Kids Of The Parkway

There were hundreds of us, we were the baby boomers. The neighborhood was built for returning GI's, and the streets were named after the planes of WW2; Liberator, Catalina, and Coronado. The twin homes were wedged between Jefferson Street and the southern ridge above Lehigh Parkway. Now called Little Lehigh Manor, we knew it simply as Lehigh Parkway, and we had our own school.

Historical Fact:
The original part of the school building contained four classrooms, a teacher's room, and a health room. It replaced the Catalina Avenue School which existed in a home near the present site. Lehigh Parkway received national publicity because it was being build as a result of the new neighborhood. Thus, the "Neighborhood School Concept" was born.








Because of the school and the park, the neighborhood was really self contained. The Lehigh SuperMarket on Lehigh Street was within walking distance. Soon, FoodFair would build their first large Supermarket, also on Lehigh Street, which was even closer. Today it has developed into The Parkway Shopping Center. We kids enjoyed our own Halloween Parade and Easter Egg hunt.






Because there were so many of us, Parkway Elementary only went through 2nd. grade. We would take the bus to Jefferson Elementary for grades 3 through 6.

Historical Fact:
Jefferson Elementary used to be a high school, and for years, it had separate girls' and boys' entrances. These entrances were turned into windows at some point, but the exterior of the building still has the two entrances marked.

These were some of my friends from 3th grade. They all lived in the Parkway. Not only were they all boys, only yesterday, 56 years later, I learned the name of the girl I'm holding hands with in the May Day picture above.

Historical Facts from Allentown School District Website

ADDENDUM: other Parkway Neighborhood Posts,
Time Capsule
Allentown On My Mind

reprinted from April 2013

Hyman Addresses City Council

For years I was a regular at city council, advocating for or against one thing or another.  Now I only attend on special occasions, such as Nat Hyman's response to the administration about the fire at his warehouse... He did not underperform.

Hyman gave an impassioned rebuke to council,  claiming he did not receive the option to have his building demolished himself, and that the city was grossly overpaying for the work.  He even had a check with him for what he claimed was the competitive amount for the job.  He clearly resented Ray O'Connell's promise last week that Hyman would pay. Although council president MacLean tried to initially reign in Hyman's personal jabs at O'Connell,  Hyman wasn't having it.

Unless Hyman and O'Connell decide to sit down and come to an understanding,  the discrepancy over the demolition costs will likely go to court...  I suspect that they will sit down.

Local Political Missteps

The week has been dominated by two political missteps... Pat Browne's misinformed flyer alleging that Mark Pinsley owed taxes, which he did not,  and Nat Hyman's failure to get in front of the fire story at his warehouse.

The Browne camp reported a tax lien against a different company that happens to have the same name as Pinsley's business.  The error certainly provides Pinsley with ammunition.  If the Democrat has enough resources to sufficiently exploit the error, remains to be seen.

The political nature of the Hyman situation is less obvious.  Hyman is stating that he was indeed working on getting his building demolished, and that Ray O'Connell was trying to impugn a potential mayoral opponent.  I'm not in a position to sort those assertions out,  but I do know that the public hasn't much sympathy for landlords.

When Neon Was King

During the glory days of Hamilton Street, when it came to neon, bigger was better. No store had a bigger sign than Hess's, and that was appropriate. When the city planners decided to built the canopy, that was the end of the great neon age for Allentown. That structure bisected the building's facades, and the vertical signs had to go. Since then we have progressed into sign regulations. Shopping is not a primary part of the new Hamilton Street transformation. Let's move this discussion around the corner to Allentown's new Hispanic shopping district on 7th Street. Hispanic Shopping District is my designation, not the city's. I call it that, because that's what it is. The street is being managed by Peter Lewnes, who is doing a good job. He's giving facade grants and sign guidance. The buildings end up with a historic look, and a professional hand lettered sign. Although it's neat, clean and presentable, it's not too exciting. Of course the City Fathers don't want too much excitement, as the people from Catasauqua drive in to the new arena. These new subsidized merchants are on a short leash. City inspectors remind them that besides for OPEN signs, no neon is permitted, and it must be inside the store. Now I know that I'm not a paid consultant,  and there's no grant involved with this idea, but how about letting our new merchants put up some neon?How about letting them pursue the same dreams as the merchants once did on Hamilton Street. How about lengthening that leash?

above reprinted from March of 2014

A Wild Ride

No offense to Susan Wild,  but she wasn't exactly a local household political name.  Prior to becoming solicitor in Pawlowski's administration,  most locals virtually didn't know her,  except she did run once unsuccessfully for county commissioner.

In this last quarter alone, she has garnered $1.3 million dollars in contributions in her run for congresswoman.  Almost all that money is from out of state.  They are not contributing because of their faith in Wild, but in their desire to flip the House of Representatives.  Furthermore,  most of those contributions are actually a negative reaction to Donald Trump.

As a local political junkie, I am somewhat offended that our congressperson might be chosen essentially by outside money.

Kline's Island, An Environmental Frankenstein

Today, Kline's Island is synonymous with the sewer plant. It wasn't always that way. Originally, like Adam's Island, it was owned by a family, and had houses. It was the location of the first bridges across the Lehigh, being the narrowest point. Allentown doesn't have a good history with the environment. Besides allowing the Wildland's Conservancy to actually defile our park system with their inappropriate, token science fair projects, we're not much for islands. The sewer plant on Kline's will soon be transferred to the Lehigh County Authority. Far worse for the previous island, we are allowing a company to build a trash to energy plant, which will mix imported garbage and sewage into pellets to burn. This project isn't energy driven, but rather motivated by tax credits and finance. Allentown is the only community which was receptive to such such an environmental frankenstein. The top photo shows Kline's Island in 1939, when it was still an island. Allentown decided that Kline's would be a good spot to use as a fill dump, and filled in the entire western channel of the former island. Please join me in my efforts to save the small historic Robin Hood dam on the Little Lehigh. Believe me, Allentown City Hall doesn't know best. 




above reprinted from June 5, 2013

ADDENDUM OCTOBER 15, 2018. 

The public trash to private cash plant on the island was never built. If it was, it may have been part of the Pawlowski corruption trial. Unfortunately, the small Robin Hood Dam was demolished by the Wildlands Conservancy, and its rubble piled around the formally picturesque stone bridge piers.  It's five years later, and this blog continues to fight against the sacred cows, and for the traditional park system.

Kanye West and Allentown

Dealing with troll like behavior, unfortunately, has become part of the blogosphere. One such person calls himself SPEEDSTR21. He believes that I report on black crime, but not so much on white crime. I tried to explain to him a few times that I do not report on crime at all, white or black.

But, because I did post about the protests by local NAACP and The Road To Pennsylvania (Hispanic group from Reading), surely I must be a practicing bigot. He doesn't seem to grasp that the protests have a political aspect that interest me, but not crimes per se. Although I started deleting his comments,  it doesn't deter him from sending them, usually in clusters.

I hope SPEEDSTR21 watched Kanye West at the White House yesterday. Although West acknowledges that police abuse is a reality, his main message was one of victim mentality. When I attended the Hip Hop Panel sponsored by the local NAACP last year, a theme was that black performers were not profiting from that genre, instead it was white promoters making the money.  I think that Kanye would take exception with that premise. I do know that SPEEDSTR21 squanders his energy worrying about this blog. I do not purport to understand the black condition in Allentown or anywhere else,  but sense that Kanye West has a message from which they might benefit.

Scott Armstrong On Allentown Living

Living behind enemy lines.

 For the past twelve years I have lived in a one party town, in a city complete controlled, top to bottom by the party of which I am not a member nor could ever be a member of, the Democratic Party.I have witnessed this party destroy the municipality I have called home for twenty five years. As a unit they removed, or tacitly approved of the removal of all those whom they suspected of intellectual independence from any and all positions of city power and influence. The media was of course allied with the controlling party and published propaganda instead of news, never questioning anything. Instead they consistently painted a rosy picture of constant improvement and happy faced news stories. As a Republican the Democratic voters made the mistake of electing me onto the school board some time back, this was possible because I could cross file as one of them. They made sure not to repeat the error next time. That was fine by me because the four long years I serve I was treated as a distinct and unwelcome minority. I was subjected to slanders, smears, and mocked routinely. The press routinely misquoted me, allowed hateful accusatory letters to the editor to be published, and the Morning Call editorial page made a special exception to their own rules against personal attacks in op-eds by printing one that claimed "I denigrated the poor" . (The excuse for this slur was I rallied the board to oppose a KOZ approval for a project that would have allowed the conversion of an old mill, in a high crime flood plain to be converted into medium high density residential units.)I could go on.

As "normal" working people we have become surrounded by people/renters who apparently don't work, yet have all the luxuries, plenty of leisure time, and no respect for themselves, their neighbors and/or the the neighborhood. This is what it is like to live behind the lines in a city controlled by the Democratic Party. Abuse and neglect are common and good luck trying to report it, same goes for reporting crime. Meanwhile the controlling forces in this town/elected officials are more concerned with furthering their own political careers( this involves being a good and faithful soldier to the Democratic machine). The end result is rubber stamp voting and government more concerned with virtue signaling.

Less experienced people will point to the current divides on city council and the lack of 100% percent support for the mayor and his initiatives. This is due to the departure of Ed Pawlowski and the resulting power vacuum. The Democrats are now fighting over the spoils and hatching plots to destroy their inner party competitors and cement power for their own Democratic faction. Folks it won't last, soon enough a victor in this mini civil war will emerge and the city will once again have a mayor who will never be questioned, a rubber stamp council, and a press that reports it all as progress.

Friends who visit from the areas outside the city, in places where government is civil, open, bi-partisan and yes...effective, wonder why we don't make an escape to freedom. Move to a surrounding community with a less disruptive environment,kinder neighbors,cleaner safer streets...

They have a right to wonder, after all why would anyone chose to stay captive in a city that doesn't work?

Scott Armstrong