In the 1960's, if you snuck into a park at night with a girl and a bottle of beer, you were sure to encounter an officer we called the Mexican General. It didn't matter which park, what time or how remote of a spot you found, he would find you. How he could patrol all the parks at the same time was beyond comprehension.
I do not know his true heritage, except that he resembled the Mexican officer in the 1950's TV series Zorro. On the topic of heritage, the Lehigh Valley Railroad train engine heading into Canal Park above in October of 2020, is four decades beyond its real time. In 2012, Norfolk Southern painted Heritage engines in the colors of the different former lines absorbed into the current east coast carrier.
If the officer mentioned above really was Mexican and Spanish speaking, he would certainly have his hands full today in Allentown parks, especially Canal Park on the weekends. Hundreds of Dominicans from New Jersey have made the park a destination. The time has come for Allentown to close the parks past a certain time of day. An alternative would be to hire 500 more police officers.
Mayor Tuerk has scheduled a news conference today on the parks....Tomorrow I'll tell you what he got wrong.
The parks are all in awful condition. Neglected, overgrown, and dirty. An obvious sign to all who enter that city indicating a leadership with all the wrong priorities.
ReplyDeleteanon@5:21: Although I may be the park department's biggest critic, I do not find them in "awful" condition. On the contrary, they just need some tweaking. The problem is priorities, on which they are hopelessly confused.
ReplyDeleteThe level of soil compaction along the creek from mowing in wet conditions and with grossly inappropriate equipment, the total amount of invasive species present, and the abuse of natural springs comprised or destroyed, all require one hell of a lot more than tweaking to remedy.
ReplyDeleteIt will take a generation of protracted professional remediation to fix the Little Lehigh stem of the park system.
Heydts Lights in the Parkway wrecked springs and wetland pockets in the Parkway and continues to draw down the manpower of the park staff for at least 25% of the year. This pedestrian display is the epitome of misplaced priorities to this day. Pawlowski told the Trexler Trust to go pound sand and got away with it.
DeleteMuch of the irreplaceable WPA history is still in desperate need of attention.
I understand that you get irritated by comments that repeat similar messages, MM, but there are many conscious people who share similar views.
ReplyDeleteThe parks ARE in terrible condition.
We can begin with the continuing decline of the magnificent WPA stone work and go on at length from there but we won’t at the moment.
It took well over thirty years of neglect, mismanagement and abuse to put the parks in their current condition. (When were the greenhouses adjacent to the Rose Garden destroyed?) It will at least that long IF professional management can be found and competent middle management and staff on the ground can be trained and retained.
Consider the absolute collapse of the Red Wing Black Bird population to be just one glaring example of the magnitude of the situation. Years ago the Parkway was full of frogs, turtles and other amphibians, the first species to go in times of environmental distress.
And no, wildlife habitat can absolutely flourish in a park along with classic design, and NO, the issue of wildlife habitat is NOT confined to Trexler Game Preserve.
The Park System is the singular most important asset that the City of Allentown has.
Thank you for all the time and attention you have brought to the important issues facing our park system.
anon@7:32: Small matter, but the greenhouse was in Trexler Park, not the Rose Garden. However, besides its great loss, it marked the change over in the Trexler Trust. The Trust became political, accommodating mayors, rather than protecting traditional park policy.
ReplyDeleteThe Trexler Trust has concerned with all kinds of new social engineering efforts, all at the expense of its original mission. That was, to provide and fully maintain the most wide-reaching of all social projects, safe, free and open NATURAL public spaces nearby everyone’s neighborhood. Clean, well-tended grounds to enjoy the outdoors and enhance the quality of life of Allentown residents.
DeleteThe ‘well-tended’ grounds component of General Trexler’s vision is clearly not being given the level of priority the plan’s funding originally created.
I really don’t believe funding the pet projects of individual Board Members was envisioned.
A report commissioned by the City and the Trexler Trust said that the Cedar Beach area of the park was being “loved to death”. That situation has never been addressed. Pawlowski’s mishandling of the pool at Cedar Beach alone should have resulted in a jail sentence.
ReplyDeleteThe park system once had great swimming pools that served the poorest citizens in the community, now they are closed and kids are drowning in the creeks.
anon@7:54: The reality is even worse. Although that survey was commissioned by the Trexler Trust, Cedar Park is now used even more, much more. Worse, the Tuerk administration is now working on a new Park Master Plan, which is based on public popularity suggestions, and again the Trexler Trust stands down in compliance with the administration.
ReplyDeleteIt’s not a gratuitous statement to say that the Mayor current mayor is shameless. From the padding of his resume the pandering to the woke and the DEI crowd and his feigned interest in environmental issues the man’s entire act is built on performance at the expense of production.
DeleteNothing of substance will come out of his Parks Master Plan.
Pawlowski, with the active participation and approval of Malcom Gross, hired Greg Weitzel, Penn State Recreation Program product and master of the push poll.. This was a seminal moment in the movement away from both wise environmental stewardship and classical design elements in the parks.
ReplyDeleteWeitzel, a pal of the “Latino business development specialist” from Boulder Colorado, might not have been the sharpest tool in the shed but managed to win a host of professional awards from his mentors and his professional - I use the term loosely - colleagues. And yes, he purchased every single piece of plastic fantastic equipment from their company catalog. He had the foresight to build his resume and get out of town for much greener pastures before the FBI arrived at City Hall.
I find it telling that today’s press conference is being held jointly by the Mayors of Allentown and READING.
ReplyDeleteSadly, Allentown is much closer to Reading in terms of shootings, gang activity, poverty, corruption and other negative factors than it is to Bethlehem or Easton here in the Valley.
I view today’s joint presser as an admission of that defeat, and the direct result of failed democrat policies in both cities. Residents in Allentown and Reading should have great concern about any additional “solutions” proposed today by these failed “leaders”.
If anything, Allentown should be learning from and holding a joint press conference with another city that’s successfully solved the problem of having their parks overrun with rule breakers. My suspicion is that’s not happening because Tuerk doesn’t want to follow a model that works, and want to develop a model that accommodates lawbreakers instead of penalizing them.
I’m beginning to think those stupid, environmental weed walls are actually intended to keep people OUT of the stream water. You know, NO TOES ALLOWED.
DeleteIReading and Allentown feel like natural partners.
DeleteLet’s be fair.
Growing up in Allentown we always viewed Reading as a slum
DeleteReading and Allentown are both Minority Majority towns. They are practically Sister Cities.
DeleteMike, I share your of the parks. I used to fish the parkway, still do, the lehigh river, under basin st, fountain park and even the parkettes area. That has all been cut back to the parkway. Two reasons, one I dont like to carry a gun while I fish. Two trying to cast your line in between those washing themselves is quite difficult. The trash left on the banks only stays there until a big storm washes it away. Its really sad. And yes, how difficult is it to put gates up and close the parks at night ? Cedar beach had gates because it floods and the Mayor with all of his infinite wisdom said it made it look "unwelcoming" and had them removed. Sorry Mike gotta throw one dig. His tattoos and the fact he doesnt know how to dress in a suit is unwelcoming. Hes a close 2nd to Senator Fetterman.
ReplyDeleteAllentown policy has been Parks Close After Sunset. Gates are not required. All that’s required is the most basic enforcement.
DeleteLitter is a culturally based concept. You represent an idea of what Allentown was that is 50 years old.
DeleteThe New Allentown has new ideas and new ways of being.
Wake up.
The new Allentown speaks spansh and the streets are ruled by the barrel of a gun
DeleteAnon 0923. Gates are necessary. How do the cops do basic enforcement when there dealing with shootings, the clubs, domestics etc. A dumb gate costs a few thousands, vs. Officers having to check, canal, keck, trexler, parkway, cedar and jordan park. You dont understand the manpower it takes and neither does the mayor or chiefs who have limited patrol experience. Chief- 3months patrol 1st Asst chief none in past 18-20 years, 2nd asst chief mayb 8 years none in past 5 . How can you handle a problem you have never dealt with?
ReplyDeleteThe Allentown of 2025 is no longer the Allentown of 1925 in many ways. The concept of municipal pride has long since disssipated from what it once was.....
DeleteBasic enforcement worked for generations, including some real boom boom shooting years. The parks were open after dark one night a year, the night before opening day of trout season.
DeleteThe parks closed when the sun went down.
Period.
Even the hopelessly woke and dedicated DEI, of every conceivable variety of sex, gender, race, class and ethnicity, get the concept of “after dark”. Cops don’t need to learn the code of nightfall at the Police Academy.
Hundreds of gates would have to be closed and opened to effectively close down Allentowns 1,200 plus acres of parks nightly.
A couple of three dozen gates could solve the problem.
DeleteSeriously, a few strategically placed gates could help the issue. The idea in public safety jargon is known as Safety by Design.
Nothing new here.
Yeah, I also see some officers sitting at the FOP home on Mack Blvd or in parking lots all over the southside all shift instead of doing the simplest enforcement of the rules….maybe one of those cops could be the “insider”’ to Zucal and tell him all the problems he sees within the department all while doing absolutely zero police work himself. He surely would be his fellow cops’ hero and most assuredly wouldn’t have a vote of no confidence passed against him by fellow FOP members…..
Delete9:29 - You bring up the weed walls, which I believe is VERY important to the topic of swimming safety, which is supposedly the topic of today’s press conference.
ReplyDeleteHow are the police or citizens able to see what’s going on in the water when the water is hidden by 4 ft tall weed walls? Will the city be purchasing watercraft for the police to patrol the creeks and rivers?
Nobody is going to see a swimmer in distress behind the weed walls, and the police will also have no way of knowing anyone is in there to be able to stop a drowning before it happens.
The weed walls aren’t just unsightly, they’re a safety and law enforcement issue as well. I doubt our small-minded Mayor will mention this in his press conference, since he typically is oblivious to even the most obvious things.
Even in the high crime years of Roy and Bill the parks were closed at nightfall. It didn’t require any high intensity patrol strategies then. It shouldn’t now.
ReplyDeleteYes, it’s true, Heydt could not pretext the cities busiest pool from being regularly vandalized. That pool was right on a major thoroughfare. He taught those low income people a lesson.
Whoever was responsible for breaking that glass in the pool Heydt closed was most likely illiterate and could not have read Bill’s warning even if they happened upon a copy of the Morning Call.
DeleteDozens of Allentown police officers go to and from the gym at the Police Academy every night. Dat right there is a lota opening and gate closings.
ReplyDeleteTo my recollection, the Park Policeman we called "The Mex" was Officer Warren Ketterer. To us, he did resemble what we imagined a Mexican General would look like. We respected him as we respected the parks, but then is not now. Then, for example, an APD Officer directed traffic at the numbered streets' intersections along the thriving Hamilton Street central business district and the City perhaps averaged one shooting a year. The City had "City Fathers", was the 4th largest city in Pennsylvania, owner-occupied dwelling units outnumbered absentee-owned dwelling units and the city was neither dominated by Philadelphia politics nor occupied by out-of-town residents. Today, old Warren would need a whole posse of federales to restore order to Allentown's parks.
ReplyDeleteMayor Matt (why do I constantly have to fight the urge to call this grown man a “kid”?) is addressing the perception of a problem, kids drowning in the creek.
ReplyDeleteIf there appears to be a problem, appear to offer a solution. This mayor offers nothing but talk and he will offer his platitudes in two languages to remind the public that he is “Allentown’s First Latino Mayor”.
It’s show time!
Well, I just read about the two Mayor's little shindig regarding the use of the parks... I'm fairly confident nothing will change... just like fireworks under the city camera eyes, loud car stereos, loud car and motorcycle (illegal!!!) exhaust systems and don't get me started on double parking... stick a fork in them... both cities are washed up has beens and neither can claw their way back to decency...
ReplyDeleteIf the police follow the same policy they use with nuisance crimes and basic traffic laws, violations will be ignored or a warning will be issued, then another warning, then another warning, then another warning...Never will a single citation be issued to anyone violating the no swimming ordinance. The swimming will continue, traffic violations and nuisance crimes will continue unabated. This is Matt Teurk's Allentown.
ReplyDeleteMike if they paid attention to uncle Harry's mission statement instead of all the political payoffs! The palatable drinking water would and could have been a sustainable income for allentown pa for many years to come!
ReplyDeleteInstead they now spend uncle Harry's 501c money's on fashionable studies as to why the public enjoyment and just the site of water rapid sounds can't and will not be enjoyable. How much does the west's water company kick in for this farce while filling pockets and bottled water.
The entire system has been compromised by people with small visions, small minds, and a trail of half truths and lies.
ReplyDeleteLet’s go to the next level.