Art In The Park

Art In The Park formally refers to an annual art show in West Park. For those of us with gray hair, it also references the monumental sculptures Phil Berman had placed in Cedar Creek Parkway.

For me personally, it is the iconic WPA stonework throughout the park system. For many others, memories of MayFair come to mind. One summer about forty years ago, the late Greg Weaver had one of his sculptures in a pond at the Rose Garden. 

The hand-painted trash can shown above was the trigger for this post. I saw it at the storage barn by the park department office.  Painted by Tonya Romig, it may have graced a former Romper Day celebration in one of the parks. If and when more details become known, I will amend this post.

UPDATE: The can was illustrated by Ms. Romig in 2000, while still in high school. It was done for Mayfair, when that event was still held at Cedar Beach.  She assumed that the can was long gone by now.

Racial Profiling In Allentown

Christopher Fitzgerald, who was acquitted of brandishing a gun at detectives in 2014,  is now suing the county for false arrest.  In an earlier suit which was dismissed,  he also accused the detectives of racial profiling.  Readers may remember that the victim/defendant is the son of the former police chief in Allentown.  The chief was hired after a nationwide search.  The chief's son was then hired by Lehigh County Prison as a guard.  He slammed on his brakes on 7th Street with a car behind him,  and then displayed a gun when the car behind him came alongside.  The car happen to be occupied by detectives, and Fritzgerald was arrested by Whitehall Police in the parking lot of the Lehigh Valley Mall.

In a well covered trial, young Fitzgerald was acquitted of charges stemming from the incident.  He was defended by high power Philadelphia lawyer Jack McMahon,  who would later defend Pawlowski, who had hired Fitzgerald's dad as police chief.

The Fitzgerald's had no problem with racial profiling when the father was hired as police chief.  They had no problem with profiling when junior was given a job at the prison. That only happened when the Hispanic detective in the car behind him got annoyed at him waving a Glock handgun. 

above reprinted from September of 2018

ADDENDUM AUGUST 25, 2022:Since Fitzgerald's* departure, Allentown went through several chiefs, more less depleting its inventory of former homegrown brass in the department. Its current chief, Charles Roca**, is also homegrown, and Hispanic to boot. It is not an easy job, but Roca appears popular, with both the public and administration. 

* Being an experienced minority chief is very marketable in current times, and Fitzgerald was always willing to travel for for bigger and better. He most recently was hired as chief of Denver's large transportation system.

**Allentown now has a young department. It is my hope for Allentown that Roca stays in place long enough to gray on the job, and mentor future brass for the department.

The Mad Men Of Allentown

Back in the day, the titans of Allentown would fill the five barberchairs of the Colonial Barbershop, 538 Hamilton Street. That was when the town had three department stores. That was when Wetherhold and Metzger had two shoe stores on Hamilton Street. That was when Harvey Farr would meet Donald Miller and John Leh at the Livingston Club for lunch, and discuss acquiring more lots for Park & Shop. By 1995 all that was gone, but Frank Gallucci, 82, would still give some old timers a trim. The Colonial Barbershop property, closed for many years, has been purchased by J.B. Reilly. It is my pleasure to present this previously unseen portrait of Gallucci, toward the end of his career.

photocredit:molovinsky

reprinted since 2013

The (Former) Corruption Of Allentown Pennsylvania

Whether Mayor Edwin Pawlowski is convicted or not, nobody can have any doubt about the corruption this city has experienced over the last decade. Every contract was negotiated not for the taxpayer's sake, but rather the position of the mayor. These distorted criterion infected every department. Those who follow this blog realize that while both local politics and history are my topics of choice, the park system is my passion.

Although the Cedar Beach Pool contract was investigated as corrupt, it was not the only questionable decision made by the park department under Pawlowski. First and foremost,  two new parcels should have never been purchased; This is the land by Basin Street, and the former fertilizer plant land along Martin Luther King Drive. The existing park system has been neglected since Pawlowski was elected in 2005, with the iconic WPA Stone Structures literally crumbling.

If the administration and city council had taken suggestions made on this blog to heart, the entrance wall of Lehigh Parkway would have never collapsed. I do not possess unique insight, but rather the simple understanding that Allentown has a magnificent park system which needs only to be maintained.

blogger surveying  entrance road wall after it collapsed in Lehigh Parkway 

photo courtesy of Michael Adams

above, with title (revision), reprinted from February of 2018 

ADDENDUM AUGUST 28, 2022: This blog and I remain outsiders in the town of our birth. Nobody in either City Hall or The Morning Call wants to be reminded of the corrupt years, or their acquiescence to them. The new administration wants to think that the Pawlowski corruption was ancient history, and that they're a shiny clean new face. The mayor is a clean new face, but there remain remnants of the Pawlowski era in city hall.  

While the paper now occasionally promotes itself as a watchdog, their new young staff has no institutional knowledge of what and who is behind the curtains.

Needless to say I'm invited nowhere, but this blog is monitored by those concerned with revelations of previous and current shenanigans.

1953 In Allentown

In 1953 you could escape the crowds on Hamilton Street by walking down beyond the third department store, Zollinger Harned, to the 500 Block. The malls in Whitehall were still two decades away, and Hamilton Street was where the Lehigh Valley shopped. Although the photograph above shows a trolley and a bus, the last trolly would run in June of that year. South side Allentown was bustling with Mack Truck and General Electric. The first supermarket, FoodFair, opened that year on Lehigh Street, now the Parkway Shopping center. In addition to the three department stores, downtown Allentown boasted three five and dimes and five movie theaters. Ike was our President, and Brighton Diefenderfer was our mayor. In the scene above, Man In The Dark is playing at the Colonial Theater. In that 3D movie, a criminal gets a second chance if he submits to an operation to excise the criminal portion of his brain. I wonder if we could give elected officials that option?

reprinted from May of 2012

The Trump Card

On Wednesday morning the New York Times proclaimed in headline, The Party Of Trump. Their premise, and the premise of much of the media, is that Republicans are weak minded cultists,  even willing to drink poisoned kool-aid. The antiquated primary system often does nominate lesser qualified candidates in both parties... And it can result in non-competitive elections come November.

While this primary system can throw away what should have been slam dunks, as in Pennsylvania's governor race, don't count out a Republican presidential victory in 2024, unless Trump is the nominee.  While Trump's influence can defeat Cheney in Wyoming, he's way too polarizing to win the presidency again.  

While the Times hopes to see Trump run and lose, he won't be at the top of the ticket in 2024, and that's their fear.  With  DeSantis or even Pence, the liberal media will have to work much harder to sway the election.

Molovinsky and The Morning Call

If anyone is wondering what the issue was with my rejected letter to the Morning Call about Wehr's Dam, the issue was me.  One of the consequences of having criticized the paper and various sacred cows over the last decade is that my letters are submitted to a much higher level of scrutiny. Almost all the letters that they print have assumptions and opinions.  It is, after all,  the Opinions Page.  My previous letter on Wehr's Dam, before the referendum, took over a month of negotiations to have printed.  In the end, it was only printed because Bill White declined to make corrections to his piece on Wehr's Dam, and suggested instead that I write an editorial.

One must understand that we live in the valley of sacred cows and denial.  Only here can the township manager of South Whitehall go to work for the townships largest property owner and developer, and not raise eyebrows. Only here can Allentown's biggest developer actually now own the newspaper building.

For the sake of journalism and access to news,  the Morning Call should be printing this blog as a daily column, instead of repressing my occasional letters.

above reprinted with minor revisions from February of 2017

ADDENDUM AUGUST 18, 2022: Although the editor of the Morning Call reads this blog every day, and even occasionally sends me a complaint about it, they never again printed a letter from me since 2016.  Although it took three editors and five years to get them to print an update on Wehr's Dam,  and the reporter even called me several times for information, they ended up white-washing the story and omitting any reference to me. 

I do have the satisfaction that the dam is being saved despite the conspiracy against it, and that the current commissioners realize the part I played in that long battle.

Allentown Not Much For History

Once you go a mile west beyond Bethlehem, there's not much interest in history.  There's also not much interest in art or architecture.  Boast as you will about Allentown's new NIZ buildings, but there won't be any awards given there for architecture.  The new waterfront NIZ district will remove the historic LVRR rail tracks.  The local historical society concentrates on shows about Abraham Lincoln, with no interest in local topics. The Allentown park department actually encourages the disregard to its original plans and structures.*  We're being led by people who seemed more concerned with their own future, be it in real estate or politics.

For years my efforts have concentrated on trying to save those historical structures unique to our area.  Although I may occasionally still succumb to that compulsion in the future,  hopefully, most of my protest will now be limited to posts on this blog.  I pleaded to no avail with too many commissions with predetermined agendas.  Let the less disillusioned plead to the deaf ears behind those dais.

Shown above is the former LVRR railroad station on Hamilton Street, which was demolished in the early 1960's.  The existing train station was the New Jersey Central.  Allentown never met a unique older building that it couldn't wait to tear down.

* This post is reprinted from July of 2015. Allentown now has a new mayor and a new park director. I am encouraged that the new administration might be more sensitive to our history.