Recently, I have been taking the Allentown Arena to task for having such a sparse schedule. I stand corrected, nothing is better than the announced indoor midget car racing, coming in January. The concept itself is so meager that the Morning Call entertainment editor spent half the column reciting the rich racing history in the Lehigh Valley, but it wasn't midget cars, indoors. Perhaps, if they added a reality show twist; Maybe the cars could be driven by nude midget women, is that politically incorrect? Anyway, whoever comes to that, I bet they won't be staying at the Renaissance Hotel, or eating at the attached Dime restaurant.
Since you asked...the term "midget" is considered very insulting to Little People, who regard it as a slur.
ReplyDeleteThe spanking photo would have been hilarious, except for the connection to the term "midget".
The concept of "midget car racing" is not at all new; the United States Auto Club sanctions and governs midget car races, and Honda sponsors the very popular National Midget Championship. It is a cool kind of pseudo-sport (I am not a race fan btw) that seems to have a regional following in the East, including races held in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Massachusetts. Pennsylvania does have a "racing history" but this is nothing like Andretti's racing. This is not the sort of event that the Uber-Arena promoters put forth initially, but with the concerts being cancelled and the long stretches of empty calendar ahead, what can the arena do but accept any and all comers? The race teams will have to occupy nearby hotels due to sheer logistics. Race crowds are not usually the type who drop $50 a meal at tony restaurants. For those kinds of crowds, you need to draw large dog shows like Westminster, A-level entertainers, etc. Good luck to them.
The whole deal is thin.
ReplyDeleteI'd courage readers to visit and see for themselves.
The real outrage, the real insult is the way the Pro-Arena People assured us that the magnificent Pawlowski Palace of Sport would be used for far more than just minor league ice hockey.
ReplyDeleteWhatever happened to all the Cheerleaders anyway? Never seem to hear so much from that crowd anymore. The luxurious $ 177.1 million dollar hockey rink just sits there empty day after day after day.
The least the Cheerleaders could do is give us a passionate song and dance, just like they used to.
Other than hockey, there is nothing that has been presented at the arena on Hamilton Street that we didn't have in Allentown before.
ReplyDeleteWe had pro wresting at the Little Palestrina
We had rock concerts at Muhlenburg College and at Ag Hall in the Fairgrounds.
So much ado over nothing.
Dreaming and Jamie -
ReplyDeleteAnd we had midget car racing at Dorney Park.
The pro-arena crowd insulted everyone with event forecasts. On the other hand, Global Spectrum forecast 12-20 concerts per year.
ReplyDeletehttp://articles.mcall.com/2014-01-30/news/mc-allentown-arena-manager-20140130_1_city-center-investment-corp-lehigh-valley-phantoms-comcast-spectacor
Now you have to add wrestling and rodeos, but anyone even remotely observant would see that it's performing exactly as the professionals thought it would, and it's a dramatic drop from what we were told by the Elites would happen. But they made their money.
The Banker
banker@3:18, it's my take that if reilly attracts some large offices, with state income tax from enough workers, his debt service is covered. i feel that the arena itself was a public aspect pretext, to justify the reilly office city. when one thinks back to the puff and fluff about how many arena workers would be hired, nothing was said about only 20 nights a year.
ReplyDeleteThe arena was the Trojan Horse project. Reilly followed its vacuum in complete secrecy. No one outside a select few even knew what was going on. Certainly not the property owners who sold to a straw buyer for a fraction of their post-NIZ announcement values. Somebody got screwed. It was the best kept secret for a long time. A testament to a very well coordinated plan. The result is private development funded almost entirely with public dollars. We all got screwed. BTW, any net new jobs yet?
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