Forty three years ago Philippe Petit walked above Hamilton Street on a tightrope. Two weeks earlier he had walked between the Twin World Trade Towers above Manhattan. Back then, you could count on Allentown's retail titan Max Hess to bring the best to town.
Flash ahead over four decades, and now Allentown itself is on the tightrope. Our mayor, who has been alleged corrupt by the FBI, will likely be re-elected by a coalition of minority voters. Aiding in that election result is a city councilman, who will most likely divide the anti-corruption vote, hoping to enter the office through the back door early next year.
The public is distracted by some new buildings which poach tenants from elsewhere in the valley, and the local newspaper was incentivized to under-report that reality by the same real estate deal.
Those who still seek unbiased commentary may well be limited to this blog.
photocredit: The Morning Call/August 1974
reprinted from September of 2017
How quickly public apathy has fallen so low. Last week I was told by a reference librarian at the Allentown Public Library that the library no longer gets a paper copy of the Morning Call.
ReplyDeleteThat's pretty sad when even the local library figures the paper isn't worth the price of a subscription. Or, maybe like me, they can't get it delivered.
DeleteNow that Hamilton Street has numerous new office buildings, and numerous new apartments, with more being built (including another hotel), where are the businesses and residents coming from to fill them?
ReplyDeleteOr is that just a pesky detail that Reilly isn't concerned with, as the Commonwealth is paying for all this development ?
The same also goes for the "Waterfront", except Jaindl only has the one building constructed after a decade of grandiose planning. In his case, the location, location, location adage of real estate seems nothing to worry about, Yuppies will spend lots of money to live by the river and bring expensive cars to it, no matter that it is located in the Ward...
At a time when so many other cities are renovating empty downtown office spaces to be residential Allentown developers (both of them) build more office buildings. At the same time Allentown city government is hiring a “Sustainability Manager.” I’m afraid that ship sailed before they were done building the dock. The NIZ has created a financial model for building, not for sustaining.
ReplyDelete