Molovinsky On Philadelphia

Molovinsky On Allentown has rented temporary space in Philadelphia to help in predicting Allentown's future.  I use my father's old meat truck route all the way down Broad Street to get to the new office,  which is high over the city near Rittenhouse Square.  Although J. B. Reilly hopes for a taste of the sophistication which surrounds Rittenhouse,  I think that he better not hold his breath.  The area between Broad and Rittenhouse is full of beautiful classic buildings,  unlike Allentown, where the older buildings have been demolished to make way for new plain mid-rises of architectural meagerness.

However, lets get back to the meat truck route. North Broad Street is a litter filled desolation of urban decay.  Apparently gentrification doesn't spread like wildfire.  I'm afraid that J. B. will have to learn how to clone the few millennials he supposedly attracted to the Stratas.

In conclusion, I give Reillyville a slight chance of success in terms of any energy resembling the Rittenhouse area of Philadelphia. Fortunately for him it's our tax money funding his NIZ.  For Allentown beyond Linden and Walnut Streets, my best recommendation would be a trash can every ten feet.  Maybe some of the litter will accidentally land in them.

The Liberal Dilemma In Allentown

In 2005 when I ran for mayor, I stated that Allentown was a poverty magnet, and unless certain policies were changed there would be consequences. I spoke of a normal income bell curve, and its importance for a healthy community. At the time I was accused by a few of employing code for racism. The reality of the situation was that as a landlord I was being approached all day by people moving here with no work history, looking for apartments. They were being staked to move-in money by no less than three organizations.

Move ahead 13 years, and this weekend I read on facebook a piece by a well known local liberal, lamenting the over presence of the low-income in Allentown. He was complaining about quality of life issues, and the daunting challenges facing the Allentown School District as a result. His recommendation is a code war on center city apartments, essentially those occupied by the low income. He figures that if enough of them are torn down, Allentown's problems will also disappear.

 I was suggesting in 2005 that we tell the welcome wagons to stop handing out money. He is now suggesting that we essentially chase people away. I won't pass moral judgement on his plan, as was done to mine. However, I will say this...  My plan at the time would have worked, his will not. You cannot undo the transformation that changed Allentown from quaint to intercity urban... there is a new Allentown.

If this gentleman, who lives in the Old Allentown Preservation District has his way, we'll be condemning hundreds of buildings at great expense. Such experiments in urban renewal and social engineering have a proven history of failure. It would be much cheaper for us to buy him a new house elsewhere. He's away every winter anyway.

photo above: In the early 1970's, Allentown demolished the entire low-income neighborhood between Wire and Union Streets

The Morning Call Compromised

Hell broke out last night between myself and Bill White of the Morning Call.  In his blog post about The New York Daily News, he once again couldn't refrain himself for complimenting the Call on maintaining their journalistic standards.  I wasn't having it. We had the following exchange on his facebook page.

I wrote:
  the Morning Call hasn't done one honest story about the NIZ. Although I concede doing so wouldn't change the paper's economic reality, at least you would be doing the journalism that you purport in your piece.

 White replies:
 The Morning Call has done a great job reporting on the NIZ. You don't like it because you preferred downtown the way it was before all this started.

 With Bill White being the professional journalist, and me being the lowly blogger, Bill couldn't resist describing their coverage as great, and dismissing my point as coming from a malcontent. I decided to spell out the Morning Call compromises loud and clear.

My reply to White:
 "I don't like it" because the paper promotes Reilly's apartments like it's news. " I don't like it" because the paper never discussed why the Morning Call building was included in the NIZ, when it is on the other side of Linden Street. "I don't like it" because the Morning Call never reported that the Hospital has ghost offices on the top floor of the arena, so that the state taxes from their highest paid employees can be used for Reilly's debt service, a story I broke and you ignored.


photo above: molovinsky at a Morning Call function, before being outlawed for candor

A New Allentown Park Director

This post is meant as an open letter to Ray O'Connell.  In 2005, Allentown combined the park and recreation departments.  This merger in itself wasn't a bad idea,  but the implementation was flawed.  The first combined director was hired by Francis Dougherty, as were the next two.  Each of these hires had the same background, a graduate degree in recreation.  The first hire came from Lewisburg, and he eventually purchased every item manufactured by a Lewisburg company, Playworld.  Before he left for another position,  he planned an enormous water park for Cedar Beach, stretching up to Hamilton Blvd.  Parking for this monstrosity would have taken up the remainder of the park.  Not having a background in parks,  he turned to the eager Wildlands Conservancy for advice and cooperation.  By the time his replacement arrived,  the Wildlands was so entrenched that they dictated that Allentown remove its small ornamental dam at Robin Hood, and totally obscure the stream banks with Weed Walls. The recent former director assumed the same protocols of her predecessors.

As someone who is familiar with the current park department, I know that the next director need not have the same background.  On the contrary,  he/she shouldn't.  There are managers in place for all the existing recreational components.  The new director should be a competent administrator,  who cares about providing Allentown's children with recreation, but also has an appreciation of the beauty and serenity that the parks can provide all citizens of Allentown,  irregardless of their activity level.

The four remaining swimming pools should be kept in operating condition, and fully staffed. The parcels purchased by Pawlowski, if not offered for sale,  should not be developed until which time the park department catches up with deferred maintenance.  Frankly, that will take at least a decade.

Allentown had an iconic designation park system which adorned picture post cards for decades.  It is time to put away the Playworld plastic catalog and restore the gems in our park system.

a picture post card from Allentown park system's past

Son Of A Butcher

When I was a boy my father and his brother operated two meat markets, one in Allentown, the other in Easton. Once a week my father would drive to Philadelphia to pick up sides of beef for the markets. For me it was a big adventure when he would take me along on the trip.  Before dawn we would drive to the Allentown market on Union Street, near the Lehigh River, and pick up his truck.  Basin Street would take us to S. 4th, for the slow ride up South Mountain.  Route 309 would take us down to Philly,  one stoplight at a time.

The meat district was along the River, on Delaware Avenue,  now flaked by Route 95 and Penn's Landing.  The extra wide brick street in the 1950's, complete with train tracks, had numerous packing houses on both sides. My father would walk through cavernous coolers,  marking his choices with wooden skewers.  After he settled up in the office,  the sides of beef were loaded into the truck. The next stop was the ice house, where blocks of dry ice were put into hanging baskets to keep the meat cold for the return trip.

He then headed back north up 611, along the Delaware to Easton.  The Easton market on S. 4th Street, and the adjoining buildings, were demolished decades ago for new insurance agency building. The side alley has been widened into Pine Street.  Next was the William Penn Highway to Bethlehem, and then on to Allentown to unload the rest of the meat.

Rocky and Paulie in the meat cooler

Morning Call Owner Taking Deposits

If I have succeeded in drawing you in with this teaser headline,  allow me to explain.  Today's local paper had two story titles which drew my attention.  One said that the owner of the newest apartments in Allentown was taking deposits, and the other said that the paper's publisher was moving on to another assignment, with The New York Daily News.  In my mind both of these stories are interwoven.

Needless to say that the newest apartment owner is J.B. Reilly.  Before my life as a blogger, I was a property manager in Allentown.  Myself and my counterparts had to spend $thousands advertising our apartments with the Morning Call.  However, we were not the current landlord of the Morning Call building, as is Reilly.

Although we have never met,  over the last few years Robert York and I developed a rapport of sorts.  I would complain to him about editorial policy,  mainly repressing my submissions about sacred cows and cronyism.  He in turn would express concern about what he felt were unfair complaints about the paper on this blog.

Neither of our replacements have been announced.

Alan Jennings' Missed Opportunity

This weekend Alan Jennings has an editorial in the paper about affordable housing, and landlording in Allentown. One would hardly know that the other week when I appeared on Jennings' radio show, Lehigh Valley Discourse,  he brushed by my experience as a city center landlord.  Instead,  Alan wanted to complain about Trump, never mind that we have our own issues here in the valley.  In light of  his editorial this week,  it may have been a lost opportunity.  I say may have been, because Alan wouldn't have agreed with my take on the problem,  and never has since 2005.

In 2005, when I ran as an independent candidate for mayor, I said that Allentown was becoming a poverty magnet.  As a landlord I saw how many people were being staked to move-in money by various social agencies in the valley. Thousands and thousands of people moved here whose career is exploiting Social Security Disability,  the job market was never a factor for them.  Those with that career are transient, with low and skipped rent deciding which town they move to, and for how long they stay.  That was a very politically incorrect observation at the time,  and is still a very sensitive issue.  However,  what isn't debatable is that Allentown has become a much poorer city in the last 15 years.   In a sense, Alan is in the poverty business.  Needless to say he still has social engineering recommendations, now about what should be done in 2018, to better the situation.  I could dissect them point by point, but let me instead make just one observation.  In reality there is no lack of affordable housing in Allentown, or there would not be so many low income people moving here. I do not believe that enlarging and making that segment of the rental market more attractive benefits Allentown in the long term.

Alan Jennings To Train Sharecroppers

Those of you who listened to the podcast of my interview with Alan Jennings know that toward the end of the interview I confessed to snickering about his organization's plan ( Community Action Committer of Lehigh Valley) to take over the farmer training at the Lehigh County owned Seed Farm.  Those who follow this blog know that I oppose Farmland Preservation,  because it is a ridiculous disconnect with the reality of food production in 2018.  It is however politically correct for urban liberals to think that if as much farmland as possible stays available,  there will be an endless banquet of environmental bliss, with organic food no less.  Alan sees it as an extension of food for the poor, sort of another ladder step in the food pantry mission. Low income food issues are because of money, not food production shortfalls. These liberals of course are ignorant of the long hours and hard work which goes into farming. They are also ignorant of the economic reality of competing with large scale agriculture.

Now, unless Alan wants to gift each of his graduates with a farm at our expense,  they will either be a farm hand, or at best a sharecropper.  What is really scary about Alan's plan is that it has the endorsement of the Republican controlled Lehigh County Commission.  They are apparently so vote craven, that they go along with such nonsense.

The only practical program assisting farming is Clean And Green.  Unfortunately, the Morning Call ran an expose on the program featuring photographs of large expensive houses,  surrounded by farmland. While the program limits tax reduction to only the land actively farmed,  the photographs give the impression that the tax breaks are going to people who don't need it.  I suppose the liberal paper thinks that those involved in agriculture are supposed to live in shacks.  Worse yet, the paper thinks that their story is a masterpiece, has has been running it on their website for months.

photocredit: Dorothea Lange, Son of Sharecropper, 1937

Cruising In Allentown

On Saturday Allentown will hold a Cruising Event,  celebrating a rite of passage from the Fonz days. Kids would cruise the circuit down Hamilton Street, back up Linden Street, and end up in the Fairgrounds at the Ritz.  The small town activity lasted well over twenty years.  Although the Morning Call article mentions it being banned in the 1980's,  I was a participant in the early 1960's.

While the newspaper does a good job reporting on the upcoming event, and the history behind it,  this post concerns our changing times here in Allentown.  I suppose we can now romanticize an activity that we once outlawed as the good old days, because the present is so much more dire.  Driving by and whistling at a girl is so much more innocent than drive-by shootings.  Driving around a loop is so much more innocent than drivers now being harassed and terrorized by gangs on dirt bikes, ambushing out of an ally in downtown Allentown.  Let up hope that we never get to the point of romanticizing those things.

artwork by Mark Beyer,  underground comic artist and native of Allentown

Change Coming To Parks

I tell people the only way that they will see my name in the paper is if I get arrested or die.  Considering that now you must order and pay for obituaries, I suppose only the arrest option remains.   I bring this up because it would not have been inappropriate for the Morning Call to ask me for my opinion about Lindsay Taylor being let go.  Nobody has had more to say,  or for longer, about the park system than me.  Although they do quote Cythnia Mota, I can  honestly say that I pass dogs being walked in the parks everyday who know considerably more about the park system than Mota.

Getting back to Ms. Taylor....Although I certainly have faulted her taking direction from The Wildlands Conservancy over park policy, especially the Weed Walls,  I never advocated for her dismissal.  However,  now that she has been handed the proverbial pink slip,  let me say that I didn't appreciate her attempts to justify Pawlowski's purchase of two parcels for future parks, among other things.

Lets get back to Ms. Mota.  The paper quotes her saying ....The next director of the department needs to reflect the city’s charging demographics, Mota said, emphasizing the city’s Hispanic population which now encompasses more than half of city residents. Taylor was the only woman who held a cabinet-level position in Allentown. All of O’Connell’s cabinet appointees so far have been white men. Although I will opine in another post about what qualities the next park director should process, none of them involve race or gender.

Although this next statement doesn't apply specifically to Ms. Taylor,  I am glad to see Ray O'Connell  willing to make changes in his administration.

photocredit:molovinsky

Jennings Interview Of Molovinsky & O'Hare

PODCAST FROM WDIY OF JENNINGS SHOW WITH MOLOVINSKY AND O'HARE

Drag Races And Such At Dorney Park

Dorney Park is celebrating it's 125th Anniversary, as noted by The Morning Call. A landmark that old, has provided memories for five generations. As a teenager in the 1960's, friday nights at Castle Rock, a dance hall from the twenties, were literally a Freddy Cannon moment. Park admission was free, and there were many attractions which no longer exist, most victim to fire. In addition to the dance hall, there was also a roller skating ring and a stock car race track. The picture above was part of a large neon sign on Hamilton Blvd., on the northwest corner with Cedar Crest Blvd.

In 2007 John Travolta,dressed in drag, portrayed Hollywood's version of Hairspray, initially made by campy underground film maker John Waters, and shot at Dorney Park in 1988. Travolta's part was originally played by a less wholesome, real life female impersonator named Devine, who died shortly after the movie was released.

In my father's time, you could get the trolley at 7th and Hamilton and take it to Dorney Park. Through the 1980's, you could still drive on the road which went right through the middle of the park. Now, combined with a water park, Dorney has become a regional attraction. Busloads of children and families come from New York and elsewhere, but it will always remain a rite of passage for local youngsters.

reprinted from May of 2009.

UPDATE: The large Dorney Park sign stood on the northwest corner of Hamilton and Cedar Crest.  Historic stone homes,  including the former King George Inn, stood on the other three corners. The intersection was called Dorneyville. At the Dorney Sign there was a diagonal road which also entered the intersection,  and the sign pointed to follow that road to the amusement park.

The Valley Of Cronyism

On Thursday I was a guest on Lehigh Valley Discourse, WDIY's program hosted by Alan Jennings. Despite some distractions, I was able to bring up one of Lehigh Valley's biggest problems, cronyism. Cronyism and sacred cows run the valley. An Op-Ed piece in this weekend's Morning Call illustrates the point. Because they hire veterans, Nestle is lauded for its plans to build another large plant, this one in central Pennsylvania. Their Lehigh Valley plant is at capacity for water usage. Of course hiring veterans sounds like a good thing, but sucking the water out of Pennsylvania to fill plastic bottles all over the world is a problem.  The Op-Ed is essentially a public relations piece for Nestle, presented as an editorial.

Here in Allentown we face higher water prices because LCA wants to implement a back door price hike, by increasing the residential billing cycle. (each bill contains a minimum charge, effectively resulting in an increase) We are in essence subsidizing the profit margin of Nestle and other commercial users.

Nestle was bought to the valley by Don Cunningham, now director of Lehigh Valley Economic  Development Corporation. Apparently, the Morning Call has no problem with a Nestle feel good editorial piece, but try and submit something critical about the local sacred cows and cronyism to the paper. Expect no reply, much less seeing it printed.

Allentown's Corner Markets

Although I doubt that there will ever be a show at the Historical Society, or brochures at the Visitors Bureau, perhaps nothing encapsulates the history of Allentown more than the corner grocery stores. Allentown proper, is mostly comprised of rowhouses built between 1870 and 1920, long before the era of automobiles and suburban supermarkets. Most of the corner markets were built as stores, and over the years many were converted into apartments. Up until the late 1940's, there may have been well over a hundred operating in Allentown. Some specialized in ethnic food. The bodega at 9th and Liberty was formally an Italian market. Live and fresh killed chickens were sold at 8th and Linden, currently H & R Block Tax Service. A kosher meat market is now a hair salon on 19th Street. The original era for these markets died with the advent of the supermarket. In the early 50's some corner stores attempted to "brand" themselves as a "chain", as shown in the Economy Store sign above. That market is at 4th and Turner, and has been continually operating since the turn of the last century. Ironically, as the social-economic level of center city has decreased, the corner stores have seen a revival. Most of these new merchants, many Hispanic and some Asian, know little of the former history of their stores, but like their predecessors, work long, hard hours.

ADDENDUM: The above post is reprinted from 2012.  The sign shown above has been removed or sold. When my parents were first married they lived next door and would patronize the same store.  My grandparents lived nearby on the corner of Chew and Jordan Streets.

ADDENDUM 2: the Economy Stores sign shown, apparently came from an early A&P format in 1912 when they leased small stores. If this particular store was such an A&P, or just dressed later with a reused sign, I have yet to determine.

Allentown's Mysterious Millennials

The Morning Call has been running an article now for over a week wondering what millennials want in  downtown Allentown.  Another article mentions that another restaurant is closing, and that J.B. Reilly has built a dozen new buildings, but must keep trying different pieces to find ones that fit.  The articles don't ask how come he can afford to keep looking for pieces that fit,  or how come the newspaper keeps promoting every new attempt to find the right piece.  For these questions you are limited to this blog.

Reilly can keep building and trying because it's not his money, it's ours.  The paper keeps promoting the phenomenal as revitalization, because they also are not as they appear.  They are just tenants in their former building, now owned by Reilly.  The paper is printed in Jersey City and I conclude might even be for sale itself.

The closing restaurant is Grain, and the article tells us that millennials want open spaces,  not tight narrow ones.  I remember when the space was the successful Federal Grill, and then it was considered cozy.  The truth is pretty simple..  There are too many restaurants and not enough millennials.  One would think that by now there would be... After all Reilly built hundreds Strata apartments, and The Morning Call tells us that they're all filled with waiting lists.  Go figure?

Meanwhile the paper continues to ignore my letters and others which criticize any policy of the sacred cows which they protect,  be it the NIZ or The Wildlands Conservancy.

ADDENDUM:  Mr. O'Hare and I spar tonight on WDIY 88.1 FM at 6:00PM. He has sociopathically taken to attacking me as a racist because he didn't like some comments by others on my blog, I don't obsess about Trump, and I oppose double parking. I understand that he is chummy with the Northampton Judiciary, but I didn't realize that they made him judge and jury. Yesterday he wrote about Better Angels, he clearly isn't one. Although he's preaching to the choir on a NPR station, I interrupt this bully with some truths.

The Union Street Train Tower

The Union Street crossing was a busy place. It was located between the Jordan Creek and south 3th Street. Virtually all the train lines serving Allentown converged here. The Lehigh Valley Railroad's old main line also crossed Union Street further east, toward the Lehigh River. Allentown was at this time served by two train stations, the Lehigh Valley Railroad Station which was built over the Jordan Creek, and the New Jersey Central, which still stands as a closed restaurant and bar. This photograph, from 1930, is first in a series which will chronicle both the demise of our railroad era, and manufacturing base. Today, the tower is long gone and only one track survives. It is used by a private short line operator.

photograph from the Collection of Mark Rabenold 

reprinted from June 2013

Rumble On The Radio

In 2014 Alan Jennings invited Bernie O'Hare and me to join him on his radio show, Lehigh Valley Discourse.  The station manager refused to archive the show,  and Jennings quit in protest against the censorship.  Move ahead four years, and Alan is back on public radio at WDIY.  For his first new show he again invited both O'Hare and myself.  However since that first appearance, O'Hare has developed hostility toward me,  for pointing out some aspects of his blog operating manner.

Since O'Hare and I both accepted Jennings' invitation,  I assumed that he was putting his hostility aside for the show.  Less than halfway into the taping he pounced on a word which I had mispronounced. I then noticed that he has a legal pad full of my blog quotes, and notes pertaining to them.  He accused me of hosting a hate blog based on a reader comment, which I didn't reply to.   Although O'Hare knows that I prefer not to debate in the comment section,  he delighted in taking his example out of context.  Ironically, Jennings wanted to talk about Trump's hostility and incivility, but seemed somewhat oblivious to O'Hare's hostility unfolding right in front of him.

I appreciated Alan's invitation, and although Bernie's attacks and my replies might make for an interesting show, O'Hare's behavior was unnecessary.  Hopefully this show will make it through the archive procedure,  and Alan's new run on the show will be well received.

ADDENDUM: Occasionally, someone says something rich in irony,  especially if they maliciously enjoy weaponizing words.  Such was the case on last week's taping, when O'Hare accused me of misogyny. In early 2016 O'Hare wrote...Whether I agree or disagree with her on this or that, I must say Susan Wild has been a breath of very fresh air in Allentown. She was put into a nearly impossible situation, and has reacted with integrity and honor. People with my history tend to bring the profession down, but someone like Wild can rescue a democracy in peril. He continued praising her for almost two years. Toward the end of 2017 he wrote...She has handled herself with integrity and a sedulous nature that kept the ship of state from foundering. With O'Hare, friendship seems to trump truth. When Wild put out a mailer about his friend Morganelli that O'Hare didn't like, the truth changed. When I pointed out that he did a 180 on Susan Wild, and essentially called her a whore, he tried to deflect away the truth of my observation by claiming that my statement was misogynistic. By May of 2018 O'Hare was accusing Wild of bashing little people to benefit hospitals...All of the regular people she screwed over 30 years will be contacted. 

O'Hare thinks that his readers are a weak minded jury that he can bully and manipulate at will. He delights in playing up to local judges and the district attorney. When one of his anonymous readers took him to task last primary, O'Hare replied...Sign your name so we know who to sue 

          Show will air Thursday July 12th at 6:00PM WDIY 88.1 FM

                                                             PODCAST OF SHOW

A Crime By The Wildlands Conservancy

photo by Tami Quigley

The top photo shows the Robin Hood Bridge, before the Wildlands Conservancy demolished the little  Robin Hood Dam, just downstream beyond the bridge. The dam was only about 10 inches high, and was built as a visual effect to accompany the bridge in 1941. It was the last WPA project in Allentown, and considered the final touch for Lehigh Parkway. Several years ago, the Wildlands told the Allentown Park Director and City Council that it wanted to demolish the dam. The only thing that stood between their bulldozer and the dam was yours truly. I managed to hold up the demolition for a couple weeks, during which time I tried to educate city council about the park, but to no avail. If demolishing the dam wasn't bad enough, The Wildlands Conservancy piled the broken dam ruble around the stone bridge piers, as seen in the bottom photo. I'm sad to report that the situation is now even worse. All that ruble collected silt, and now weeds and brush is growing around the stone bridge piers. I suppose the Wildlands Conservancy considers it an extension of its riparian buffer.

The Wildlands Conservancy should be made to remove, piece by piece, all the rubble that they piled around the bridge piers, despoiling the bridge's beauty. City Council should refrain from ever again permitting The Wildlands Conservancy to alter our park designs.

ADDENDUM JULY 9, 2018: It has been five years since the dam's destruction in 2013, and the bridge piers look more disgusting than ever. While Allentown has the third Pawlowski appointed park director taking orders from the Wildlands Conservancy, we do have a new mayor. Hopefully, Ray O'Connell will wrestle park system decisions back to the city.

Downhill On Lehigh Street

During the early 1970's, Allentown demolished the entire neighborhood between Union and Lawrence Streets. It was, in a large part, home to the black community. How ironic that we destroyed the cohesion of a neighborhood, but renamed Lawrence Street after Martin Luther King. The only remnant of the neighborhood is the St. James A.M.E. Church. Going up the hill today we now have a vacant bank call center on the east, and the Housing Authority Project on the west. A whole neighborhood existed in from both sides of Lehigh Street, including black owned shops. The houses were old and humble, but people owned them, many for generations. Some blacks at the time wondered if the project was Urban Renewal or Negro Removal?

reprinted from January 2017


The bank call center referred to above is now Building 21, Allentown School District's own alternative charter like high school.

ADDENDUM: I was recently asked if I had done any posts on Allentown's black community. I graduated Allen in the mid 1960's when blacks only comprised about 2% of the town. Only one black guy hung out with my group, and he attended Dieruff. My father's meat market was on Union Street just before the bridge over the Lehigh. Mr. Brantley purchased meat there for his cafe, one of several black owned businesses in the former neighborhood chronicled above.  Although many of Allentown's black residents lived there,  the neighborhood was still predominately white.

To Whom Do The Allentown Parks Belong

Recently the Allentown Park Director told me that she is being pressured to plant wider riparian buffers by the Conservancy/Greenlands, and to cut them down by me.  But, who are we?  I represent the park sentiments of thousands of Allentonians.  I know this from social media such as facebook,  where hundreds of people every week tell me to keep fighting for the parks.  I know this from visiting the parks, where dozens of people tell me to keep fighting.  But more importantly,  who is the Wildlands Conservancy and Greenways of Lehigh Valley? They are regional groups with paid professional directors who seek and award grants.  Although their counsel might be useful for a small township or municipality without its own park department,  why should they dictate policy in Allentown?  Allentown has its own iconic park system, and even its own grant benefactor, The Trexler Trust.

In Allentown the storm sewer system is piped directly into the creeks, bypassing the riparian buffers, making them useless as buffers anyway.  All they accomplish is to block both access and view of the streams.  The Allentown Park Department allowed the Greenway Project to plant a buffer on the Little Lehigh in Fountain Park,  while at the same time allowing the swimming pool there to succumb to neglect and permanent closure.  It is time for Mayor O'Connell and Allentown to reclaim direction of the Allentown Park System.

photocredit:molovinsky

A Victory For The Traditional Park System

Followers of this blog know that I have been waging a war against the weed wall blocking both the view and access to the streams.  Perhaps my last post on June 14th finally struck the right chord, but at any rate the weed wall has been cut down from behind the rose garden.  Although this is done occasionally to control invasive species in the weed barrier,  I have confirmed on good authority that indeed this recent cutting represents a change in policy.   I would like to express my gratitude to both park director Lindsay Taylor and Mayor Ray O'Connell for their time on this and other issues.

Although I am grateful,  there is another issue needing attention....  Along the entire stretch of the Cedar Creek between Ott Street and Cedar Crest Blvd there is but one bench along the creek.  We elderly not only need access to the water, but a place to sit, rest and enjoy the serenity General Trexler intended.

As residents flock to the parks today to celebrate the holiday, I will continue to advocate for those aspects of the traditional park system which for decades were featured on picture post cards, as shown above.

Allentown's Poor Pool Excuse

Four reporters from the Morning Call joined forces to report on Here's Why Summer After Summer, Some Pools Are Closed.  Apparently the paper needs to assign more reporters, because they all seemed to accept the city's sorry excuse.  The article explains that the shortage is caused by factors such as teenagers wanting more comfortable indoor jobs.  The article mentions that the city has a limited budget and pays $8.75 an hour.   Although I do not have an advanced degree in finance,  I bet that if the city would pay $10 or even $12 an hour, there would be a surplus of applicants.  Furthermore, again even without the advanced degree,  I know that the extra pay would be taxpayer beneficial, compared to closed and underutilized pools.

I'm amazed at both the city and the paper for giving and printing such disingenuous answers, summer after summer. There is  little reason to believe that the city ever intended to open Irving Pool, which is on the books for conversion to a spray park.

Shown above is the former Fountain Park Pool which closed after years of excuses, as being reported now about the other pools.

LV Politics and Pro Wrestling

Lehigh Valley politics and professional wrestling have a lot in common... they both involve fakery with a pre-determined outcome.

Every year our state senators and representatives get to be white knights with the school budget. The state mandates that the districts must determine their budgets before the state contribution is known. This formula allows our elected officials to be heroes just a few months before the election every year.

Every summer Allentown parks has shortage of life guards, and must curtail the swimming pool options. If it's not just an excuse, you would think that by now they would learn that they must outpay the local amusement park, and start their yearly search earlier. This season Irving Pool will not open at all. The city is phrasing this pool out,  just as they did to Fountain Pool years ago. Shortage of lifeguards is an convenient excuse.  With the Tilghman Street Bridge closed,  the east side once again gets the short end of the stick.  Alan Jennings and Community Action Committee of Lehigh Valley want to train their low income clients to be farmers, how about life guards?

Most Allentonians of memory share my disgust about the weed wall barriers blocking the streams in the parks.  The Morning Call has been withholding letters on that topic to accommodate the agenda of the Wildlands Conservancy.

Those looking for a little truth about Allentown to sprinkle on their early morning gruel are pretty much limited to this blog.

Imantrek On Local Democratic Democracy

Imantrek isn't happy about the way certain people were treated at the recent Democratic Committee Selection Meeting. He isn't happy about how the event was covered by The Morning Call, and he isn't happy about how the party is now trying to distance itself from his coverage of the event. This blog will present Iman's presentations on this event, above is the first of three videos.