2nd & Hamilton

Up to the mid 1960's,  before Allentown started tinkering with urban redevelopment, lower Hamilton Street still teemed with businesses. The City had grown from the river west,  and lower Hamilton Street was a vibrant area.  Two train stations and several rail lines crossed the busy thoroughfare.  Front, Ridge and Second were major streets in the first half of the twentieth century.  My grandparents settled on the 600 block of 2nd Street in 1895, along with other Jewish immigrants from Russia and Lithuania.  As a boy, I worked at my father's meat market on Union Street.  I would have lunch at a diner, just out of view in the photo above.  The diner was across from the A&P,  set back from the people shown on the corner.  A&P featured bags of ground to order 8 O'Clock coffee, the Starbucks of its day.
please click on photo
photocredit:Ed Miller, 1953
reprinted from previous years

The Wildlands Conservancy, A Dam Shame

When I was a boy my mother would contribute to Father Flanagan's Boy's Town. It was an orphanage made famous by a movie staring Spencer Tracy as Flanagan. Years later it was discovered that Boy's Town had literally hoarded away rooms of cash.  So has it always been with sacred cows, they're not what they always appear to be. However, they do provide an easy opportunity for people (and newspapers) to feel good about themselves. Here in Lehigh Valley we have such a sacred cow, The Wildlands Conservancy. This week they have been featured by both an article and editorial in the Morning Call.

They are headed by Chris Kocher, another Father Flanagan. Father Kocher wrote in 2015 that whatever South Whitehall decided to do with Wehr's Dam, that the Conservancy would respect the decision. In reality they have been conspiring behind the scenes, before and since, to have the dam demolished. 

Pennsylvania brags that this state has demolished more dams than any other in the country. Years ago a high ranking state official lost a family member by drowning at a dam. He went on a Moby Dick like rampage against dams. Locally, the Wildland Conservancy adopted the cause, and has profited from it. They get to keep an administrative fee (15%) of the demolition costs. In Allentown they demolished the 9inch high dam by the Robin Hood Bridge, and the dam built to feed the fish hatchery.

While the Wildlands has been successful in influencing Allentown Park policy, their greatest success has been in South Whitehall. In 2014 they installed a son of their financial director as head of parks in the township. They then formulated a master plan for the park system in which the dam is removed. A cooperating long term commissioner, Tori Morgan, has aided their domination of the township. Morgan is now again president of the commissioners, and the park director, Randy Cope, is now in charge of the entire Public Works Department, The Wildlands was recently commissioned to oversee a $multi-million dollar project, building a greenway near the jeopardized dam.

Although the residents approved a grassroots referendum in 2016 to preserve the dam, the Wildlands has conspired against the picturesque destination with studies sent to Harrisburg. They claim that the dam isn't the low hazard, concrete fortress that it appears to be. Meanwhile, also in conflict with the voter's intent, the township has not been defending the dam. Randy Cope remains elusive about the dam's fate.

I have met with nothing but resistance from the Morning Call in notifying the public about this conspiracy. Although I provided a copy of a letter proving ex parte communications between the Wildlands and the State, the paper refuses to publish my letter.

This week the paper published a feel good article about the Wildlands and Earthday. While they show children playing in the Little Lehigh, they fail to reveal that such events are paid for by Nestle Bottling, which sucks the Little Lehigh almost dry.

Sacred Cows and complacent newspapers go hand in hand in deluding the public.

photo by K Mary Hess

Geriatric Rants Hurt Allentown

The other day on facebook, I stumbled upon these kind words about me, You can never trust Molovinsky's geriatric incessant rants about the city. He hates the city.... The young man who wrote this is one of the city's new gung ho boosters. I find his animosity curious. I understand those who are enthralled with Allentown's transformation. These new buildings, if on Hamilton Street or the waterfront, are the city's new reality. Hopefully, they will prosper, and give Allentown a long overdue awakening. However, these changes were not without victims and consequences. These changes deserve some scrutiny, which was for the most part was not provided by the local press. I'm proud that this blog could shine a light on some of the shenanigans, even if it makes some people uncomfortable. With the local paper acting practically as a promoter, I would think that a little balance is in order. The young man must think that my negativity will stop the city's renaissance. I assure him that J.B. Reilly will continue building, as long as the NIZ keeps transferring the tax money to him. But, what happens with no scrutiny is that too many people are tempted to get a taste for themselves, sometimes even a mayor.  Allentown is actually in for some real hurt, much more severe than my ranting. The mayor refuses to resign, and the city charter provides no remedy until which time he is actually convicted.  When that pending calamity finally occurs, Allentown will be rudderless for an extended period.  Hopefully, I will not be blamed for that coming commotion.

above reprinted from March of 2016

UPDATE APRIL 22, 2020: Of course now in 2020, Mayor Pawlowski is old news.  I'm in my sixth year of defending Wehr's Dam.  Despite the voter's referendum in 2016 to save the dam, the Wildland Conservancy continues their plot to demolish it. While the Morning Call refuses to publish my expose about that conspiracy,  they continue to promote the Wildlands Conservancy.  Hopefully, my incessant rants will continue, because the backroom shenanigans against the citizenry certainly do.

photo of blogger at Wehr's Dam 2014

Morning Call's Tired Opinion Page

This past weekend Bill White wrote that readers should send him their tired and poorly written sentences for a bad writing contest. Bill claimed that he was only recycling an old column idea because the coronavirus forced him to stay in.  Actually, before the virus, Bill must have stayed in a lot anyway. Year after year, chocolate cake recipe after chocolate cake contest, he recycled old columns. Every year we read about his hall of shame and his Christmas light tour. Bill himself has been recycled by the Morning Call. Let go last year in another cutback at the Call, he's now back, two columns a month. But, as repetitive as he is, he is more original than the paper's normal go to people on the opinion page. 

The Call's tired roster includes Tony Iannelli on local business... Alan Jennings on fair housing... A Muhlenberg professor on politics.  It was because of this staleness that Richard Anderson's letter on St. Lukes, even though it condemned the paper, should have been published.

The Morning Call should welcome some beef. It's not like they're prospering with the old formula. They no longer own their own building. They no longer print the paper in Allentown.  Although they have a monopoly on a huge market,  they demonstrate no imagination.  They will take offense at this post,  rather than consider their own shortcomings.

Another Storm, Another Old Willow Lost

When Irene stormed through Cedar Park, she knocked down and broke a number of the old willow trees. The sight of these magnificent trees along the creek banks is the view-shed cherished by us proponents of the historical park system. As a boy in 1955, I remember the same damage in the aftermath of Hurricane Diane. Many of the remaining willows are now about 75 years old, and at the end of their life span. Although they held the creek banks together for three generations, they have lost favor to riparian buffers.

It's nice to sit by the bank under a willow tree and watch the ducks swim by. Hopefully, somewhere along the banks of the Little Lehigh and Cedar Creek, there is still some open space for a few new weeping willows.

above reprinted from 2011

UPDATE APRIL 20, 2020:  The last nine years haven't been any kinder to the old willows. The photo above is from the most recent storm.  Although I purchased a willow to be planted in Cedar Park a few years ago, they refused to plant it along the creek edge.  Seems as if that is not permitted by the Wildlands Conservancy, which instead demands riparian buffers.  I put more faith in General Trexler's landscape architect of 1928, who ordered willow trees planted every 25 feet along the creeks.  Their shallow roots spread out and held the banks together for four generations of Allentonians.  They allowed us to enjoy the creeks as envisioned by the General and city fathers of the time. Hopefully, someday, some mayor will again reclaim our park system for the citizens of Allentown.

Morning Call Taken To Task

While I'm still battling with the Morning Call about their not allowing my expose on the conspiracy against Wehr's Dam, I am now in good company criticizing their editorial policy.

Yesterday, Richard Anderson, CEO of St. Luke's Health Network, publicly revealed that the paper refuses to print his response piece to an article which appeared on March 29th. That article questioned how much financial help hospitals actually need as a consequence of the corona virus situation.

I have no expertise in the merits of either the paper's article, or Anderson's reply to it. What interests me is the audacity of the paper not printing his response.

Even after I documented my claim that the Wildlands Conservancy was communicating inappropriately with the state about the dam, the editor responded that it didn't prove anything. It did prove that he feels the purpose of the opinion page is to reflect his opinion, and not that of the public.

When the rejected editorial is from a local blogger, with a limited audience, the damage of that repression is limited. When a rejected editorial is from a respected CEO of one of the valley's largest and most important institutions, that editor will have to defend his decision.

Relics Of Our Past

One of the surviving relics of our industrial past is the right of way of former railroad spur lines. Allentown literally had hundreds of factories serviced by several spur routes and numerous rail sidings. The area between Second and Front Streets was crisscrossed with tracks.  Even the west end had service. A line ran behind the current site of B'nai B'rith Apartments, across 17 th St. and up along side of the dry-cleaners. The B'nai B'rith was the site of the former Trexler Lumber Yard, which burned to the ground in a spectacular fire in the mid 70's; The heat from the fire could be felt in West Park. The rails and ties are gone, long ago sold to scrap yards. In many cases the space occupied by the right of ways can still be seen to the knowing eye. They appear as alleys which were never paved. Here and there a surviving loading dock provides another clue. Show in this photo from 1939 are the Mack Truck factories on S. 10th Street, now part of the Bridgeworks Complex. Here the components for Mack Trucks were manufactured. The parts were then trucked to the Assembly Plant (5C) located on S. 12 Street, right off of Lehigh Street. "Built Like A Mack Truck" became a figure of speech across America. It was a prouder time than the lyrics from Billy Joe; little did we know that things could get worse.

reprinted from September of 2009

Allentown"s First Waterfront

Although cheerleaders for the current waterfront NIZ think that they're inventing the Lehigh River, Allentonians already had a river port in the 1800's. As this section of the 1899 map shows, Wharf Street, which is still partially there, led to a man made river port, with two channels back to the river. The Lehigh Port was dug out in 1829, and was used in conjunction with the canal on the other side of the river. In the early 20th century, as the canal commerce was replaced by the railroads,  the port was filled in,  by an expanding Arbogast & Bastian Meat Packing.  Currently, a private boat club utilizes the river front near that location.  I exhibited the map at a recent session held for those interested in Allentown history.

The river port was slightly north of the current America On Wheels Museum, by the Hamilton Street Bridge, going over the Lehigh River to East Allentown.

reprinted from April of 2016