Mayor Pawlowski is patting himself for having the 100 year old fountain refurbished in West Park. Actually, the fountain is less than 30 years old, and is a reproduction of the original fountain, which was scrapped in the 1950's, for a modern brick monstrosity.
This is what happens when you have a mayor from out of town, and a park director from out of town; There is no institutional memory, whatsoever, of the park system. We are paying to refurbish a fountain which is probably still in excellent shape. Meanwhile, the WPA structures, which really do need attention, are allowed to crumble away. We have a mayor who is more political than ever, wasting our resources on photo opportunities. His highness deleted my corrected history off his facebook page in about 30 seconds.
At noon today, this blog will be reprinting a short history of the Syrian community in Allentown. Your return visit is welcome.
Does the company have the original design from 1908 and can just cast a new fountain ?
ReplyDeletejamie@8:02, the fountain that pawlowski and the park director are having refurbished is a newish casting of the original fountain from 1920 or so. that original fountain was discarded by the city in the 50's, and a "modern" fountain built. in about 1985. that "modern" fountain was replaced with a new casting of the original one. that 1985 fountain, which pawlowski mistakenly thinks is the original, was now removed and sent to be refurbished. the company will be astounded when it arrives in excellent condition.
ReplyDeleteSo basically, this entire thing is a waste of money. I'm surprised Ed wasn't in the photo he posted to the website to get political mileage from it. You can tell election season is well underway by looking at that facebook page.
ReplyDeletedave@9:24, yes the fountain is beyond a waste of money. it's indicative of a dysfunctional park department
ReplyDeletehis facebook page shows him exploiting one small subgroup after another, in the minority community. however, his strategy may well work, allowing him to cobble together the necessary votes, which aren't too many in a primary with so many candidates.
I lived on 16th street. In the summers, when I was 8 /9 / 10 (1957) 'us guys' would get to the park about 8 am - with our wagons. We would scour it for A-Treat and beer bottles. We would wash the bottles in the fountain :). We would then proceed to near by streets that had parking meters, and look for lose change people may have dropped by the curb.
ReplyDeleteMy mom warned us about 'men' in the park - but there were three of us - and we watched Daniel Boone - we had our walking sticks and coon skin hats. One guy got a little funny, but when we raised our sticks - he headed out, and we told the cop.
In a good day we would net out 30 - 40 cents - more than enough for a Popsicles and candy. We never got 1099's.
how did feded confuse 30 with 100 years... plausible deniability....smh...
ReplyDelete