Yesterday, the infamous Shula's Steakhouse singer was in district court on charges unrelated to the Arts Walk incident. He claims that the Allentown Police have a vendetta against him. Maybe they do, their boss's boss is known for his vendettas. The Hunsicker family, long associated with baseball on the south side, made the same accusation about Pawlowski last week at city council. But, this post is about the real crime last August by the steakhouse.
In the molovinsky on allentown hall of justice, J.B. Reilly, Pat Browne, Sy Traub, etc. would have been in court yesterday, not the singer. They, and the others that are responsible for using public money to bring Shula's to the Strata Building (which is filled up no matter what Molovinsky says). They are responsible for the vendors who got stuck holding the bag for pennies on the dollar, when Shula's went bankrupt.
Elsewhere, in the upside down NIZ world, the parolee center is closing after 35 years, so that Reilly can build his City Center Tower Number 6. Some of the parolees will be transfered to Scranton and Wernersville, now, that shouldn't disrupt their lives. Hey, if you're a singer or a parolee, move along, it's Reilly Time.
above reprinted from May 25, 2016
ADDENDUM APRIL 4, 2025: For many the above post is ancient history. But allow me to refresh your memory. Some hapless soul was arrested on the Arts Walk for singing about ten years ago. They claimed that he was degrading the atmosphere. I can't tell you what restaurant is there now, so many have come and folded. Yesterday it was announced that they were closing the Marketplace. How many poor vendors wasted their time and money there? Don't blame the Morning Call for these NIZ failures, they never stopped promoting the scam/scheme that uses your diverted state taxes. About the only place people ever read the truth about it was here, on this blog.
To sum everything up:
ReplyDeleteThe NIZ has revitalized downtown Allentown and made it more attractive to out-of-town visitors (supposedly).
More people are living downtown than ever (supposedly).
Yet all those people somehow can’t keep a small downtown food court afloat.
Democrats won’t release the NIZ audit results, and the Morning Call sees nothing odd or worthy of investigating.
Great summary. There is NO doubt the NIZ is not working as hoped. A truthful reporting of complete numbers would indicate this to have been a financial loser for every Pennsylvania taxpayer (except a few!)
DeleteThe biggest impediment to success? In my opinion, that would be the absolutely awful reputation of public safety, orderliness, and safety downtown. I also believe people prefer not to use parking decks after hours. Why bother with any of this when everything is already available elsewhere?
Recreating downtown’s sorry reputation will take great effort on the part of City officials. It will take a decade or more, for sure.
Allentown has all the problems of a big city without offering any of the advantages.
DeleteStick a fork in it.
The NIZ has not achieved what it was promoted as doing. The utter failure of the Allentown Market and the lack of meaningful retail are two of the biggest misses. With that being said, anyone who thinks that the incident with the above referenced individual was overreach is either not familiar with what he was doing or disingenuous. He was a constant nuisance "singing" at the top of his lungs on end. He clearly needed help. It was just a much of quality of life issue as the double parkers, motorcycle parades and loud boom box cars.
ReplyDeleteThis guy ought to go down to the Jordan Park Greenway by Nat Hyman's renovated apartment buildings (that actually have people living in them and were bought with his own money), he would be free to set up an encampment, use the park as a bathroom and dump all his garbage wherever he felt like. It was only 2 months ago that Mayor Pee Wee was in the Beating Heart of the Lehigh Valley cutting the ribbon at Nowhere Coffee (N. 9th Street) and already they've slashed their hours from daily 7:00 - 3:00 to Monday to Friday 7:00 - 1:00. They could probably use a street singer to boost business.
ReplyDeleteUntil Allentown addresses the obvious quality of life problems downtown, the city will fail. Whole groups of potential customers in the suburbs won’t come into the city because of the obvious problems they see that are not being fixed. Those are customers that downtown needs in order to thrive, and they are going to places outside the city with easy parking, no noise, and no worries that someone will be outlining their bodies with chalk later in their visit.
ReplyDeleteTuerk's solution? Jam more apartments and rooming houses into the neighborhoods and make matters worse. Tolerate the homeless taking over our parks and “understand” those wrecking the quality of life in our neighborhoods.
It’s not working, and will only get worse if Tuerk is re-elected. We need to stop the decline that Tuerk is accelerating.
Register today to vote democrat in the upcoming primary and vote Zucal!
What happened to all those people from the county courthouse, the law firms, the hotel, the credit union, the federal courthouse, and all the other downtown offices? Didn’t they need a place for coffee or a quick lunch? Maybe they did but the prices were way out of the everyday scale. Everything was always so precious at the market.
ReplyDeleteIt’s a failure by any measure except as a pure taxpayer ripoff to benefit several individuals.
ReplyDeleteWait...hold everything...youthful dynamo State Rep Nick Miller to the rescue....Downtown Allentown Alliance is partnering with the United Way! Senator Miller gushed with enthusiasm and excitement for this amazing new development that will do the following:
ReplyDelete1. Enhance Engagement & Vibrancy
2. Inspire Loyalty & Advocacy
3. Curate a Dynamic Retail Landscape
4. Celebrate and Elevate Cultural Heritage
This could be a game changer, these never before construed, inspirational concepts are certain to make the NIZ successful.
The question becomes “Will the powers that be keep awarding even more taxpayer dollars for additional NIZ projects that have very little chance of succeeding?”
ReplyDeleteWith so many costly politics games played in Pennsylvania, the likely answer is probably YES.
The failing Morning Call is in on this scam. Wilfull ignorance. How’s that for serving in the public’s interest?
Mike that's the kind of stuff the arts walk was built for, now it is only for there vagrants to lurk in the shadows beyond. The morning rag dosnt publish that stuff unless there a body involved!
ReplyDeletePeople, get out of your car and walk around the downtown and you will realize what an abject failure the NIZ is... prove me wrong. The "for lease/for rent" signs proliferate... gee, they keep telling us it's so full and we need more buildings... hmmm, baloney!! No wonder they won't release the actual data and "The Morning Rag" is disinterested. Once again we've been taken to the cleaners!
ReplyDeleteAgain we talking about quality of life issues again!! Look around Allentown, trash in back yards , on streets , parks trashed , but No plan to combat this problem that leads to homeless problems. Nat Hymn is correct this mayor has done nothing, in fact the city actually picks up trash from homeless camps but doesn’t remove anything, so we currently have bigger problem that won’t correct itself. We need better leadership in this city !!
ReplyDeleteI never heard the word 'homeless" unless it applied a house fire or other disaster until the early 80s. That was when prez Ron decided to save on taxes by booting a large segment of people out of the psych wards and onto the streets. As I remember he said most of these people enjoyed the freedom. What's the solution? Well, one might be not to let anybody in the country to stay until we can take care of the people we've got. Also, we might want to look into start having permits to have children.
ReplyDelete