$100 A Week

In 1935, a Jewish boy earning $35 a week carrying 300 pound blocks of ice, was offered three times more to fight; win, lose or draw. For one hundred dollars a week, Jock Whitney, British aristocrat and sportsman, owned Abe Simon. Abe won his first 14 fights, 12 by knockout. On his climb to fight Louis in 1941 he would knock out 27 opponents, including Jersey Joe Walcott.
reprinted from December 2012 

This blog has produced numerous posts chronicling the Joe Louis boxing era, many featuring Abe Simon, a Jewish heavyweight of the era; Simon and my mother were cousins. Lately, Allentown political shenanigans have allowed me little time and space to visit Madison Square Garden in the early 1940's. During the next couple of weeks I will reprint some of the Simon posts, while still assigning staff to City Hall. One of my attractions to the boxing world is the black and white photography produced during that era. The public would listen to the fights on the radio, and then see the photographs in the newspapers the following day.  I refer fight fans to December of 2012,  which can be found on the archive list on the right sidebar. 

reprinted from December 2014

Saving The Queen City Airport

When I grew up on Liberator Ave., I would walk up Catalina Ave. toward school, which was at the end of Coronado. The streets were named for the Vultee-Consolidated WW2 planes, and the neighborhood was next to the airport built as part of the war effort. Vultee Street was built to connect the hangers with the Mack 5C plant, which was given over to Vultee-Consolidated for plane part manufacturing. Today this small airport is known as Queen City, and is threatened by Mayor Ed Pawlowski.

1944 was the first full year of the operation for the company's Allentown, Pennsylvania factory. Consolidated Vultee handled over $100M in wartime contracts at their Allentown plant where they produced TBY-2 Sea Wolves, components parts for B-24 Liberator bombers and other essential armaments and products for the war effort.

Pawlowski covets this unique part of our history to expand the tax base. What he doesn't understand is that more housing or commercial space is not in Allentown's best long term interest. Unfortunately, long term interest is not a term understood by our current leadership. There is a whole development of started houses off S. 12th St. and Mack Blvd. which were never completed. There are filled in foundations on 8th Street, also never completed. More housing is the last thing both the real estate market and school system need. Likewise, the existing commercial sector has been struggling to maintain an acceptable occupancy rate. Queen City airport is an unique asset to Allentown. If LVIA does successfully expand, a separate airport for small planes is very desirable for safety. Considering Pawlowski's predetermined objective, I question whether he should have been appointed to the LVIA Board.

above reprinted from 2011

UPDATE DECEMBER 11, 2020: Queen City Airport ended up being retained by LVIA.  Ed Pawlowski was only finally dislodged from Allentown by the federal authorities.  This blog takes pride in having recognized his schemes for what they were, long before the local politicians or press.

Molovinsky And The Morning Call

The article about Hooks Seafood restaurant closing states that this type of failure isn't unusual in an urban renewal area, according to experts. So says the Morning Call.  The article also states that The $6 million renovation of the long-closed Sal's Spaghetti House included a crystal chandelier from Hess's department store.... As you can see from my photograph above, Sal's wasn't renovated. The long closed former spaghetti house was demolished, and a new building was constructed in its place.  Now, I can understand the paper not knowing this, after all, the building is over a quarter block away from the newspaper building.  Assuming that people at the Morning Call read the paper, apparently nobody caught the error, twice. This was the second time in about a week that this misinformation was printed. However, this post is about the important part of the story, not covered by the paper.

The restaurant was built pre-NIZ. Save for a $50,000 city grant, the entire cost was borne by the owner. It happens that the owner and his wife were retired from a very lucrative business, and always wanted to own a high end restaurant. Opened as the Cosmopolitan, it was high end indeed.  When that failed to attract enough well heeled, it was transformed into the more price friendly Hook Seafood. However, with the NIZ and Reilly's hospitality group of eateries, the market was now over-saturated.

The owner of the restaurant when asked about lack of foot traffic downtown stated, "I'm not going to get judgmental or say anything negative." Those are traits that nobody accuses this blogger of having. 

reprinted from March of 2017

UPDATE DECEMBER 10, 2020: Years ago after they built the Cosmopolitan, I asked Joe Clark what he thought about it. He said that he would like to be the second owner.  Although I don't know the results of the auction for the property, I wouldn't be surprised to see his name.  Although I often take the Morning Call to task, we are lucky to still have our newspaper... I have been a subscriber for over fifty years.

photocredit:molovinsky- site of the former Sal's Spaghetti House being prepared for new foundation

The Yarns In Allentown

The yarns in Allentown used to come from the Tucker Yarn Company, formerly on Hamilton Street, now they come from the Morning Call, formerly located at 6th and Linden Streets.  Both the yarn store and the newspaper building are now owned by J.B. Reilly.  As the Tuckers now knit at home,  so do the reporters now write their articles in their homes. 

The latest yarn from the paper is that Reilly's apartments are 99% full, so he must build more. These articles are spoon fed to the hungry reporters,  who do not question the press releases.  I believe that in reality the market for office space has flattened out,  but with the taxpayers picking up the tab, Reilly wants to keep building, anyway.  I believe that if Reilly's apartments had anywhere near the occupancy rate that he claims, downtown wouldn't be such a dead zone at night and during the weekends.

This week a possible main contender for mayor announced his deliberations on a local blog, instead of the newspaper... He implied that the Morning Call has been failing the community.  I know of another developer, J. B. Reilly, who would disagree with that assessment. 

photocredit:Tucker Yarn Company by Molovinsky

Junkyard Train

Today, once again we ride a freight train of Allentown's great industrial past. In the early 1970's, the Redevelopment Authority tore down the neighborhood on either side of the Lehigh Street hill. At that time they had persuaded Conrail to move the the Barber's Quarry Branch line exclusively to the southern side of the Little Lehigh. The branch had crossed over and back to service the great Wire Mill. After crossing Lehigh Street, the train would proceed along the creek passing under the 8th Street Bridge. At the 10th Street crossing it would service another great industrial giant, Traylor Engineering. In 2009 President Obama visited a successor, Allentown Manufacturing, which has since closed. The line would continue along the creek until it turned north along Cedar Creek to Union Terrace. After crossing Hamilton Street by the current Hamilton Family Diner, it would end at the current park department building. Nothing remains of the line, the tracks were removed. The Allentown Economic Development Corporation recently received a grant to rebuild the line to 10th Street, even though the plant Obama visited has closed. The neighboring former Mack Plant now houses a go cart track. How the money will be squandered remains to be seen. The top photograph was taken by local train historian Mark Rabenold in 1989. It shows the later relocated section of the track that was just east of the Lehigh Street crossing.

reprinted from March of 2011

A Reflection On Christmas Lights

When I was a child, when it came to Christmas lights, more seemed better. I recall my father taking us to see a house out on Union Street, beyond Union Terrace, which decorated lawn, house and roof. The home owner continued that tradition for many years, until he became too old to perform that labor of love. 

When I became older and more visual, I found less decorations more tasteful. Not only was I drawn to less, but also older. Over the years my camera would turn to the retro decorations, especially those faded and shopworn. The film elmusion has held up better than my memory...I can only guess where the photo above was taken. 

Today's inflatables are not, in my opinion, camera worthy.

A Bastard Blogger and Christmas Lights In Parkway

As dusk falls, cars start entering Lehigh Parkway to enjoy the annual Christmas light display.  In the darkness they drive past the top of the Double Stairwell, built by the WPA in 1935. It was designed as the signature structure in the park. In daylight they would see that the top landing is breaking up, and the subsequent landings down the double stairs are even in worse condition. These cracked landings allow seeping water to undermine the steps below them,  jeopardizing the entire structure.  I have been reporting these deteriorating conditions to the Park Department for six years. While nothing has been done to rehab this irreplaceable structure, the department is actively seeking grants to build another new park, near the old incinerator plant off Basin Street.

As a long time public critic of the former Pawlowski administration,  his park directors may have dismissed my criticism of park policy as political discontent. However, with the current mayor and park director I have a long time rapport, but to no apparent avail.

When I drive through the park I don't see the pretty lights, but a sad situation. I see crumbling WPA structures. I see neglect and misplaced priorities.

reprinted from December of 2019 

UPDATE DECEMBER 2020: The Park Department did repair the vertical surfaces on the stairwell structure this past summer, but not the landings. Because the landing surfaces are essential to maintain the structural integrity, I will keep up my campaign for such repair.

Vibrant Downtown Living

On Saturday at 2:00pm, on a clear sunny afternoon, I drove down Hamilton Street. Between 10th and 7th Streets there were only four people.  Two of them were not a asset to center city, under any criteria.  The other two were almost at 7th, and carrying bags.  I suspect they may have been shopping at Villa, on 8th and Hamilton.  Although downtown apologists and cheerleaders will say that my report isn't true, unfortunately, it is all too true...especially on Saturdays.

J. B. Reilly's financially attainable apartments in the former Holiday Inn are just the beginning of his entry into the prevailing rental market.  There is no way that he will even attempt for the Strata rents in his new apartments on S. 8th Street, when they are completed.  Although he and the Morning Call refer to center city as vibrant, it is in fact a dead zone.  The paper and cheerleaders on local social media have bragged that these new apartment units are being financed without the NIZ. Actually, the NIZ was never to include residential. Offices and stores on the first floor of these residential buildings does allow Reilly to tap some NIZ benefits. Furthermore, there is no scrutiny of the prorations by the ANIZDA board.  Adrian Shanker,  head of the local gay and lesbian organization, is a recent appointee to the board. He managed to see that the guidelines were changed to include gays with other minority contractors,  that should be hired by the developers.*

When Reilly is done building his new attainable rate apartments,  Allentown may become worse than it is now.  Allentown's problem isn't a lack of affordable housing, but rather a surplus of it. In that sense, Reilly is only contributing to the problem. Likewise, so are the new units in former converted factories.

* I'm not a fan of rewarding contracts based on minority ownership of any kind.  The practice is not merit based, and has been exploited. While this blog does not adhere to political correctness standards, Shanker has introduced some new thinking into the Good Old Boy Club called ANIZDA.  More on that in a future post.

reprinted from July of 2019

UPDATE DECEMBER 3, 2020: The above piece was written pre-pandemic, and the empty streets were not because of the virus.

Over time I have mellowed in my criticism of the NIZ.  For better or worse, it is the new Allentown. However,  that attitude shift doesn't mean my scrutiny of the program or its components will cease... For example, the consequences of the aforementioned residential aspect.  

The biggest irony in the Lehigh Valley is the Morning Call...While we still do have a local paper,  it has enabled corruption, deception and misinformation.