The Tracks Of Allentown

Up to the early 1950's, you pretty much drove over tracks wherever you went in Allentown. While the trolleys moved the people, the Lehigh Valley Railroad freight cars moved the materials in and out of our factories. Shown above, the Lehigh Valley Transit trolley moves across the former steel Hamilton Street Bridge. The huge UGI gas tank can be seen on Union Street. While the trolleys gave way to buses by 1953, the freight rail spurs would tarry on for two more decades.

reprinted from December 29. 2010

Allentown Memorabilia

The time and market for Allentown memorabilia has come and gone. With a changing population, and the graying of the older town folks, objects of our history are destined for the landfill. Even the local historic society concentrates on shows of general interest, such as Abraham Lincoln. In addition to having been a retail mecca, Allentown manufactured a large assortment of products. Allentown was stamped on tools, knifes, and metal products of all kinds, distributed nationwide. A local regional food product was the hard pretzel, a variation of the traditional German soft pretzel. Allentown had several pretzel companies. Miller's operated out of their factory at 732 Tilghman Street, between 1944 and 1978. In the coming months this blog will profile some of these Made In Allentown products, before litter and meaningless slogans became our legacy.

reprinted from July of 2013

Made In The Lehigh Valley

The other day I was self checking out of the grocery store, and across the aisle was Bethlehem Steel T-Shirts.  They were made to look retro, with pre-faded logo and copy, which said MADE IN USA.  Although, I knew the phrase referred to the steel,  I couldn't resist looking at the shirt's label.  Needless to say, it was made in China. Ironically, Bethlehem Steel was a self sufficient company, which even  produced ships with its own steel.

When I was a boy I worked in my father's meat market located at the foot of Union Street, where the Hamilton Street Bridge crossed over the Lehigh River.  Saturday was busy, with many customers who worked at the Steel, Lehigh Structural, Black and Decker, Western Electric, Mack and dozens of sewing factories.  A couple of guys who worked during the week at Arbogast & Bastian helped my dad out on Saturdays.  Both Swift and Wilson meat packers had wholesale branches near by.  They would be supplied by rail sidings,  which  criss-crossed that area of the city.  At that time everything was made in America, except for cheap novelty junk.  Now, in addition to losing our manufacturing,  we're even losing our retail,  as everything comes directly from online ordering and warehouses.    I suppose that soon the cashiers at the supermarket will be a relic of the past.

reprinted from March of 2017

Mayor Tuerk And Billy Joel

In a recent radio interview, Mayor Tuerk said in regard to the song "Allentown" by Billy Joel...It's so wrong... I don't know how it felt in 1982, but it doesn't feel like that now... it's not hard to stay. It's hard to leave.

Certainly as Mayor, Matt Tuerk must be a cheerleader for Allentown, and  I realize that for many of the new people here, Allentown is better than wherever they came from. But as a native Allentonian, the city was much better when Joel's song came out back in 1982. All those new buildings on Hamilton Street don't mean jack, unless you're the one man who owns them. 

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What's much worse now is the crime, litter and violence. Tuerk wrote recently that illegal guns are a toxin in Allentown. Of course the real problem is the people who readily use those guns.

Billy Joel was lamenting the lost industry in the rust belt, but I'm missing the quality of life we had when he was singing that song forty years ago.

Zion Liberty Bell Dilemma

In a recent editorial, Sara Brace threw the  Liberty Bell Museum Board under the bus, to help some local liberal causes.  Her dance was very complicated, because she was head of the museum board before her resignation, and her husband was a principal of Zion Church, and is a county commissioner to boot. 

Now, if this all sounds confusing, it certainly is. Normally, the Morning Call wouldn't publish such contradictions, but a local liberal dilemma developed at the Liberty Bell church.

Because Gregory Edwards was raising the rent from $1 a year, to $1000 a month on the Bell Museum, some people were thinking less of the pastor.  Some people were thinking less of the Zion Church board which didn't safeguard the museum,  putting county commissioner Geoff Brace in an awkward position, considering his role at the church.

Sara defends the increase, and suggests that the state should come forward with some $moolah to save everybody's face.

School Board Graduates To Harrisburg

Our new state senators have something in common, both were former school board members. However, they apparently took different courses...While new state senator Jarrett Coleman wants to submit the NIZ to some very overdue scrutiny, senator Nick Miller wants Reilly to continue his windfall, without much accountability.  Miller brags about all the new office tenants on Hamilton Street, ignoring the reality that they were poached from surrounding office parks, creating few, if any, new net jobs for the area. That poach job transferred the state taxes from the state budget, to instead service Reilly's mortgage debt.

What brings me to this topic today is Miller's assertion that Coleman doesn't have the best interests of Allentown in mind with his inquires. On the contrary, in my opinion, Miller doesn't have the best interest of taxpayers in mind with his position.

Miller complains that the NIZ is in his district, and that Coleman should visit there to learn about Allentown's commercial success. Coleman could response that the businesses were previously in his district, and now with the NIZ allowing parcel swaps,  it can be anywhere the chosen find opportunity, like  at a former state hospital.

At any rate,  I believe that we are better served with our elected officials not being on the same page all the time.  For too long there has been too much back scratching in Harrisburg.

Shown above Tony Iannelli conducts debates between Miller/Browning and Coleman/Pinsley.  Photo by Donna Fisher for LehighValleyLive.Com

Covid Funds And Bureaucrats

With the Covid pandemic, the Feds pumped more money into the municipalities than they know what to do with. Never fear, the non-profits and bureaucrats are stepping forward with solutions for that dilemma. 

Allentown City Council is allocating a $millon for affordable housing on the former parking lot of the former Lehigh Valley Club. In more prosperous days of yesteryear, that facility hosted wedding receptions for the well heeled. 

There's another proposal up the block on the county level, to restart the Lehigh County Redevelopment Agency. You would think that after the state diverted a $Billion to Reilly for his privately owned, publicly financed empire on Hamilton Street, we wouldn't need another redevelopment agency.  But let's not co-mingle Reilly's good fortune with bureaucratic opportunities.

Actually, that redevelopment agency might be needed sooner than this post indicates. I believe that current prices being paid for downtown rental units exceeds the cash flow that they will yield. I'm expecting a lot of boarded up buildings, but that will be a post topic in the future.

The postcard shown above is of the dining room in the former Lehigh Valley Club.  Its former parking lot will now  house affordable housing, built by a development company seeking $1million from Allentown's federal Covid fund chest.

Mistake Of Parking Authority/Lanta

At the Allentown Speak Out forum, Zee, an elderly neighborhood woman, referred to the new Lanta Terminal as Port Authority. She has a point, did Allentown need a Port Authority? In reality the mission of both the Parking Authority and Lanta has become political and distorted, to the detriment of those whom they were intended to serve. I have referred to the Parking Authority in previous posts as a Frankenstein monster who preys on Allentown's poorest residents. Its appetite has recently expanded to include poorer merchants. If it wasn't enough for Lanta to remove the transfer stations from the historical stops near Hamilton Street, the Parking Authority now provides eating and shopping venues for their captured bus riders at the "Terminal". Once upon a time, in Allentown's heyday, the parking meters were monitored by two meter maids in golf carts, employed by the police department. The original mission of the Parking Authority was to facilitate parking for the merchants' behalf. Lanta was suppose to provide the public with transportation to those destinations which enhanced the economic well being of both the riders and the community. The new Allentown Transportation Center fails to serve both the merchants and the riders, conversely, it serves itself by being a mini-mall with virtual prisoners. Allentown City Council now has a member who is on the Lanta Board. The previous Council had a member on the Parking Authority. All the merchants are suffering on Hamilton Street, and already three are closing their doors; City Line Creamery, Hamilton Perk Cafe, and Mish Mash Boutique. The Terminal, new or not, should be closed, and the transfer stops on Hamilton Street should be restored. The public interest is better served by the survival of the Hamilton merchants, than the utilization of the parking deck's adjacent Lanta Terminal.

above reprinted from January 20, 2008

ADDENDUM March 23, 2023: I'm glad to see the Parking Authority coming under scrutiny. As a blogger who has been taking them on for over 15 years,  I marvel at how long they got away with their shenanigans. To a large part the Morning Call was responsible for them not being held accountable. When myself and others would speak out and even document their abuses, the paper turned a blind eye. In 2014 I conducted two press conferences about Authority abuses. One conference the paper ignored, and for the other they took the Authority's answers as gospel. With the press now paying attention, perhaps the best interests of the city and citizens will finally be served.