Shown above is the former Wentz Tombstone shop at 20th and Hamilton Streets. Shown leading up to the workshop were tracks of the former Quarry Barber train spur. Many years earlier, the line crossed Hamilton and served a former soda bottling plant on Linden Street, behind the stadium. That building eventually was taken over by the park department, which allowed it to deteriorate, rather than replace the roof. The park department still believes in neglect, rather than maintenance.
Before the flatcar with granite reached the tombstone plant, it traveled between the stage and pond at Union Terrace. Two small bridges crossed the waterway behind the pond, one for the train and one for pedestrians coming to the park from Walnut Street.
I have been campaigning to get the park department to replace the pedestrian bridge it had removed, rather than repair it about eight years ago. There is nobody in the administration that remembers the bridge, they're all newcomers to town. But I remember, and I don't mind reminding them.
The missing bridge at Union Terrace baffles me. The concrete supports are still there, the span is small, and the materials needed for reconstruction would be negligible.
ReplyDeleteYet City Hall doesn’t seem to care.
I would hope that an aspiring Eagle Scout (or Girl Scout seeking their Gold Award) would consider this as their project to earn those distinctions. I’m sure local businesses would gladly contribute cash or materials toward such a worthwhile and highly visible project.
And perhaps if the Scouts sought approval at a public meeting of City Council, it would shame the Mayor and his Park Department into helping out and doing right by the park.
The operation was extraordinary in every sense. Being able to wander the yard in those final days with the stone and the equipment was breathtakingly beautiful.
ReplyDeleteIt was an experience that was simultaneously thrilling and tragic in scope and intensity..
I worked at Wenz between deployments in the military, I did layout and carving of floral designs, done with steel shot. The company had many old Italian masons who were very talented, they actually cut the granite and marble from big blocks with a wire saw and made every part of the monument. No one else did that they all bought premade monuments and then lettered them. designs. There was no heat in most of the areas, and I worlde there in the winter, it was a old school manufacturing system.
ReplyDeleteYou're right that the current City Administration doesn't know much if anything about Allentown's past. What's more, they don't care. The purpose of Allentown's government has nothing to do with our past, what made living in Allentown so great or what our diminishing few wish would be carried forward. Allentown's purpose now is the acquisition and retention of political power. Nothing is done that makes the administration, especially the Mayor, look bad. "Transformative" initiatives finance sycophants who praise the leaders for their excellence and civic goodness. "Good" employees who toe the line are well paid, happy to suckle as they go along to get along. The residents are collected and "managed" as a herd for the convenience of the party controlling them. This show will go on until conditions get so bad that the voters change it, but for now, the City Administration has exactly what it wants, the roses have all been painted red, and Allentown is doing just fine.
ReplyDelete