Grooming And Litter

Years ago in downtown Allentown there were about a dozen barbershops and virtually no litter. Today, with the same population, there are about 60 shops and tons of litter. Apparently there is no longer a correlation between nice appearance and good manners. In the past men would wait their turn. Many of the new shops seemingly have an express system. A doorman with a walkie talkie informs the "barber" who is coming, and the patron can receive his service in less than a minute. Over the years I photographed most of the shops now gone. Although I'm sure many of the new proprietors are hardworking honest people who would not tolerate any criminal behavior, the days of taking my camera into barbershops has passed.

photocredit: molovinsky

reprinted from January 7, 2009

Before Musikfest

In 1909, Bethlehem city fathers decided it was time to improve on the Broad Street Trestle Bridge built in 1871. The new concrete arch bridge was a major project, still serving Bethlehem well, 101 years later.

reprinted from August 13, 2010

The Landed Gentry

One of the popular misconceptions in our granola society is that our open space is threatened. Consequently, in addition to welfare and corporate welfare, we now have landed gentry welfare. We purchase land, at almost market value, and even allow the owner to keep it. Although there is a deed restriction prohibiting development, who can guarantee it will be enforced in future generations? In every case I'm personally familiar with, the owner never had any intention of development; In one instance, the owners were compensated over $1million.

In some cases the owners are working farmers, in many, just gentlemen farmers with country homes. An article in Sunday's Morning Call laments the reduction in the farmland preservation funds. Nothing in the land preservation compensation really guarantees continued farming, that would be somewhere between indentured servitude and slavery. In 2006, Pennsylvania spent $102 million in Growing Greener handouts. Although the program has been cut back in recent years, there is a long list of applicants hoping to get some of this handout. The granola eaters should drive across Pennsylvania. There is a lot of open space even in this heavily populated state, over 8 million farm acres. While we close mental hospitals and sell nursing homes, we pay yuppies playing weekend farmer, development rights on land they never intended on subdividing anyway.

reprinted from August 9, 2010

Waterfront By Jaindl

While I was at the Lehigh River to scrutinize the Neuweiler money pit, I decided to check on Mr. Janidl's project, just slightly upstream. 

As subscribers know, I'm not a fan of the NIZ. That prejudice aside, my compliments to the Jaindl Company. They have built an impressive building, nicely situated on the river.  The riverscape has been enhanced with artifacts from Lehigh Structural Steel, which was the river's previous longterm tenant.

This first building will be joined by more commercial and residential opportunities. American Bank, Jaindl owned, already has an office there. That may well mean that the bank's payroll is now going through an NIZ address, allowing Janidl to harvest the state taxes for debt service on the new building.  The same shenanigans are taking place up on Hamilton Street, with the LVHN payroll servicing Reilly's empire.

At least Janidl's river project is aesthetically pleasing. Wonder how he would feel about a blogger as tenant?

The Neuweiler Money Pit

People love nostalgia, and they hate thinking about the mechanisms of government.  That combination has already wasted untold $millions on the Neuweiler Brewery, but just a drop in the bucket compared to what is to come.

I have criticized development, or the lack thereof, at the brewery for almost a decade. Pawlowski bagman Mike Fleck ushered in the first developers to the brewery. That group was given the option on the property, with no actual experience in either operating a brewery or real estate. They were, however, proficient in website building, and did manage to raise money with their option.  They were also given a couple $mil to modernize the distribution portion of the building, now recently demolished.

The current option owners do have experience in real estate, and are rehabbing a nearby former factory into apartments. The problem with Neuweiler is that the building is in such poor condition, especially the upper portion with the iconic dome. However, being an NIZ project, money, aka our diverted state taxes, is no issue.  Allentown will end up with a very expensive nostalgia parcel.

City Council Charms Public About Parking Victims

Last Wednesday evening City Council passed a few reforms in regard to the Parking Authority.  Changing the curb parking distance from 6 to 9 inches doesn't seem very meaningful to me...Actually seems more like an off color joke.  Likewise, eliminating jail sentences for overdue fines just does away with debtor's prison. To this blogger the real issue was the alley parking. Although the Parking Authority proposed allowing parking under certain conditions,  city council declined to pass that reform. That failure to reform takes me back to the beginning of this controversy, and my issue about city council members also being on the Parking Authority Board.  Was there any real reform, or just another Allentown performance?

If the APA doesn't relax enforcement in the west end, and continues its crass harvest of revenue, City Council participated in nothing more than another dog and pony show to placate the public.

ADDENDUM:The current director of the APA and the current board of directors should ALL be removed...when an Authority in a city the size of Allentown writes 250,000 tickets in just one year, and they don't think there's anything wrong about that, it's time for them to move on. 

photocredit:Coney Island snake charmer by Arlene Gottfried

Another Dam Election Endorsement

As an advocate of Wehr's Dam since the Wildlands Conservancy conspired to demolish it in 2014,  I'm grateful to two current  candidates for re-election as South Whitehall Commissioners,  Diane Kelly and Jacob Roth. They did not become commissioners to save the dam, rather they first become involved in local government to bring transparency to the township because of the Ridge Farms Development.  The same former commissioners who pushed through that development also conspired with the Conservancy to ignore the referendum to save the dam. 

As advocates for new honesty and transparency in township government, Kelly and Roth recognized that the referendum to save the dam must be honored.  I'm personally happy that all the former arrogant  commissioners who conspired against the wishes of residents are gone, and proudly endorse Diane Kelly and Jacob Roth for your vote on May 16.

photo by Y Tree Photography.com

King Charles' Grandmother

Long before Charles' coronation in Westminster Abbey, his grandmother, Princess Alice (Princess Andrew of Greece), walked there during the wedding of her son Phillip to Princess Elizabeth. Princess(Alice) Andrew, later at the Coronation of Elizabeth, wore the habit of a nun. An extraordinary woman, she had founded a nurses order composed of nuns in Greece. She modeled the order after one started by her aunt and mentor in Russia, whom she had visited many years earlier. Born Princess Alice of Battenberg, she married Prince Andrew of Greece in 1903, assuming her new title.
During the Second World War, she hid a Jewish widow and her children in Athens, saving their lives. In accordance to her wish, she is buried in Jerusalem, next to her cherished aunt Duchess Fyodorovna, in the Russian Orthodox Church of Maria Magdalene. 

When Prince Charles attended Simon Peres' funeral in Jerusalem in 2016, he visited the church and his grandmother's tomb.

The first version of the above post dates back to 2011