Lanta Chronicles

ALLENTOWN CELEBRATES

Allentown's latest Dancing in the Street, Octoberfeast, will have multi-cultural attractions. There will be genuine rickshaw rides, pulled by former Asian merchants who were forced out of business by the City Department of Gentrification. After this weeks party for the Brewpub, the rickshaws will operate on a regular basis between Hamilton Street and our new Lanta Transportation Center.
Reprinted from Oct. 7, 2007

SILENCE OF THE LANTA

Hannibal Lecter has been offered parole on the condition he restrict his diet to Hamilton Street bus riders. Once a month he will be permitted an Asian merchant; on thanksgiving he may have a preselected blogger. Mr. Lector will be micro-chipped and given a new Hamilton Street loft apartment. He will be monitored by the new surveillance cameras. Mayor Pawlowski and Armand Greco will provide more details at a press conference early next week at the new Lanta Terminal.
Reprinted from Oct. 20, 2007

ONCE UPON A TIME

This image heralds back to once upon a time, when traffic, buses and shoppers on Hamilton Street were desired, much less called congestion. Although Lanta's circulator bus has only attracted 12 riders a day, their new concessions, which do not start until Feb.11, only add stops on 7th and 8th streets to the northwest and south sides. No concessions will be made for the Hanover Ave. and east side passengers. Lanta has clearly put the justification of their new transfer station over the survival of our merchants. I ask you to join me, merchants and bus riders on Tuesday Dec. 11, at 12 noon at the Lanta Headquarters, 1060 Lehigh Street, to let them know their still doing too little, too late.
The image is part of a watercolor by Karoline Schaub-Peeler
Reprinted from Dec. 6, 2007


MONSTER AS LANDLORD

Can anyone explain why the Allentown Parking Authority should be a landlord? It is apparently not to make money, because the rent is far below the cost to construct the square footage. It is not to serve a local neighborhood need or the need of the bus riders, few of them purchase private vineyard wine or natural fiber designer clothes. Here's the answer; because Linda Kauffman, former director of the Allentown Parking Authority, thought it was a good idea. She also wanted stores in the new deck at 4th and Hamilton, but City Council decided not to compete with local investors. So now we have a parking deck which is mostly empty, a Lanta Transfer Station which is putting the Hamilton Street merchants out of business, and a new subsidized yuppie who will fail anyway because she is in the wrong location for her product. Ms. Kauffman retired and moved to the Maryland beach.
Reprinted from Dec. 11, 2007
The Parking Authority never did find a tenant, and now is relocating it's office there from 10th and Hamilton, which will become a Police substation- Feb. 20, 2010
As Hannibal would say, this is only a taste of posts concerning Lanta and the Hamilton Street merchants. The full menu may be found in the blog archives between Oct. 2007 and Feb. 2008