The Lehigh Valley Old Main Line

The last portions of the Old Main Line were recently removed from Jaindl's NIZ waterfront parcel. Save for this blogger, not a peep from anybody else in protest. On the contrary, the track removal was spun as a positive, with notions that it would become part of the rail to trail network.

Shown in the photo above, the Old Main crosses Hamilton Street. There was a siding for the large white warehouse on the far right side of the photo. The line had numerous sidings, serving companies both along the river and on Front Street. For A&B Meats, the siding went into the plant.

Just south of Union Street there was a freight terminal and small yard. Although the old iron trestle bridge still spans the Lehigh north of American Parkway, only little scattered sections of rail remain on the west side of the Lehigh River.

ADDENDUM: My pieces on local history are not taken from Wikipedia and other sources, but rather from my experiences growing up in Allentown.  My father's family operated a small meat packing operation on Union Street. Included in the parcel was a garage on Walnut Street, and the white warehouse shown above on Hamilton.  I spent many hours waiting for the trains to cross Union Street.

Lehigh Valley Lifestyle

Last week's headlines centered on a daylight assault at the Lehigh Valley Mall's Lifestyle Center. The details were a little confusing...Seems one defendant was attacking another, for robbing him previously, while attempting to sell him stolen goods. Anyway, what got my attention was the juxtaposition of defendant and lifestyle. More and more these actors are becoming the news in the Lehigh Valley.

Some people blame the media, especially the Morning Call, for reporting on such happenings. I think that not to do so would be journalistically irresponsible. The valley is no longer Mayberry, we haven't been now for decades. For many of these characters, gangster seems to be the lifestyle of choice.

photocredit:Rick Kintzel/The Morning Call

Tea Leaves, Deed Transfers and The Atiyeh Park Deal

Some people read tea-leafs, I read deed transfers. It would be more accurate to say that I study deed transfer. There has only been two weeks in the last 35 years that I failed to scrutinize the list, and those omissions were failed attempts at relaxation. Recently, I mentioned Kenneth Heffentrager and his Tenant Association of Allentown. Kenneth has become a fixture at City Council meetings, complaining about housing and landlords. Kenneth is going to become a very busy boy. For the last several years the deed transfers have been dominated by landlords buying owner occupied houses. Many of these landlords are new to the business, attracted by $25,000, and even cheaper houses in center city. Landlording is tough for experienced operators, and the learning curve is steep. It will take years for the city to identify all the new landlords, and many will walk away when confronted with the realities of their new venture. Although Allentown has a strategy for Hamilton Street, it needs one for the remainder of center city.

ADDENDUM: The above portion was posted in February of 2014, and titled Allentown's Housing Future. In June of 2014, I published about the parcels purchased from Atiyeh, information I also gleaned from the deed transfers. Blogger Bernie O'Hare believes that these purchases by Pawlowski were intended to help Atiyeh finance a billboard company, I disagree. There is also a claim that the Basin Street purchase was to protect the water supply, I disagree. That parcel, off 2nd and Union, is near the sewer plant, the water supply inlets are near 15th St.  A former park director, Greg Weitzel, was indeed obsessed with connecting the parks with bike paths. At the time I opposed those plans, because of the shortcomings in maintaining existing park features. I believe that the Martin Luther King parcel was purchased with expanded park land in mind. I speculate that the Basin Street parcel was included because Atiyeh out-negotiated the city,  and  Pawlowski's indifference to using public resources to further his own agendas.  I do agree that both parcels were totally unnecessary, and a misappropriation of public funds.

reprinted from August of 2015

Best By Test

Growing up in Little Lehigh Parkway, now called Little Lehigh Manor by the Realtors, the milkman was an early morning fixture.  Almost every house had the insulated aluminum milkbox.  The milk trucks were distinctive, and the drivers wore a uniform, indicative of their responsibility.  Freeman's milk was the best by test, or so the slogan said.  Their trucks were red and immaculate.  The dairy building  still stands, a quarter block north of 13th and Tilghman Streets.  They competed with a giant, Lehigh Valley Co-Operative Farmers.  That dairy, on the Allentown/Whitehall border, just north of the Sumner Avenue Bridge on 7th Street, even sported an ice cream parlor.  Milk, up to the mid 50's, came in a bottle.  The milkman would take the empties away when delivering your fresh order.  In addition to white and chocolate,  they produced strawberry milk  in the summer.  About once a week the milkman would knock on the door to settle up;  times have changed.






Occasionally the bottle, and later the cartons, would feature themes and advertisements.  A picture of Hopalong Cassidy would entertain young boys as they poured milk into their Corn Flakes.  Earlier, during the War, (Second World) bottles would encourage customers to do their part;  buy a bond or scrap some metal for the war effort.

reprinted from January 2013

A Personal Memoir

I'm not sure memoir is a good title, rather than facts and records, I have hazy recollections. Assuming my memory will not improve at this stage of the game, let me put to print that which I can still recall. In about 1958 my father built Flaggs Drive-In. McDonalds had opened on Lehigh Street, and pretty much proved that people were willing to sit in their cars and eat fast food at bargain prices. For my father, who was in the meat business, this seemed a natural. As a rehearsal he rented space at the Allentown Fair for a food stand, and learned you cannot sell hotdogs near Yocco's. He purchased some land across from a corn field on Hamilton Blvd. and built the fast food stand. In addition to hamburgers, he decided to sell fried chicken. The chicken was cooked in a high pressure fryer called a broaster, which looked somewhat like the Russian satellite Sputnik. The stand did alright, but the business was not to my father's liking, seems he didn't have the personality to smile at the customers. He sold the business several years later to a family which enlarged and enclosed the walk up window. Subsequent owners further enlarged the location several times. The corn field later turned into a Water Park, and you know Flaggs as Ice Cream World.

I'm grateful to a kind reader who sent me this picture of Flaggs

reprinted from August of 2017

ADDENDUM: Allentown and its environs have changed considerably in the last 60 years. While Yocco's is still a very viable business in the suburbs, the center city demographic changes no longer supported selling hot dogs at 625 Liberty Street. After 85 years, that store closed in the summer of 2016.  Flaggs (Ice Cream World), rather than being outside of town, is now on the way to Hamilton Crossings.

Allentown Assaults Livability

With little fanfare, Allentown is preparing to push through a "Noise Exemption District" to essentially accommodate the profitability of the Maingate nightclub. This district would stretch from 17th to 19th Streets,  between Liberty and Tilghman Streets.

In a previous post, I pointed out that the neighbors, both in the senior high-rises and the nearby row houses, will have their quality of life sacrificed for this private business scheme.  Furthermore, in recent years, Allentown has improved the West End Theatre District to create an atmosphere of tranquility. A stabbing this past weekend at the View Club at 11th and Hamilton Streets should give City Council pause when they deliberate this ill advised proposal. There already has been a shooting at the Maingate.

The Civic Theatre has created a unique ambience on 19th Street for well over fifty years,  contributing to the livability of that neighborhood, and the upscale businesses clustered around it.
If the Maingate cannot operate within the state LCB guidelines,  why should the entire area be compromised for the Maingate's profit?  What in the future will prevent a noise abated spot from opening opposite the theater?

Not to mince words, the proposal is based on blatant cronyism.  City Council must rise above it.

photocredit:Discover Lehigh Valley

PREVIOUS POSTS ON THIS TOPIC
   
   City Takes Cronyism To New Noise Level

   Allentown Still Neeeds Lessons On Favoritism

McHistory In The 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.

above reprinted from January of 2017 and 2019 with a different photo

ADDENDUM FEBRUARY 10, 2020: This past weekend the Morning Call ran an article on an upcoming event with a $100 admission fee at the former bank, now Jaindl owned and called Vault 634. Like Reilly owned NIZ properties,  the announcements for these commercial events are being presented as cultural news,  sparing these titans the usual advertising fees.  While mom and pop businesses pay through the nose to advertise,  and the paper struggles to survive,  the Morning Call continues promoting the NIZ district as news.

photo of Vault 634 by April Gamiz/The Morning Call

Sad Sack Pennsylvania Voters

A new correspondent for the Morning Call in Harrisburg tells us that school tax reform is not on track after all, what a surprise!

In the late 1970's, when Pennsylvania legalized and took over the numbers racket with the lottery, the wide eyed were promised tax reform. When the state legalized casino gambling 30 years later, the gullible were promised tax reform.

Seniors on fixed income really do lose their homes because of taxes, I've known several. State elected officials really do promise reform, I've known many...They never deliver, nor do they actually try.

Here in Pennsylvania getting elected to Harrisburg is a job for life, unless and until such an official decides to give it up. We elect incumbents term after term, regardless of performance. There is a manual on how to stay in office, which includes sending out constituent birthday cards and other assorted nonsense to the morons in your district.

If ever there was a meaningless phrase, reform in Pennsylvania must be it.