Allentown 1950

Sixty years ago downtown Allentown hummed. It was fueled by the vision of people who developed empires, not cookie cutter ideas from the National Magazines for Bureaucrats, like the arena. Shown here is the Transit Office and depot at the side of 8th and Hamilton. General Trexler had been a principle in the Trolley Company, which also built the 8th Street Bridge, to connect Allentown with points south, all the way to Philadelphia. In addition to being the terminal for the Philadelphia bound Liberty Bell, it also fed the merchants of Allentown with thousands of shoppers from its many Allentown routes. The shoppers now sit on the cold steel benches at the Lanta Detention Center on 7th Street, as the non-visionaries prepare to demolish the center of town, to build a monstrosity.

The light and shadows reveal that this is an early morning photo. In a few hours 8th and Hamilton (behind the trolley) would be clogged with shoppers                                                               reprinted from December 2011