Markets Of Allentown's Past

When I was growing up my parents lived on two ends of Allentown, first the south side and then the west end.  I was fortunate to have experienced two great independent markets of Allentown's past.

The Lehigh Super Market had a great section of small inexpensive toys for a small boy.  An easy walk from Little Lehigh Manor,  I could keep my Hopalong Casidy six shooter in caps, and replace my lost water pistol each summer.  The ice cream fountain featured hand dipped Breyers.  While the kids took a cone, the parents would have a quart or gallon scooped and weighed to take home.

Before  Food Fair was built farther west on Lehigh Street,  my mother would do all her shopping, except for meat,  at Lehigh Market.  Although I didn't pay too much attention, I do remember the cookie selection.

In the late 1950's my parents moved to the west end, and my times at Deiley's West Gate Market began.  Although too old to notice the toy selection,  the soda fountain became a hangout.

In addition to numerous corner markets, every section of Allentown had a popular larger independent, like Lehigh or Deiley's.   A few like Hersh's Market, have survived to this day.

photo of Deiley's Market in 1938

reprinted from April of 2020

Bullying As A Business

I've watched with cynicism as various non-profits has been profiting from violence and bullying reduction programs.  These programs are funded with grants administered through the city and school district. Needless to say, or better perhaps needed to say, these grants are funded with our tax dollars. 

These non-profits are manned and womaned by former perpetuators, who now are paid to mentor youngsters away from their former bad ways.

Currently a member of the school board, Phoebe Harris, claims that she was a victim of intended intimidation by one of these non-profits, who in turn accuses her of being non-professional. Imagine the unconventional accusing someone of being unconventional!

We live in an era of wokeness. Our White local media treads lightly with Black and Brown orange shirt issues. Everybody fears being labeled with the dreaded scarlet R

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

ADDENDUM OCTOBER 19, 2023: In May of 2021, Julio would lose to Matt Tuerk in a very close primary election for mayor.

The People's Candidate

In the late 1970's, neighbors would gather in the market on 9th Street to complain and receive consolation from the woman behind the cash register. Emma was a neighborhood institution. A native Allentonian, she had gone through school with Mayor For Life Joe Dadonna, and knew everybody at City Hall. More important, she wasn't shy about speaking out. What concerned the long time neighbors back then was a plan to create a Historical District, by a few newcomers.

What concerned Emma wasn't so much the concept, but the proposed size of the district, sixteen square blocks. The planners unfortunately all wanted their homes included, and they lived in an area spread out from Hall Street to 12th, Linden to Liberty.* Shoving property restrictions down the throats of thousands of people who lived in the neighborhood for generations didn't seem right to Emma. As the battle to establish the district became more pitched, Emma began referring to it as the Hysterical District.
Emma eventually lost the battle, but won the hearts of thousands of Allentonians. Emma Tropiano would be elected to City Council beginning in 1986, and would serve four terms. In 1993 she lost the Democratic Primary for Mayor by ONE (1) vote.

Her common sense votes and positions became easy fodder for ridicule. Bashed for opposing fluoridation, our clean water advocates now question the wisdom of that additive. Although every founding member of the Historical District moved away over the years, Emma continued to live on 9th Street, one block up from the store. In the mid 1990's, disgusted by the deterioration of the streetscape, she proposed banning household furniture from front porches. Her proposal was labeled as racist against those who could not afford proper lawn furniture. Today, SWEEP officers issue tickets for sofas on the porch.

Being blunt in the era of political correctness cost Emma. Although a tireless advocate for thousands of Allentown residents of all color, many people who never knew her, now read that she was a bigot. They don't know who called on her for help. They don't know who knocked on her door everyday for assistance. They don't know who approached her at diners and luncheonettes all over Allentown for decades. We who knew her remember, and we remember the truth about a caring woman.

* Because the designated Historical District was so large, it has struggled to create the atmosphere envisioned by the long gone founders. Perhaps had they listened to, instead of ridiculing, the plain spoken shopkeeper, they would have created a smaller critical mass of like thinking homeowners.

reprinted yearly since 2010

Lehigh Valley Railroad Piers

In this era of class warfare, while we worry that the rich are only paying 35% income tax, instead of 39%, let us be grateful that once upon a time we had the Robber Barons. In this era when we have to give a grant for some woman to open a small cookie shop on Hamilton Street, let us be grateful that men built railroads with private money. Let us be grateful that incredible feats of private enterprise built piers, bridges and trestles. Trains allowed us to move vast amounts of raw and finished materials across America. This network allowed us to protect ourselves during two World Wars, and provided the prosperity upon which we now rest.

The Lehigh Valley Railroad tracks extended from their piers in New Jersey to the shores of Lake Erie. The Mile Long Pier in Jersey City was the scene of German sabotage in 1916. A train full of munitions, awaiting shipment to Europe, was blown up on July 30th of that year. In 1914, the railroad built the longest ore pier in the world, in Bayonne. The ore would come from Chile, through the new Panama Canal, for shipment to Bethlehem.

reprinted from February 2011

New Fight For MsPhoebe

Hasshan Batts has become the darling of the establishment. Money flows his way from the city, state and Washington. They take his Promise Neighborhoods as a legitimate solution to local violence, despite record homicides continuing....never let reality interfere with political correctness.

The local media has been featuring Batts in their essays on solitary confinement.  They omit mention of why he was in prison, or why he was given solitary while there. He is the poster boy for the progressive establishment, but more literally the billboard face.

Phoebe Harris isn't a shy woman. Originally empowered by an appointment to the city Human Relations Board by Pawlowski, she has parlayed that appointment to being on the Allentown School Board and a position with the local NAACP.

Harris is now claiming that she was bullied by a Promise official, and Promise has now set their sights on her...they want her removed from the School Board.  I have no knowledge of what actually occurred between Harris and the Promise person, but I've known Phoebe Harris long enough to know that she doesn't stand down.

image from Harris facebook page

Too Many Community Services

There has been recent speculation that this year's[record] homicide rate in Allentown reflects a lack of community services. That school of thought believes that we need to invest more in the smorgasbord of non-profits, which supposedly intercede with these bad inclinations in our society. 

It appears to this long time observer of Allentown that our real problem may be just the opposite: too many services, creating too much dependence. 

There was a time when people focused on improving their lot, and rested between those efforts. [Now the streets are teeming at 2:00AM, with subsidized people looking for recreation in a less than wholesome late night culture.] We fitted out these intervention organizations with large budgets and staffs to no avail. The hope and promise of these mentor groups have produced no dividends to public safety. 

If I had a say with my taxes, they would go to more police and consequences for bad actions. The notion that one more grant may make a difference has no credibility with me.

Michael Molovinsky

The above appeared as a recent letter to the editor in the Morning Call. The bracketed word and sentence did not make it into their published version.

Moshe Dyan

Moshe Dayan on born on a kibbutz near the Sea of Galilee in 1915. When he was 14, he joined the outlawed Haganah, an underground defense force to protect Jewish settlements from Arab attacks. Although caught and imprisoned by the British for two years, he would fight for them in Lebanon during WWII, losing his eye. In the 1948 War of Independence, he fought on all the fronts, defending Israel; by 1953 he was Chief of Staff of the Israeli Armed Forces. In 1956 he led the Suez Campaign.

In 1967 he was Defense Minister for the Six Day War. He remained in that position through the War of 1973. Although a genuine hero in every sense of the word, he was held responsible for the initial success of Egyptian forces in the surprise attack on Yom Kippur (1973), and would resign from his position.

Israel is too small of a country, and its enemies too numerous, for any miscalculations regarding its security.

reprinted from April 2010 

ADDENDUM OCTOBER 12, 2023: Fifty years later and again another former Israeli hero, Benjamin Netanyahu, would underestimate an enemy. He did however correctly predict earlier this week that as Israel confronted Hamas for their murderous attack, world opinion would shift against Israel. Going after embedded Hamas in populated Gaza City is messy, but there is no other way to confront that enemy.