Saving The Spring Pond

As a small boy growing up in the twin homes above Lehigh Parkway, I would go down the steep wooded ravine and cross the Robin Hood Bridge. The stone lined spring pond and miniature bridge was just the first in a series of wonderful WPA constructions to explore. Last year, when I organized the reclamation of the Boat Landing, my memory turned to the pond. Although overgrown with several inches of sod, I knew the treasure was still savable.





In the spring of 2010 I met Mike Gilbert of the Park Department, and pitched the idea of a partial restoration. On May 26th, I posted A Modest Proposal, which outlined my hopes for the pond. By July, Gilbert had the Park Department clear off the remaining stones, and clean up around the miniature bridge.


Park Director Greg Weitzel  indicated to me that the pond features uncovered will be maintained. Any further clearing would be at the discretion of Mike Gilbert. In our conversation he also stated that there are virtually no funds available for the preservation of the WPA icons.







I will attempt to organize a group and contributions for this most worthy cause. Between the Spring Pond and The Boat Landing there was once a bridge to the island. Wouldn't it be nice if a small boy could go exploring.

above reprinted from previous posts

UPDATE August 2013Mike Gilbert has retired, and the Park Department has a new director. Although grass and sod are starting to again cover the remaining stones that surround the pond, the miniature bridge is still visible. I will make it my mission to again pitch the new personnel.

UPDATE June 18, 2014. The grass and sod has reclaimed the stones that surround the pond. Only the very top of the miniature bridge is still visible to those who know that it's there. Unless there is an immediate intervention, it's days are numbered.
HISTORY IS FRAGILE

UPDATE February 2017:In 2015, in cooperation with Friends of Allentown Parks, I supervised college volunteers to clear the new sod off the pond stones, and the new bush off the miniature bridge. Allentown is on its third park director since this post was first written, and has acquired two large parcels to create new parks. To be planning additional parks, when our existing park features are left to abandonment, is incredibility poor management.

UPDATE May 1, 2018:  This past weekend the pond, miniature bridge and spring channel to the creek were once again cleared.  The work was done by volunteers from Faith Church, Asbury Church, Igesia De Fe and Salem Bible Church,  through Karen El-Chaar, director of Friends Of The Parks. Although the park department provided assistance in the two clean ups over the past several years,  they have  not provided ongoing maintenance to the site.  Understand that in the past few years they have constructed the exercise area at Jordan Park, the cement disc golf pads in the parkway and other recreational features. It is long overdue that the WPA structures be returned to the regular park budget and schedule.

UPDATE JANUARY 14, 2020:  Karen El-Chaar is now Director Of Parks. Hopefully she will have a soft spot for this particular WPA structure. I continue trying through this blog and facebook to keep these structures on the public agenda.

Allentown, A Revolting Development, Chapter 10

Over the years I have used Chester Riley as a meme on numerous posts, most of which complain about the declining quality of life issues in Allentown. Chester was the star of a 1950's sitcom called The Life of Riley. Every episode, after his workday at a factory, he would have to solve a family dilemma within the allotted 30 minutes of his TV show. 

So much has changed in Allentown as I watched that program every week as a little boy.  Fathers coming home from the factory with their curved black lid lunchboxes are a thing of the past.  Now a days, Allentown factories are mostly a thing of the past.  Worse yet,  father's coming home is also for too many a thing of the past.

Last evening, while driving on busy Tilghman Street, two cars following each other skidded through a red light, and then swerved across the two lanes to turn off at the next corner. 

Several years ago Morning Call columnist Bill White described me and this blog as dour and misguided. Of course at that time he and his employer were still praising Pawlowski and Allentown. I'll take dour over indicted, and I'll take the old Allentown over the revolting development it has turned into.

Morning Call Donates In-Kind To Ce-Ce

Since the Morning Call has publicized Ce-Ce Gerlach's Go Fund Me campaign, complete with a link, her contributions have risen 600%. One anonymous ponied up $500. Seeking $100,000 to defend against two misdeameaner charges is almost a crime in itself. While the paper for 6 days solicited funds for her, remember they have been invested in her for a long time. 

Ce-Ce was one of the Morning Call's Go To people. They have a stable of people they quote time after time on certain subjects... Iannelli for business, Jennings for poverty, Borick for politics, and Ce-Ce for affordable housing. 

While Ce-Ce may well end up too tarnished to keep her Morning Call post, editor Miorelli is apparently in a damage control mode regarding her.

Front & Union Streets 1958

In the mid 1950's, Midas Muffer's first shop in Allentown was just off Front & Union, just west of the former Hamilton Street Bridge. The current bridge was built in 1959. 

Shown above, in addition to the muffler shop, is the Russ Bankes auto repair/ gas station, and the rear of the C Keller & Sons Moving and Storage warehouse, which faced Hamilton Street. The section of Front Street between Hamilton and Union was eliminated for the new bridge ramps. The gas station was torn down to accommodate the new bridge's Union Street off ramp. The warehouse would remain until destroyed by a fire in 1982. 

The former muffler shop was later torn down to build a larger auto body shop. That newer building is now Los Primasos Tire Shop.

click on photo to enlarge

The Fountain Of My Youth

Just west of the Robin Hood Bridge is a fountain which quenched the thirst of my summer days. Built during the WPA era, it overlooked the creek. Although the water was turned off years ago, so now is the view. The weeds and assorted invasives growing are not a riparian buffer. Science says that a buffer has to be 25feet wide to be of any value. A reader described this thin strip of wild growth as neglect, masquerading as conservation. All it does is block both the view and access to the waterway. It denies our current citizens the beauty and experience for which the parks were designed. Although the Wildland's Conservancy would like you to believe that the Allentown Parks are there to be wildlands, in reality they were designed by landscape architects, to provide the citizens of Allentown with what Harry Trexler called serenity. He did also appreciate conservation, but for that he created the Trexler Game Preserve, north of Allentown. There are places in the parks which can accommodate the riparian buffer zones, without compromising the intended public experience of waterway view and access. Riparians could be created and maintained in the western side of Lehigh Parkway, between the pedestrian bridge and Bogerts Bridge. In Cedar Park, the riparian section could be in western side, between the last walking bridge and Cedar Crest Blvd. It's time that the parks were given back to the citizens of Allentown. They are not funded, or intended by our tax dollars and the Trexler Trust,  just to be a venue for the Wildland's Conservancy to harvest grants.  Let a child again giggle by the creek's edge. Let us get back our intended park experience.

reprinted from August of 2013

ADDENDUM: I have lobbied the park department to leave the creek accessible in a couple small areas in Cedar Park.

Lesson At Dieruff

A Dieruff High School social studies teacher would not have to take his class very far for a lesson in Allentown's history. Although never elected, East Side activist Dennis Pearson has been complaining for thirty years that the East Side always get short changed in Public Works. Such was the case in the mid 1930's, during the WPA work in Allentown. Roosevelt's New Deal program built the elaborate walls in the south side's Lehigh Parkway. Central Allentown received the magnificent Lawrence Street stairwell. The culturally elite of west Allentown received the Union Terrace Amphitheater, envisioned for Shakespeare. Pearson's east side got a few scattered steps to nowhere. The steps remained, and thirty years later Allentown built Dieruff High School. With expansions and renovations, some of the steps now adjoin the school. Flash ahead to the summers of 2009 and 2010.




I lobbied Allentown City Council members to appropriate some of the $millions of dollars in Cedar Park plans to begin preserving the irreplaceable WPA structures, starting to crumble throughout our park system. East Side elected councilman, Michael D'Amore, assured me that he only signed off on the Administrations plan, with the stipulation that the steps in Irving Park-Dieruff area would be restored at the same time. The work in Cedar Park was completed last year, including $millions of dollars with of recreation equipment from catalogs. The deterioration of the steps around Dieruff continues. Now there's a lesson in government!
photos courtesy of Mark Thomas

reprinted from September of 2011

ADDENDUM: Flash ahead again four more years, and the steps at Irving Park are now finally being repaired, using a $20,000 grant from the Trexler Trust. Although the grant was secured through Friends Of The Parks, it's actually also the fruit of my labor. That organization's director learned of the plight of the WPA structures through meetings I conducted at the Allentown Library in 2011. I then took her on a WPA tour of the parks, and we have been collaborating on the WPA ever since.

At the city meeting last week, I asked the councilmen to compare $20,000  from an outside source, to repair something as tangible as the stone structures, to the $1.4 million of city money, to buy land that we didn't need, nor are using.  I explained that the consequence of the WPA neglect was that our largest park, Lehigh Parkway, is now virtually inaccessible.  Considering that I had approached both previous park directors about the WPA, with no success, I asked council to appoint me special WPA envoy, and to instruct the new director to consider my suggestions in both her plans and budget.

Council didn't respond to my request. I think that maybe they were preoccupied with the mob behind me, the ones with the pitchforks and torches.  As things simmer down from news of  the FBI investigation, and council has to deal with the business at hand,  perhaps they will reconsider my offer.

above reprinted from August of 2015

UPDATE JULY 15, 2021: Since this was written seven years ago, Mayor Ed is in the pokey. Although convicted for receiving payoffs on about ten contracts, I believe that the FBI actually had a much larger menu of corruption from which to choose 

Because of my blunt outspokenness,  city council never acknowledged my work with the parks and WPA structures.  However, the former director of Friends Of The Parks, Karen El-Chaar, is now park director, and she does have an appreciation of the WPA.  The problem now is budgetary,  appropriating funds for repairs. Several structures remain in peril...I will continue to speak out.

The Morning Call's Mistake

Mike Miorelli, editor of the Morning Call, had a recent piece where he touted the paper's Town Square, as a place where the community can be heard. He did add the following caveat.

Some of you haven’t always been happy when submissions were rejected for various reasons. Some may have been too promotional. Some alleged things that were not verified by our reporting.

"Not verified by our reporting" is quite a story in itself. If something was reported, there would be little need for a member of the public to write in. But more importantly, just because their reporters couldn't verify it, doesn't mean that it isn't true. I have a long standing spat with the paper about Wehr's Dam. When their reporter asked public officials if they if did anything behind the scenes, the officials replied "certainly not." Public officials not admitting to their shenanigans is par for the course. One would think that a paper which was oblivious to a corrupt mayor for over a decade, might realize that public officials don't admit and confess to every reporter's question. 

The paper could simply add a disclaimer that the opinion expressed is that of the writer, and not theirs. They could say that they have not verified the information in the letter. In truth, their editorial page is not a town square, but an echo chamber. It echoes their opinion, or the opinion of their pre-approved go to submitters.

Brightline Of Florida

While Biden and the new administration are promoting their $Trillion dollar infrastructure program,  and an improved Amtrak would supposedly be a benefit,  the Republic Of Florida has its own program, with no cost to the taxpayers.

The privately owned high speed train has been operating since 2018 between Miami and West Palm Beach.  Richard Branson, who spent this past weekend near outer space, envisioned a high speed Virgin Train brand between Orlando and Miami. While Virgin is no longer involved with the project,  the extension from West Palm Beach to Orlando is being built.  The Brightline extension requires seventeen new bridges and 170 miles of track. The new track is next to the old existing single track, now in use for freight.

The project is not without controversy. While very few towns would have a station or benefit from the high speed line, the train will be speeding through them.  A concern is the danger imposed by such high speed at all the crossings.

The new bridges are a massive undertaking. Shown above is the bridge construction over the Crane Creek in the Space Coast area.  A temporary bridge was constructed to hold the massive equipment necessary to build the new bridge.

Florida was developed a century ago by Henry Flagler and his train company. Private enterprise does still exist.