Welcome To The Vendig

In 1933, with the end of Prohibition, my grandparents(maternal) started operating the Vendig Hotel. They were the working partners, another immigrant family, here longer, were the silent backers. The hotel was directly across from the current Main Street Depot Restaurant in Bethlehem, which was the old New Jersey Line Terminal. With my grandmother cooking, they became well known for crab cakes and other shelled seafood. What wasn't known, was that she was strictly kosher, and never even tasted anything she prepared. As some may recall, my grandparents came from Hungarian Transylvania (now Romania) in the early 20's. Family lore* says Bela Lugosi visited the hotel. Lugosi was born in the same area of then Hungary, and started his acting career playing Jesus in Passion Plays. In 1931, after immigrating to America years earlier, he got his big break playing Dracula. Typecast as a villain, Lugosi was reduced in later years to drug addiction and playing in low budget monster films. He died in the mid 50's and was buried in his Dracula cape.

*My uncle, who as a boy lived above the hotel, had no recollection of Lugosi. The partner families would later merge through marriage, and 40 years later come to own the old vaudeville theater in South Bethlehem known as The Globe. It too is gone.                                                      

reprinted from 2016

Union Rumbles At Morning Call

An article on Lehigh Valley Live, web version of the Easton Express, reports that elements at the Morning Call want to unionize.

While the group has already created a website and facebook page, as of 5:00PM on Monday, there is still no report about it in the Morning Call itself. While those employees interested are pictured in a photograph, I noticed that some of those who might be considered senior staff are not involved, at least as of this writing.

While those organizing are fearful of Tribune policy and job security, ironically a journalism professor at Lehigh has a column in the paper stating how the industry is holding its own. Talking about Lehigh Journalism teachers, Bill White likes the group's facebook page. I sincerely doubt that he would be part of the effort if still employed by the paper.

Although, I'm generally not a union guy,  I wish the group success with their mission.

UPDATE: At 7:25PM an article on the unionization effort appeared on the paper's website. The article states that the request for union (The News Guild) recognition was signed by 48 employees, which is 79% of the staff.  The article was written by Morning Call Staff.

Citizenship The Hard Way

According to my mother, a Gypsy prince was buried in Allentown years ago, she knew about such things. She was born in Galgo, Hungary, an area of Transylvania, now part of Romania, near present day Gilgau. In Galgo, the Jews and Gypsies lived on the edge of town. In the early 20's, my grandparents, along with their Gypsy neighbors, came to Bethlehem to work at the Steel. On weekends, to make extra money, my grandparents would open their house and show Hungarian movies. None of their relatives, Jew or Gypsy, save one cousin, survived the Nazis... Even the cemeteries were desecrated. As you can see from the document above, my grandfather earned his citizenship the hard way.

reprinted from previous years

The Livingston Club, Allentown's Benevolent Oligarchy

Back in the day, when the town had three department stores, the major decisions affecting Allentown's future were made at the Livingston Club. Harvey Farr would meet Donald Miller and John Leh at the Club for lunch, and discuss acquiring more lots for Park & Shop. The bank officers of First National and Merchants Bank would discuss loans with the highly successful merchants, many of whom had stores in all three major Lehigh Valley cities. As the heydays wound down, likewise the exit plans were made there. The City of Allentown acquired the Park & Shop lots, becoming the Allentown Parking Authority. Leh's became the Lehigh County Government Center.

The new oligarchy consists of much fewer men, they could all meet at a small table in Shula's, and be entertained by watching street people arrested. The former 1st National Bank location is now a new Reilly building. The former Livingston Club building is now a parking lot, and future site to another Reilly building. Shula's is also a Reilly building....

reprinted from August of 2015

UPDATE: Dear readers,  I found the demise of older Allentown depressing, and new Allentown painfully boring.... Shula's, referred to above, didn't last... of course referring to an alley as an Art Walk, didn't make it so.  In spite of the Morning Call (now also a Reilly building) compromising its journalistic integrity to outright promote the NIZ district, it remains a sterile collection of new tasteless buildings.

History Of Union Terrace

The area now known as Joseph S Daddona Lake and Terrace has a rich history. The stone arch bridge dates back to 1828.  If Lehigh County had its way, the bridge would be gone now. I'm proud to have played a large part in saving it.  The park consists of the former city ice skating pond, and the WPA amphitheater.

This blog previously featured the train of Union Terrace, which was near the end of the former Barber Quarry Branch line... Talking of tracks, shown above is the freight station of the Allentown and Reading Traction Company.  Their trolley would go under the Dorney Park roller coaster on its way to Kutztown.  Many of you would know the freight building many years later, as the store and home of Joe and Ann Daddona.

reprinted from April of 2013

French Hill

French Hill went straight up from the old mill along the Nashua River, in Nashua, New Hampshire. It was always a poor neighborhood, housing mill workers and immigrants going back over a hundred years. Almost all the buildings on the narrow streets were wood, except the churches. The name came from the many French Canadians drawn there to work. I lived on the Hill during the early 1970's, on the top floor of a triplex.

The old wooden three unit was heated by gas space heaters and the whole building would rumble and shake when a vehicle came down the street. In the morning I would walk down the hill, through the mill property and over a pedestrian bridge to the old main street, where I worked in a photography store. A google search tells me that the neighborhood now houses street gangs. Nashua is right over the border from Massachusetts, yet I would have never imagined such urban problems reaching so far north.


The above post is a reprint from 2010.  Years ago I also never imagined Allentown having gangs,  nor the shootings and stabbings which are now occurring.

Allentown's 6th Ward

When my grandfather first arrived in Allentown, he lived in the Ward, on 2nd. Street. It was around 1895, and the neighborhood was full of immigrants. Some groups came from the same area in the old country, most noticeably the Syrians, from the village of Amar. They were members of the Antiochian Orthodox Church, a Christian minority in a Muslim country. The congregation of St. George's Church on Catasauqua Ave., largely is descended from those immigrants. Well known names in Allentown, such as Atiyeh, Haddad, Hanna, Makoul, Koury and Joseph are among their members. They were among one of the first groups to organize, and those organizations still exist. The photo above was organized by the Syrian American Organization in 1944. Note that Jewish, on the left, is treated as a nationality.

click on photo to enlarge

reprinted from previous years

Moving Allentown's Freight

The Lehigh Valley Transit, in addition to moving people on the trolleys, also moved freight. In Allentown, the freight house was behind Front Street, near the former A&B meat plant. The Kutztown and Reading Trolley Company also had a freight house in west Allentown, which would decades later become the home of former mayor Joe Daddona, at Union Terrace.

UPDATE: Forty five years later, in 1951, we're back at the freighthouse. Notice that a window has been added on the building's side, with only the memory of the earlier sign still present. In another year, both passenger and freight service are gone, with the end of the trolley era.

reprinted from December of 2013