Dear Mayor Pawlowski,
Forgive me for saying this, but I'm very disappointed in the changes made to my town. After my wife passed away, I moved to the senior high-rise at 8th and Union St. I can see the old Mack Transmission Plant from my window, I worked there for 40 years. I understand now it's a indoor go-cart track, I find that a bitter pill. Actually pills are why I'm writing. I used to walk to the Rite-Aid on Hamilton Street. With that closing, I don't think I can walk out 7th St. to the old Sears. Forgive me Mayor, that's before your time in Allentown. The other Rite-Aid used to be Levines Fabrics, they bought it from Sears. The Army Navy store was across the parking lot. Anyway, back to my problem. Now I can't even catch the bus on Hamilton anymore to go visit my daughter in Catty. What have you done to me? My neighbor, a nice widow, tells me you gave that Mexican Restaurant lots of our money and they don't even pay their bills? Never ate there, what were you thinking? Anyway, sorry to bother you, I know you're a busy man, but I don't know where I will get my medicine from, and I'm upset. Sorry.
Originally titled, Figment of My Imagination.
PhotoCredit: molovinsky
Reprinted from July of 2008, to commemorate the return of Rite-Aid. Isn't it wonderful that J. B Reilly will finally get a tenant there who will do enough business to actually pay rent.
reprinted from this past April of 2016. Rite-Aid will open tomorrow, Thursday August 25, 2016
Perhaps the next step will be a Family Dollar Store?
ReplyDeleteI've never seen a more useless "business" district. It's all restaurants. The few retail stores that do exist are pretty much unaffordable for the average person living in Allentown, with perhaps the exception being the ghosts who occupy the Strata Flats. Okay, I'm being facetious. I'm sure they're all fully occupied by energy conscious millennials and empty-nesters who never turn on the lights.
ReplyDeleteOf Course, The Morning Call had to do a photo-op of this momentous event, which I don't even find to be newsworthy. Twenty photos of the same storefront is what I call being ostentatious. It's a drug store for God's sake. Every city and town across America has at least one.
ReplyDeleterobert@9:48, the morning call promotion of reilly's NIZ is a journalistic embarrassment. i suspect that bill white, as their most senior staff member, encourages it. i can only assume that he's making editorial decisions; they wouldn't be paying him just for those repetitive columns.
ReplyDeleteI never understood the hate for the downtown dollar/drugstores. Even in wealthier parts of New York, every block has a drugstore or some kind of convenience store--in fact many people think of them as "convenient" places to get things.
ReplyDeleteCities aren't all about elite shopping and dining experiences. I'd probably subsidize a nice grocery store before I'd spend millions on a steakhouse. Perhaps a sign of the misremembering of the Hess's/Leh's days (another industry in deep, deep trouble).
Where is the nearest supermarket for the senior citizens and Yuppies who live in our new downtown ? (lol I used to be called a Yuppie when I lived in Philadelphia)
ReplyDeleteThe closest I can think of is at 15th & Allen, or that shopping center at 17th & Liberty. The nearest gas station/convenience store is that one at Twelfth and Liberty that is always getting robbed.
It sure is inconvenient to live downtown and not have anything there but fancy restaurants and Hockey. But it is a good thing the Rite Aid is open for proscriptions, soda and candy, along with birthday cards.
jamie@2:29, in this case follow the state taxes; reilly located a cigarette warehouse behind the 700 block of hamilton street. the new supermarket located in the former sears/levine/rite-aid building on 7th street, although catering to a lower income, is a complete supermarket, where i have shopped. eventually, reillyville will have a whole foods, or other appropriate upscale market, for the ghost tenants.
ReplyDeleteI just love the thought of the heralded millennials and beloved empty nesters peeking out of their darkened windows at Strata 1,2,3,4,5.....to see their new neighbors loitering...errr, shopping in their building. Back to Macungie?
ReplyDeletealso...you'd think the NIZers would be 'smart' enough (the call everything they do 'smart')to put a store with some nutrition down there. Weren't they the ones whining about 'food deserts' recently?
ReplyDelete