Bill White's Insult

Regular readers of this page know that I have issues with the Morning Call editor. I also have taken Bill White to task, for his repetitive serial topics. I always felt that his serial topics, like Eating His Way Through Musikfest, wasted the column space. I suppose with White I should have been careful what I wished for.

Yesterday his column accused everybody who voted for Trump of putting our democracy at tremendous risk. White should know that everybody who voted for Trump didn't attend the rally in Washington or think that the election was stolen. White should know that everybody who did attend the rally did not storm the Capital Building.

I'm offended by White's column, and I didn't even vote for Trump. I was wrong, Bill, stick with judging chocolate cake recipes.

Morning Call Damage Control

Readers of today's local paper learn with how much historical devotion the Morning Call passed on its legacy to the local historical society.

“It is sad to think about all the history and all of the work that went into compiling that history,” Morning Call Editor-in-Chief Mike Miorelli said. “But we feel very fortunate that the Heritage Museum and the National Museum of Industrial History will give our precious history a good home.”

Readers of this blog and it's sister publication, Allentown Chronicles, know another side of the story. A large portion of the archives were discarded to the landfill. After it was revealed that I obtained a few of the negatives, Morning Call editor Mike Miorelli had a meltdown. The employee who salvaged the material was placed on leave, and his job threatened, unless all material in my possession was returned. I cooperated fully for the sake of the young man's job. I can only assume that the material ended up where Miorelli originally intended, back in the landfill. In a terse email exchange two weeks ago, Miorelli accused me of engaging in half-truths. That term pretty much describes the story in today's paper. 

Addendum: My issues with the paper's story on the archives does not reflect on the reporter, who is excellent. I'm sure her hands were tied in regard to not reporting on the large amount of discarded material.

In the picture above I'm receiving an award from The Morning Call for this blog. Now, under the current leadership, they won't even print a letter to the editor from me.

Farce On Front Street

Back in the day before the FBI raid on Allentown City Hall,  those interested in corruption in Allentown were pretty much limited to myself and O'Hare.  Missing in action was the Morning Call.  Although they would occasionally use this blog as an unattributed source, they avoided my most controversial exposés.  Among them was my revelations about the Neuweiler Brewery.

Although the FBI and  Justice Department decided to prosecute Pawlowski and Company on nine deals,  I suspect that the menu actually had many more choices.  Among them may have been the current Neuweiler Brewery deal.  When Ruckus Brewing was introduced as an applicant for the Neuweiler Brewery, I wrote about it here, way back in 2013.  My research revealed that Ruckus had no experience at the time in either actual beer brewing or real estate.  What they did have was a business consultant very connected to the administration in Allentown, Mike Fleck.

Although Pawlowski and Fleck were indicted and convicted,  the Allentown Commercial Industrial Development Authority proceeded with handing over the brewery to Ruckus.  Ruckus received numerous deadline extensions on their application, and represented the brewery as a done deal to raise cash. All these irregularities were previously reported on this blog, and ignored by the local press. They are currently permitted to rent out space as is, in a building in which the previous owner was arrested and jailed for not correcting code violations.

When shenanigans occur in Allentown,  this blog is often the first source to chronicle the questionable activity.

For the full story on the Neuweiler Brewery, please follow the links provided below. 

Post on Neuweiler Brewery from May 29, 2008

Post on Neuweiler Brewery July 11, 2012

Sequel to July 11, Post (July 16, 2012)

Post on Neuweiler Brewery May 2, 2013

Post on Neuweiler Brewery Jan. 31, 2013

The Neuweiler Brewery, A Pawlowski/Fleck Shenanigan, July 8, 2015

Morning Call Catches Up To Molovinsky On Neuweiler Sept. 30, 2015

above reprinted from August of 2019

ADDENDUM FEBRUARY 27, 2020: The Morning Call reports today that the project has applied for a loan from the NIZ board, and will use the distribution portion for their own offices. The iconic brewery section has been allowed to deteriorate beyond practical salvation. However, being that it is really our tax money being used for private gain, I expect that down the road, we will pay to restore it anyway. Scott Unger, director of the ACIDA states that “Self-occupancy is the highest level of commitment." What that really means is that the boys haven't found a real tenant, but let that slide, like everything else about this project. 

UPDATE JANUARY 13, 2021: A local neighbor reports that clean-out activity has begun from the rear of the property. To him and many others who have invested in the neighborhood, the Neuweiler project is a positive development. I understand their perspective, and my research and reporting was not intended to extinguish their enthusiasm.  I have chronicled some of the back room shenanigans involved in getting the property to this point. I say some, because confidentiality demands that some calls and meetings remain unreported.   

Mayor For A Block

Although I've titled this image Mayor For A Block, I could have just as easily called it The Future Mayor. When the Budweiser Wagon left the staging area on 10th Street, and rounded the corner down Hamilton, Julio Guridy had the seat of honor. Although I do not believe that Pawlowski will succeed in his try for the governorship, we now know that his ambitions extend beyond Allentown. When he does leave City Hall, Julio is the likely successor. Regardless, I have enjoyed using the Budweiser Wagon as a vehicle for my photography.

photocredit:michael molovinsky

Click on photograph to enlarge.

reprinted from September of 2013

UPDATE JANUARY 12, 2021: Julio has decided to enter the crowded Democratic mayoral primary this coming spring.  Over the years I have written about several of the announced candidates numerous times. Such reprints are not intended as political endorsements.

Aftermath Of Washington Riot

The aftermath of last week's riot in Washington has both national and local consequences. I find Nancy Pelosi's comment about protesters choosing their whiteness over democracy offensive. While some protesting the election may be racists, most people were there because they bought into the notion, however misguided,  that the election wasn't fair. You might say that Pelosi is putting accusations of racism ahead of truth. In addition to being divisive, I doubt that such an accusation will bring anybody new into her tent.

Locally, an Allentown district teacher was suspended for participating in the protest. It has not been determined if he entered the Capital Building, so such a suspension seems premature to me, not unlike a tar and feathering.  Paul Muschick, Morning Call columnist, has an excellent piece on the suspension. Muschick has stepped up to the plate since being assigned the column, and has produced many insightful pieces.

While I'm referring to a Morning Call columnist, let me also compliment the many excellent reporters at the paper.  While I'm a frequent critic of the Morning Call,  my complaints only concern  the opinion page policy. That page is an open door for certain people and topics, and completely closed to others.

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 it's day.
please click on photo
photocredit:Ed Miller, 1953
reprinted from November 2011

Enough Is Enough

Lindsey Graham,  Republican from South Carolina, had planned on supporting the effort to challenge the Electoral College Certification on Wednesday. After the riot yesterday he changed his mind, saying enough is enough.   

Scott Perry,  Pennsylvania congressman from the Harrisburg area, continued on with his plans to object.

Here locally, the Lehigh Valley Tea Party sponsored a bus going to Washington yesterday. Hopefully those aboard refrained from storming the Capitol Building.

Morning Call columnist Paul Muschick wrote that he may well change his registration from Republican to independent.  He also suggested that Pat Toomey's disassociation with Trump may have been easy, because he had announced that he was not seeking reelection.  There are plenty of Republicans, like Mitt Romney, who have been critical and are not retiring from political life. 

The Trump diehards are hoping that their party turns to the right.  I'm hoping that instead the party decides to do the right thing.

ADDENDUM: I believe that Toomey's positions have been sincere, and not affected by any election  calculus.

Tom Carroll, leader of the local Tea Party, claims that Antifa, masquerading as Trump supporters,  initiated  storming the capital, and only then were followed by Trump supporters.  His explanation seems like an attempt to dilute responsibility.

Lehigh Valley History, A Thing Of Wonder Gone

The former greenhouse at the current Trexler Park was the pride of Harry and Mary Trexler. The General was very specific in his will about its future;

I, Harry C. Trexler declare this to be my last Will and Testament: ......into the Treasury of the City of Allentown, for the perpetual maintenance of said Park, (Trexler) as well as the Greenhouse thereon located. This bequest shall include all the plants and other contents of said Greenhouse (1929)

Although nobody in charge of Allentown remembers, the greenhouse was a thing of wonder. Full of banana trees and other tropical plants, it was a true escape from winter for all visitors. Its demolition was a project that the Wildlands Conservancy would have loved. The park director at the time touted all the money in maintenance to be saved. He then took that projected money and planted the southeast section of the park along Cedar Creek in natural species. Last year Allentown Park Department cut down all those trees planted at the time, and we now have nothing to show for our loss of the greenhouse.

Flash ahead twenty years, and South Whitehall Township will demolish another thing of wonder, if not stopped. The Wildlands Conservancy paid an engineering firm to compromise their credibility with an absurd report, on how expensive it would be to keep Wehr's Dam. I will not let the dam go quietly.

reprinted from November of 2015

UPDATE JANUARY 6, 2021: When South Whitehall voters decided by referendum to keep their iconic dam,  it never occurred to them that five years later it would still be in jeopardy.  This threat is from a combination of a conspiring politician,  an agenda driven organization and a compromised press.

Tori Morgan, perpetual president of the South Whitehall Commissioners, has been on board with the Wildlands Conservancy about demolishing Wehr's Dam since 2013.  When the Wildlands created the township's park master plan, they had already erased the dam off the drawing board.  When Morgan devised the referendum,  she never expected it to pass.  She thought that it would provide political cover for demolishing the popular structure. 

After the referendum passed,  the Wildlands Conservancy got busy working with their associates in the Harrisburg Bureau of This and That, finding more faults with the dam, to inflate its repair cost beyond the amount approved by the referendum.

Although I have documented the correspondence between the Wildlands and Harrisburg,  the Morning Call editor refuses to cover the story.