City Council Cancels Christmas

In Allentown's Budget Bout, being fought between Mayor Matt Tuerk and City Council, we learn that both Christmas and July 4th are on the line.

Ortega said if City Council opts to override Tuerk’s veto, the city would be forced to cancel popular city events like Lights in the Parkway and 4th of July fireworks. The city would prioritize “essential city services” if council opts to not increase taxes, she said.

While Tuerk started out asking for a 6.9% tax increase, he is now down to asking for a 2% hike.

As both a local commentator and advocate of the traditional park system,  I know that the park department is always the victim of these skirmishes. 

A local Republican,  a tribe which has almost completely died out in Allentown, complains that Allentown is the victim of a one party system. While all our elected officials might be from the same party, they are not all on the same page.

Although I chose this old coal ad for the post's illustration, there is also a meme circulating with Tuerk as the Grinch stealing Christmas.  Regardless of the budget, I suspect that Lights In The Parkway will be lit once again this year.  What Tuerk and Council have in common is that nobody wants to be the Grinch who downgrades Christmas.

Protest Against Promise Neighborhoods

Hasshan Batts and his Promise Neighborhoods has become the recipient of the establishment's gesture toward mitigating violence in the community.  Hasshan promotes his group as Black led.  The premise is that his trained mentors, themselves previous members of gang life, know how and when to interrupt the violence cycle.

Hasshan's picture has appeared on billboards throughout Allentown, and currently is featured at ABE Airport.  The establishment always looks for a convenient place to throw some money and feel good about the effort... they think it shows that they care💝.  Both Governor Shapiro and Congresswoman Susan Wild brought Batts over a $million each.

However, not everyone is as fond of Batts' show as our elected officials. Local people, also involved in trying to better street life, find Promise a phony.  In their opinion not only doesn't Promise deliver on their mission, but they actually act as a bully themselves against their detractors.

IS ALLENTOWN HUMPTY DUMPTY?

When I read about Billy's Diner replacing Sangria at the Butz Building, my thoughts turned to Humpty. I also thought about the Diner at 9th and Linden. Years ago I posted about all the grants going to the new restaurants, and nada for the existing meat and potato crowd, that has been staying the course, and paying the taxes. I do believe that Billy's has a shot. Is he or Butz getting a little grant incentive, only a forensic accountant could tell. For Butz, going from Sangria to Billy's is a lesson in humility, that normally you have to attend church to learn. Now if some of the clientele from 9th and Linden ends up at 9th and Hamilton, that will be another bible lesson.

reprinted from July 31, 2013 

ADDENDUM NOVEMBER 8, 2023:The above post is over ten years old. When Reilly's NIZed Arts Walk came on line he showed Butz what musical chairs really is. Reilly started out with Shula's Steak House, and now a dozen uses later, I don't even know who the current tenant is. I remember back when they arrested a street person for singing on the Arts Walk, thinking that he was degrading the ambience. One would think with the thousand plus Strata apartments there now, that finally there would be some atmosphere... $One Billion Tax $Dollars later spent on Allentown, if you want that called atmosphere, you still have to drive to Bethlehem or Easton.

GO TO THE POLLS AND VOTE

Colored Voters Association was the predecessor to the Bethlehem NAACP. The matchbook dates to the mid 1940's. 

reprinted from August of 2013

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

Memories Before The New Dollar General

When people drive by the new Dollar General on Walbert Avenue, few will remember fondly the rather non-descript property that was there before. The previous clapboard house faced sideways, with the front yard extending toward what was later a vehicle storage yard for Supreme Auto Body.  Behind the new store there are houses, which now have been there for many years.

In 1949, Morning Call readers found out about an armed robbery at a private poker game on Walbert Avenue. At the end of the long yard mentioned above, was a separate rumpus room, where my uncle and his associates played cards. The holdup men burst in with shotguns and made off with over $5,000, some serious money back then.

For a boy growing up in a development in South Allentown, my aunt and uncle's property out on Walbert Avenue was almost country. Along the top of the yard, where those houses are now, was a riding ring. Connected to my uncle's rumpus room, were the paddocks. My aunt was my father's oldest sibling, and her children were over 20 years my senior. By the time of my memories as a small boy, both my cousins and the horses were no longer there.

My uncle owned and operated Arlen Vending, which placed pinball machines and jukeboxes throughout the valley. He belonged to the Clover Club, a men's card playing club next to Hotel Traylor.  I know that in this era,  he would be a regular at the casino in Bethlehem.

Shown above in lower left of photo is Arlen Vending, a basement storeroom at 443 Hamilton Street. At any one time he would have 5,000 records for sale from the jukeboxes.

reprinted from June of 2020

Pinsley Sees Another Opportunity For Publicity

Mark Pinsley is suing the local Republican Committee for defamation because they sent out a brochure supposedly describing him as pro-Hamas. As an independent, I did not see the flyer, but I certainly noticed the Morning Call picture of Pinsley at the Gaza rally. 

I remember when Pinsley stood with protestors against the South Whitehall Police Department, after the shooting at Dorney Park, when a man was terrifying drivers on Hamilton Blvd. He was jumping on car roofs and pounding on the windshields of women drivers. The reason I remember the incident so well was that Pinsley was then only recently elected as a South Whitehall Commissioner, and accordingly I thought he was on the wrong side of that line. 

Pinsley claims that the flyer makes him look like a "self hating" Jewish man.  Maybe he could sue himself for being there?

You can always count on Pinsley running for higher office and conducting publicity stunts.

photo/The Morning Call

An Inadvertent Art Dealer

With the untimely passing of Jessica Lenard in 2016, I inadvertently became an art dealer.  Jessica created art for over forty years, both paintings and print making.  While shown locally at Muhlenberg College, most of the shows were in NYC.  Her work is known for its raw and naked emotion. 

Those interested in acquiring a piece can send me a comment with their contact information. Such comments will not be seen by anyone other than myself.  Proceeds are donated to the Shriner's Hospital for Children.