The Morning Call headline stated that an Iron Chef is making a bet on Allentown. Anybody who has a paid subscription to the paper knows better than that. We've seen Reilly's City Center RE subsidize one new restaurant after another, since Shula's opened on the Arts Walk in 2015.
We old timer subscribers have seen one Morning Call Reporter, after another, present a news release as news.
I watched Josh Shapiro on Meet The Press this past Sunday. As a possible Democrat for 2028, he'll have to present Allentown as a feather in his cap. When the press comes to the Queen City in 2028, I doubt that they'll be able to eat at Jose Garces' Okatshe Japanese Restaurant. For Hamilton Street, three years is an eternity.
The goal of the Morning Call is not so much about telling truth, but about shaping what the Morning Call thinks the public SHOULD believe. I call that weaponized propaganda.
ReplyDeleteanon@5:54: The goal of the Morning Call is to assemble enough articles and press releases to put out a daily paper. They haven't had an editorial attitude since Miorelli was put out to pasture a few years ago.
ReplyDeleteWe differ on this point. Of all the submitted product out there for inclusion, probably hundreds of pieces per day available, the Morning Call curiously manages to select 90% from the Liberal-leaning half of the pile.
DeleteThis kind of curating needs to be looked at with suspicion and caution. This is clearly intentional. The Morning Call should never be used as anyone's single source in the quest for truth.
The Morning Call is a Tribune paper, which is composed in Chicago and printed in Jersey City, then distributed in Allentown. The choice of articles of which you complain is a Tribune decision. The local mistake is still using the old cast of opinion writers....Cunningham, Iannelli, Bradley, etc.
DeleteWhile I respect those 'contributors', it gets tiresome to read about their idyllic childhoods in the Valley. Those were days of steel and truck manufacturing, not slot machines and appletinis.
DeleteAfter decades as a subscriber I finally cut off the print addition when at the end of any given week it no longer provided a decent amount of mulch.
ReplyDeleteI do hope that Mr. Garces' restraunt does well and is in buisness for many years.
ReplyDeleteThe fact is however, that there is little for a small buisness in Center City Allentown (I refuse to call it "Downtown" as it no longer is that) to draw upon to make it successful. Center City Allentown is basically a large office complex with small retail buisnesses that come and go with a high levcel of frequency and regularity.
The NIZ has existed for a long enough period of time to render some judgements about it, and if its goal was to "revitalize" Hamilton Street and bring back a large amount of people to it, as it existed in the past as a retail, entertainment, and buisness center, it is an abject failure.
The NIZ can only be judged as a success in removing most of the character of the former "Downtown" and replacing it with boring glass and steel structures that hold open seating cubicle offices for white collar buisness workers.
There is nothing impressive in the NIZ to draw people there other than cubicle jobs and a paycheck. The money spent on it would have been better spent developing a large complex of tall office buildings in the suburbs. At least there, the parking would likely be free and workers could come to work and go home without the congestion of narrow city streets built for horses and buggys,
anon@7:56: I believe between prior knowledge of the NIZ map, and the way the former owners were persuaded to sell, that the NIZ was a real estate scheme, not for the benefit of the city, but rather some individuals.
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