a top grade actress could deliver an emotional speech. However, what did amaze me was that although Streep's photo was everywhere,  the murdered Israeli cadets in Jerusalem had either moved to the bottom of the page, or even off of it.

Three of the four murdered soldiers were young women.  The Palestinian reaction was to hand out sweets, and take pride in the attack.  While Obama helped legitimize the attack through the UN vote and Kerry's speech,  Trump has declared that he will move the embassy to Jerusalem.   If he does that,  it would be a memorial to those murdered girls.

PPL's Rude Day

The letter from PPL stated that my service would be interrupted on January 5th for six hours, to make improvements or repairs to our lines.   I assumed that they had discovered damaged wires or equipment,  and that the repair was necessary, to avoid an impending outage.  After noticing a string of  contractor tree trimming trucks,  I made some inquires.   Although it only 25 degrees outside,  my electric was being turned off for routine tree maintenance, that wasn't done earlier in the season.  How inconsiderate is that?

Although, I live in a neighborhood with many trees,  in the all years that I've lived here, they have never before cut the power to trim the trees.  It is not a densely populated area,  so I suppose we didn't rate much consideration.  Save for this blog, perhaps there were no other complaints.  Most of the residents probably have no idea that the outage was for such an arbitrary reason.  They might even think that PPL had their back, with some pro-active repair. Their taped message after the power was restored at 3:15 pm, stated that the cause of the outage was equipment maintenance, and that 137 customers were affected.   In addition to being unnecessarily inconvenienced for almost a full day,  they will consume extra energy bringing their house back to temperature.  Those  residents with electric heat or heat pumps, will have to pay a premium for their discomfort. They will have to tip their abuser.

The Art of Jessica Lenard, (1950-2016)

monoprint- Fashion Statement 2

McHistory In Lehigh Valley

Readers of this blog know that I'm upset about what little value history is given in this community.  Yesterday's Morning Call story on the Lehigh Valley Trust Bank building goes a step farther, and significantly alters the story of an important structure.  After reading the Morning Call article, one would think that the bank closed,  Abe Atiyeh purchased it and then sold it to the Jaindls,  who are now opening an event center after restoration.  The real story is so different,  I can only conclude that this current article was only meant as another NIZ promotion, not a serious background of the building.

When the building was purchased by Seigfried Braun, unmentioned in the article,  it had been modernized.  He and his family spend years and most of their assets lovingly restoring it.  The famed skylight and other adornments were covered over decades earlier, by a massive new lowered ceiling.  What you see now is the fruit of his labor. Restoring the skylight alone took over a year.  In addition to that bank,  he also purchased the Dime Bank and the Elks Club.  The Dime Bank has now been incorporated into the new Renaissance Hotel.  The Elks Club was demolished to make way for J.B. Reilly's aborted massive Two Towers project.

Unfortunately, illness forced Mr. Braun to quickly sell these significant structures for pennies on the dollar, to Abe Atiyeh.  We should thank Braun for saving these magnificent structures.  Although, I like to think that my local political opinions have merit,  my better calling is to defend and advocate for local historical structures, when I have the needed endurance.  Meanwhile, I use this blog to present local history, and occasionally point out misconceptions about it.

This piece was inadvertently posted for several minutes yesterday during revisions. 

Lehigh Valley Not Much For History

The Lehigh Valley isn't much on history, neither Allentown or Lehigh County. The 1824 stone arch Reading Road Bridge is only still standing because of my efforts. It's sister bridge from 1828, Schreibers, may now be closed by the State. Since the 15th Street Bridge(Ward Street) was closed for replacement, Schreibers has taken an incredible beating. Although posted for 3 tons, it has been battered by tractor-trailers no less than half a dozen times. In a further assault to the bridge, Allentown dropped the ball, and allowed the State to make Oxford drive/24th Street bridge one way for repairs, increasing the burden on the old stone bridge.

reprinted from September of 2013

UPDATE JANUARY 2017:  Although, the new 15th Street Bridge opened about 18 months ago,  Allentown has yet to repair the smashed walls on the Martin Luther King side of Schreibers bridge.  In fairness to Allentown, they were repaired once during the closure of the 15th Street Bridge, but then were smashed again.  Now that the 15th Street Bridge is complete, it's way overdue for the city to make final repairs on the historical bridge walls.  

Downhill On Lehigh Street

During the early 1970's, Allentown demolished the entire neighborhood between Union and Lawrence Streets. It was, in a large part, home to the black community. How ironic that we destroyed the cohesion of a neighborhood, but renamed Lawrence Street after Martin Luther King. The only remnant of the neighborhood is the St. James A.M.E. Church. Going up the hill today we now have a vacant bank call center on the east, and the Housing Authority Project on the west. A whole neighborhood existed in from both sides of Lehigh Street, including black owned shops. The houses were old and humble, but people owned them, many for generations. Some blacks at the time wondered if the project was Urban Renewal or Negro Removal?

reprinted from January 2011


The bank call center referred to above is now Building 21, Allentown School District's own alternative charter like high school.

The Color Line Of Allentown's NIZ

I do not purport to be politically correct.  However, I do have some grasp of Allentown's realities.  Before the former merchants and their clientele were removed from Hamilton Street, for the arena and NIZ development, I called the emerging program classist.  When I debated the issue on channel 69, the NIZ proponent referred to the former merchants and their customers as a cancer.

In yesterday's post, I predicted that the former demographic, mostly black and hispanic,  would again dominate, after the initial wave of gentrification in the new district failed to sustain itself.  A local black entrepreneur, Alfonso Todd, reminded me in a comment that they too are millennials.

Yesterday, when I wrote that I don't believe that gentrification will succeed in Allentown,  that really referred to a mostly white, middle class enclave feeling comfortable at 7th and Linden Streets.  I believe that Todd sees more of an integrated grouping.  I believe for that to happen, the minority middle class would have to be substantially larger.  He believes that a larger event calendar would facilitate more urbanization.  I can see that, but I'm not sure that it would translate into more actual middle class center city residents.  I hope that he's correct, because his vision would be much more successful in the long term than mine.

I know that there are others who could approach this topic with more sensitivity, and perhaps in a more colorblind fashion.  However, the best I can do is provide a forum for the uncomfortable truths among us.

Todd at one of many events he promoted, photo by molovinsky