Just west of the Robin Hood Bridge is a fountain which quenched the thirst of my summer days. Built during the WPA era, it overlooked the creek. Although the water was turned off years ago, so now is the view. The weeds and assorted invasives growing are not a riparian buffer. Science says that a buffer has to be 25feet wide to be of any value. A reader described this thin strip of wild growth as
neglect, masquerading as conservation. All it does is block both the view and access to the waterway. It denies our current citizens the beauty and experience for which the parks were designed. Although the Wildland's Conservancy would like you to believe that the Allentown Parks are there to be wildlands, in reality they were designed by landscape architects, to provide the citizens of Allentown with what Harry Trexler called
serenity. He did also appreciate conservation, but for that he created the Trexler Game Preserve, north of Allentown. There are places in the parks which can accommodate the riparian buffer zones, without compromising the intended public experience of waterway view and access. Riparians could be created and maintained in the western side of Lehigh Parkway, between the pedestrian bridge and Bogerts Bridge. In Cedar Park, the riparian section could be in western side, between the last walking bridge and Cedar Crest Blvd. It's time that the parks were given back to the citizens of Allentown. They are not funded, or intended by our tax dollars and the Trexler Trust, just to be a venue for the Wildland's Conservancy to harvest grants. Let a child again giggle by the creek's edge. Let us get back our intended park experience.
above originally posted in 2013
ADDENDUM JULY 1, 2022: When the above post was first written, Pawlowski's recreation trained park directors farmed many actual park decisions out to the Wildlands. Although their influence has waned somewhat in recent years, these faux buffers remain a negative legacy. The buffers are faux because Allentown's storm system is piped directly into the streams, under the buffer weed wall. Those weed walls in turn have become hotbeds of invasive species, such as Poison Hemlock. Now, as the downside of those invasives has become obvious, the department is cutting the grass back toward the streams, but still leaving the creek edge overgrown, hiding view and blocking access. To further complicate the situation, in the last several years all new tree plantings were done away from the creek, at the outer edge of the then wide buffer...The end result is now cutting the grass is more difficult, with all the new trees in the path of the mowers.
ADDENDUM DECEMBER 19, 2024: In recent years the park department has only cut down the faux fake excuse buffers only once or twice a season. Those cutting were necessary, so that the invasives would not take deep root. This year the invasives, in most places, were not cut at all!
Clearly, those in charge of our municipal government want diversity in the vegetation that thrives along the waterways of the parks in Allentown
ReplyDeleteThere is very little plant diversity along the stream bank. A relatively small number of hardy, aggressive, invasive species dominate. Soil compaction from generations of mowing with heavy tractors, regardless of whether the ground was wet or dry, provides unfavorable conditions for beneficial native plants species.
DeleteSoil compaction is a major problem for runoff as well as plant habitat.
Seasonal springs have been destroyed and entire bird populations, like the Red Wind Blackbirds have disappeared entirely. The Whitetail Deer population has exploded causing all sorts of concerns including the disappearance of the majority of wildflower species. About 10 years ago someone had shot a killed a doe, entrance wound but no exit wound, a few yards downhill from the main entrance to the park going into Robin Hood. Plenty of ground hogs to eat other native beneficial plants species.
From an environmental perspective the park is a mess.
In some good news wild turkey and seasonal heron populations are thriving.
anon@6:52: I don't question your environmental assessment at all. However, I remind readers that Lehigh Parkway was intended as a city park, not a wildlife or natural reserve. The invasives haven't helped the creek banks. Removing the 10inch decorative dam hasn't helped the trout, but its ruble has depreciated the visual beauty of the bridge piers. Allentown has purchased two large parcels...the former fertilizer plant along MartinLuther King and also by Basin Street. Let them grow and be natural. Restore the other parks to their iconic designs.
DeleteEvery once in a while a black bear will amble down from South Mountain - yes, the South Mountain that Mayor Ed Pawlowski once proposed logging for municipal revenue - and strolls through the park. On at least several occasions a beaver, defying long odds, has begun to set up shop alongside the creek only to be unceremoniously removed, and most likely euthanized, by a State Game Warden.
DeleteA wildlife, bird, plant and tree census in the park system is long, long, overdue.
Shame on the Wildlands Conservancy.
@6:52 Diversity is not desired. Grass is what is wanted. Just like how the grass it cut on the south side of the Little Lehigh at the Allentown Police Academy. Lehigh Parkway is a -park-, not -wildlands-.
DeleteAlso the trees should be there for their beauty, like the weeping willows that used to line the banks of the stream.
Allentown’s reputation as a dump is well-deserved. What an ignorant bunch of leaders to have ruined that place over the past few decades. Truly amazing how blind and/or incompetent that city’s leaders are. Why even go there at all except to drive through it?
ReplyDeleteI think your suburb is a dump and that an ignorant bunch of leaders have destroyed Lehigh County's once beautiful rural areas over the past few decades. How blind and incompetent were they? Why go there? It's our home, where we've raised our children and I love my neighborhood.
DeleteIf one dresses themself up in public as a slob, wears dirty, mismatched clothes, unkempt hair, etc., the public seeing that person will get the impression he/she IS a slob. This applies to any city, too.
DeleteAllentown is NOT doing enough to put its best face forward. To not do so is baffling. Please explain.
In my youth, the early 1950s, the park was full of all sorts of birds, animals and reptiles. A trip to the building adjacent to the fish hatchery, an extraordinary operation, had a wonderful, if somewhat macabre, number of creatures on display pickled in formaldehyde.
ReplyDeleteAllentown’s park system will always serve a variety of different purposes, vital water resource, the location for city operational facilities and buildings, the Police Academy being a notable example, active recreation facilities for sports, historic structures and buildings, urban parks and passive recreation. The proportion devoted to the “classic Allentown Parks”’style and un-landscaped areas, including the South Mountain area and upper reaches of the Little Lehigh, however well maintained, or not, can and will change, and should include knowledgeable public input, competent professional consultants and competent professional staff. Passive recreation in the classic Allentown Park style will always include considerations for the environment including the flora and fauna that are included in that area and located in the areas immediately adjacent.
ReplyDeleteThis is the kind of dialogue that needs to happen beyond simplistic rhetoric of any flavor.
anon@10:27:Eloquently put, but totally wrong. The fact that you cannot see the creek from that water fountain in Robin Hood is an unnecessary depreciation of the park, plain and simple. The Robin Hood section should be kept mowed to the creek banks. The Willow tress should be replanted. Likewise, the Rose Garden section of Cedar Park should be mowed to the creek banks. As for your professionals... they do not consider particular sites or locales. The Little Lehigh must be stocked with Trout, it is not their national cold water habitat. That small dam was demolished for naught. The ruble from the dam depreciated the beauty of the bridge piers. This is NOT simplistic rhetoric, but pushing back against the mess from your professional consultants.
DeleteShould Robin Hood be restored to its original Classic Park form?
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely!
Is the Wildlands Conservancy responsible for the abomination that Robin Hood is today? Unquestionably.
But Traditional Park or not, it still has flora and fauna in that design iteration and it is still a singular part of a more complex and diverse, if I may use that term, park system.