Allentown's Covid-19 Pie

Allentown is preparing to hand out $400,000 of federal money to starve off evictions in the city. With a limit of $3,000 per tenant,  they might end up helping out 135 landlords.  I say landlords instead of tenants, because those tenants will probably be moving out anyway, just a month or two latter.

In trying times, which these certainly are, most landlords will work with good tenants.  However, with bad tenants,  a landlord's mistake in judgement quickly becomes known.  Usually tenants who seek assistance in normal times are bad bets.  I suspect that they will be bad bets now.

So while $400,000 won't be helping that many people, it does raise the question of how this federal  Covid19 aid is being put to use.  While the eviction aid sounds good on paper,  it has me shaking my head.

I can only hope that the other uses of the federal financial aid package make more sense.

Well, apparently they don't.

The other aspect of the $2.1 million dollar Covid aid package to Allentown is $500,000 to small businesses.  Who exactly at City Hall is qualified to decide who gets the grants?  Grants will be for $5,000, meaning 100 lucky businesses.  Supposedly it's first come, first serve.  Often in government that means best connected, best served.

With 400 to some landlords, and 500 to some businesses, that leaves $300,000 of our federal money unaccounted for.  Often in such programs the local government entity can keep an administrative fee.

Addendum: O'Hare's Ramblings reports another local proposal

Courting Mediocrity In Name Of Wokeness

Allentown School System tabled naming the new elementary school after General Hays, a nurse who became the first woman general in the army.  An incredibly accomplished person, Hays would have been the first woman an Allentown School is named after.  Hays had served in WW2, Korea and Vietnam.  However Hays, who graduated Allentown High in 1938, had a defect, she was white.

The local black leaders want someone who reflects the current diversity of the system.  Rev. Gregory Edwards and Phyllis Alexander both wrote the school board complaining about Hays.

Perhaps they should name the school after Philadelphia Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw.  She instructed the police force not to arrest for minor infractions, like theft and prostitution, during the virus crisis.  Large groups of young people were running amok in center city Philadelphia, scooping up everything their backpacks could hold. Meanwhile at City Hall, woke mayor Jim Kenney stayed silent about this decline in civilization. Only this weekend, after a merchant and citizen backlash, did Outlaw and Kenney finally reverse policy.

Philadelphia inner city kids were taught a bad lesson by their police commissioner and mayor. Likewise,  Allentown students are being neglected, not by a lack of computers, but of leadership by the school board. They had done well in choosing Hays, and should stick to their decision.  Character and accomplishment should be more important than complexion.

photo of Hays being awarded the Distinguished Service Medal by Westmoreland in 1971  

Supermarket Comes To Allentown

The concrete monolith still stands five stories above Lehigh Street at the Parkway Shopping Center. Currently it sports a clock and a sign for St. Luke's medical offices. It was built in 1953 as the modernistic sign tower for Food Fair supermarket, which then was a stand alone store. Behind it, on South 12th Street was the Black and Decker Factory. The shopping center would not be built to decades later, connecting the former supermarket to the bowling alley built in the 60's. Food Fair was started in the 1920's by Russian immigrant Samuel Friedland in Harrisburg. By 1957 he had 275 stores. 1953 was a rough year for the butcher, baker and candle stick maker; the huge supermarkets were too much competition, even for the bigger independent markets, such as Lehigh Street Superette; it was further east on Lehigh, now the site of a Turkey Hill Market. The sign tower also remains at the 15th and Allen Shopping center, which was another stand alone Food Fair. That parcel remains an independent supermarket. Food Fair would eventually absorb Penn Fruit, which had a market on N. 7th Street, then turn into Pantry Pride. When the Food Fair was built, there was as yet no 15th Street Bridge. Allentown only connected to the south side by the 8th Street Bridge and the Lehigh/Union Street hill. (stone arch bridge, near Regency Tower, was route to West End) Allentown was booming and Mack Trucks were rolling off the line, a block east off Lehigh Street, as fast as they could build them. The factories on S. 12th st. are now flea markets. Mack Headquarters is being sold to a real estate developer. Perhaps those concrete monoliths are the monuments to better times, by those of us who remember.

reprinted from June 2009

Markets Of Allentown's Past

When I was growing up my parents lived on two ends of Allentown, first the south side and then the west end.  I was fortunate to have experienced two great independent markets of Allentown's past.

The Lehigh Street Superette had a great section of small inexpensive toys for a small boy.  An easy walk from Little Lehigh Manor,  I could keep my Hopalong Casidy six shooter in caps, and replace my lost water pistol each summer.  The ice cream fountain featured hand dipped Breyers.  While the kids took a cone, the parents would have a quart or gallon scooped and weighed to take home.

Before  Food Fair was built farther west on Lehigh Street,  my mother would do all her shopping, except for meat,  at Lehigh Market.  Although I didn't pay too much attention, I do remember the cookie selection.

In the late 1950's my parents moved to the west end, and my times at Deiley's West Gate Market began.  Although too old to notice the toy selection,  the soda fountain became a hangout.

In addition to numerous corner markets, every section of Allentown had a popular larger independent, like Lehigh or Deiley's.   A few like Hersh's Market, have survived to this day.

photo of Deiley's Market in 1938

A Former Factory And Neighborhood Of Allentown, Pa.

The Wire Mill was a sprawling industrial plant along 13 acres of the Little Lehigh Creek, just east of Lehigh Street, near the current Martin Luther King Drive.  An 1899 map of Allentown contains the footprint of various industries of the time, and the Wire Mill was the most prominent.  The Lehigh Valley RailRoad constructed two bridges over the Little Lehigh, to bring its Barber Quarry spur line into and out of the plant. Began in 1886, it produced wire and nails until 1943, and then sat abandoned for another twenty years. During WW1, it employed up to 1,200 men around the clock, producing barbed wire for the trench warfare in Europe. The factory sat on the south side of the former Wire Street, which housed narrow row houses on the other side of the street, and the neighborhood above it.



That entire neighborhood was demolished in the early 1970's, as Allentown embraced the modern urban renewal models of the time. The old, modest neighborhood of small row houses, between Lawrence and Union Streets, and on both sides of Lehigh Street, between 4th and 8th Street, were bulldozed away.  It was, in a large part, home to Allentown's black community. How ironic that we destroyed the cohesion of a neighborhood, but renamed Lawrence Street after Martin Luther King. The only remnant of that community and neighborhood still there is the St. James A.M.E. and Zion Church. A former vibrant neighborhood was replaced by a sterile bank call center, sitting alone on a large vacant hill. That building is now the new Building 21 city operated charter school. I would have complained about that urban renewal plan if I was blogging back then. Now, 50 years later, I still consider that plan a failure. Hopefully, future bloggers will have something better to say about Allentown's current revitalization.

The Wire Mill was at the bottom of the Lehigh Street hill, shown above

reprinted from March of 2016

Allentown's First Black Bar

In a neighborhood that no longer exists, Allentown's first legal black liquor establishment had a short tortured run.

McLaughlin's Cafe was on the corner of Wire and Lehigh, at the bottom of the hill. Wire was the street that ran along the Wire Mill, another long forgotten part of Allentown's industrial history. By the mid 1950's, things were getting rough in the old bar. Police became a regular referee as fights and prostitution frequented the establishment. Finally the state liquor board decided to pull their license. 

The neighborhood had two complexions. There were the white descendants of the factory workers, and it also was the center of Allentown's small black population.

Hamp Webb was a popular figure in the black community. Just outside the straight and narrow, he was courted by the white officials for his influence with his community. Hamp operated unlicensed speakeasies with some success.

In the final days of McLaughlin's, they featured black entertainers from Philadelphia, and even referred to it as the Black & White Club. As McLaughlin's license was being revoked, he negotiated a sale to Hamp Webb.

The Morning Call reported that he fought to secure a license to provide a drinking establishment for his fellow Negroes, where they could congregate without being molested. After a court hearing, he was finally given the license in 1957, and Ham Webb Bar&Grill opened.

Hamp Webb was killed the following year in an automobile accident. While operation of the bar was taken over by his sons, they apparently didn't have local connections to deflect legal citations that came with operating a rough bar in a tough neighborhood. The property and license were liquidated at a tax sale in 1960.

Allentown Flood Of 1936

In 1936, northeast United States was decimated by extensive flooding. While Johnstown, Pa. and Nashua, N.H. made national news, Allentown certainly wasn't spared. While locally flooding of the Lehigh and Delaware received the most attention, the Jordan and Little Lehigh Creeks also caused widespread damage. Shown above is Lehigh Street, in the vicinity of the Acorn Hotel, south of the Little Lehigh. The building on the far left would become the Sherman Hotel, which operated for about twenty years, from 1942 to 1961. None of the buildings pictured still stand.

The low lying areas between the Jordan Creek and Lehigh River were flooded.  Numerous people were rescued by rowboat from porch roofs. At that time there was still many houses on the lower section of Hamilton and nearby Streets.

photo courtesy of the Schoenk family.

2nd & Hamilton

Up to the mid 1960's,  before Allentown started tinkering with urban redevelopment, lower Hamilton Street still teemed with businesses. The City had grown from the river west,  and lower Hamilton Street was a vibrant area.  Two train stations and several rail lines crossed the busy thoroughfare.  Front, Ridge and Second were major streets in the first half of the twentieth century.  My grandparents settled on the 600 block of 2nd Street in 1895, along with other Jewish immigrants from Russia and Lithuania.  As a boy, I worked at my father's meat market on Union Street.  I would have lunch at a diner, just out of view in the photo above.  The diner was across from the A&P,  set back from the people shown on the corner.  A&P featured bags of ground to order 8 O'Clock coffee, the Starbucks of its day.
please click on photo
photocredit:Ed Miller, 1953
reprinted from previous years

The Wildlands Conservancy, A Dam Shame

When I was a boy my mother would contribute to Father Flanagan's Boy's Town. It was an orphanage made famous by a movie staring Spencer Tracy as Flanagan. Years later it was discovered that Boy's Town had literally hoarded away rooms of cash.  So has it always been with sacred cows, they're not what they always appear to be. However, they do provide an easy opportunity for people (and newspapers) to feel good about themselves. Here in Lehigh Valley we have such a sacred cow, The Wildlands Conservancy. This week they have been featured by both an article and editorial in the Morning Call.

They are headed by Chris Kocher, another Father Flanagan. Father Kocher wrote in 2015 that whatever South Whitehall decided to do with Wehr's Dam, that the Conservancy would respect the decision. In reality they have been conspiring behind the scenes, before and since, to have the dam demolished. 

Pennsylvania brags that this state has demolished more dams than any other in the country. Years ago a high ranking state official lost a family member by drowning at a dam. He went on a Moby Dick like rampage against dams. Locally, the Wildland Conservancy adopted the cause, and has profited from it. They get to keep an administrative fee (15%) of the demolition costs. In Allentown they demolished the 9inch high dam by the Robin Hood Bridge, and the dam built to feed the fish hatchery.

While the Wildlands has been successful in influencing Allentown Park policy, their greatest success has been in South Whitehall. In 2014 they installed a son of their financial director as head of parks in the township. They then formulated a master plan for the park system in which the dam is removed. A cooperating long term commissioner, Tori Morgan, has aided their domination of the township. Morgan is now again president of the commissioners, and the park director, Randy Cope, is now in charge of the entire Public Works Department, The Wildlands was recently commissioned to oversee a $multi-million dollar project, building a greenway near the jeopardized dam.

Although the residents approved a grassroots referendum in 2016 to preserve the dam, the Wildlands has conspired against the picturesque destination with studies sent to Harrisburg. They claim that the dam isn't the low hazard, concrete fortress that it appears to be. Meanwhile, also in conflict with the voter's intent, the township has not been defending the dam. Randy Cope remains elusive about the dam's fate.

I have met with nothing but resistance from the Morning Call in notifying the public about this conspiracy. Although I provided a copy of a letter proving ex parte communications between the Wildlands and the State, the paper refuses to publish my letter.

This week the paper published a feel good article about the Wildlands and Earthday. While they show children playing in the Little Lehigh, they fail to reveal that such events are paid for by Nestle Bottling, which sucks the Little Lehigh almost dry.

Sacred Cows and complacent newspapers go hand in hand in deluding the public.

photo by K Mary Hess

Geriatric Rants Hurt Allentown

The other day on facebook, I stumbled upon these kind words about me, You can never trust Molovinsky's geriatric incessant rants about the city. He hates the city.... The young man who wrote this is one of the city's new gung ho boosters. I find his animosity curious. I understand those who are enthralled with Allentown's transformation. These new buildings, if on Hamilton Street or the waterfront, are the city's new reality. Hopefully, they will prosper, and give Allentown a long overdue awakening. However, these changes were not without victims and consequences. These changes deserve some scrutiny, which was for the most part was not provided by the local press. I'm proud that this blog could shine a light on some of the shenanigans, even if it makes some people uncomfortable. With the local paper acting practically as a promoter, I would think that a little balance is in order. The young man must think that my negativity will stop the city's renaissance. I assure him that J.B. Reilly will continue building, as long as the NIZ keeps transferring the tax money to him. But, what happens with no scrutiny is that too many people are tempted to get a taste for themselves, sometimes even a mayor.  Allentown is actually in for some real hurt, much more severe than my ranting. The mayor refuses to resign, and the city charter provides no remedy until which time he is actually convicted.  When that pending calamity finally occurs, Allentown will be rudderless for an extended period.  Hopefully, I will not be blamed for that coming commotion.

above reprinted from March of 2016

UPDATE APRIL 22, 2020: Of course now in 2020, Mayor Pawlowski is old news.  I'm in my sixth year of defending Wehr's Dam.  Despite the voter's referendum in 2016 to save the dam, the Wildland Conservancy continues their plot to demolish it. While the Morning Call refuses to publish my expose about that conspiracy,  they continue to promote the Wildlands Conservancy.  Hopefully, my incessant rants will continue, because the backroom shenanigans against the citizenry certainly do.

photo of blogger at Wehr's Dam 2014

Morning Call's Tired Opinion Page

This past weekend Bill White wrote that readers should send him their tired and poorly written sentences for a bad writing contest. Bill claimed that he was only recycling an old column idea because the coronavirus forced him to stay in.  Actually, before the virus, Bill must have stayed in a lot anyway. Year after year, chocolate cake recipe after chocolate cake contest, he recycled old columns. Every year we read about his hall of shame and his Christmas light tour. Bill himself has been recycled by the Morning Call. Let go last year in another cutback at the Call, he's now back, two columns a month. But, as repetitive as he is, he is more original than the paper's normal go to people on the opinion page. 

The Call's tired roster includes Tony Iannelli on local business... Alan Jennings on fair housing... A Muhlenberg professor on politics.  It was because of this staleness that Richard Anderson's letter on St. Lukes, even though it condemned the paper, should have been published.

The Morning Call should welcome some beef. It's not like they're prospering with the old formula. They no longer own their own building. They no longer print the paper in Allentown.  Although they have a monopoly on a huge market,  they demonstrate no imagination.  They will take offense at this post,  rather than consider their own shortcomings.

Another Storm, Another Old Willow Lost

When Irene stormed through Cedar Park, she knocked down and broke a number of the old willow trees. The sight of these magnificent trees along the creek banks is the view-shed cherished by us proponents of the historical park system. As a boy in 1955, I remember the same damage in the aftermath of Hurricane Diane. Many of the remaining willows are now about 75 years old, and at the end of their life span. Although they held the creek banks together for three generations, they have lost favor to riparian buffers.

It's nice to sit by the bank under a willow tree and watch the ducks swim by. Hopefully, somewhere along the banks of the Little Lehigh and Cedar Creek, there is still some open space for a few new weeping willows.

above reprinted from 2011

UPDATE APRIL 20, 2020:  The last nine years haven't been any kinder to the old willows. The photo above is from the most recent storm.  Although I purchased a willow to be planted in Cedar Park a few years ago, they refused to plant it along the creek edge.  Seems as if that is not permitted by the Wildlands Conservancy, which instead demands riparian buffers.  I put more faith in General Trexler's landscape architect of 1928, who ordered willow trees planted every 25 feet along the creeks.  Their shallow roots spread out and held the banks together for four generations of Allentonians.  They allowed us to enjoy the creeks as envisioned by the General and city fathers of the time. Hopefully, someday, some mayor will again reclaim our park system for the citizens of Allentown.

Morning Call Taken To Task

While I'm still battling with the Morning Call about their not allowing my expose on the conspiracy against Wehr's Dam, I am now in good company criticizing their editorial policy.

Yesterday, Richard Anderson, CEO of St. Luke's Health Network, publicly revealed that the paper refuses to print his response piece to an article which appeared on March 29th. That article questioned how much financial help hospitals actually need as a consequence of the corona virus situation.

I have no expertise in the merits of either the paper's article, or Anderson's reply to it. What interests me is the audacity of the paper not printing his response.

Even after I documented my claim that the Wildlands Conservancy was communicating inappropriately with the state about the dam, the editor responded that it didn't prove anything. It did prove that he feels the purpose of the opinion page is to reflect his opinion, and not that of the public.

When the rejected editorial is from a local blogger, with a limited audience, the damage of that repression is limited. When a rejected editorial is from a respected CEO of one of the valley's largest and most important institutions, that editor will have to defend his decision.

Relics Of Our Past

One of the surviving relics of our industrial past is the right of way of former railroad spur lines. Allentown literally had hundreds of factories serviced by several spur routes and numerous rail sidings. The area between Second and Front Streets was crisscrossed with tracks.  Even the west end had service. A line ran behind the current site of B'nai B'rith Apartments, across 17 th St. and up along side of the dry-cleaners. The B'nai B'rith was the site of the former Trexler Lumber Yard, which burned to the ground in a spectacular fire in the mid 70's; The heat from the fire could be felt in West Park. The rails and ties are gone, long ago sold to scrap yards. In many cases the space occupied by the right of ways can still be seen to the knowing eye. They appear as alleys which were never paved. Here and there a surviving loading dock provides another clue. Show in this photo from 1939 are the Mack Truck factories on S. 10th Street, now part of the Bridgeworks Complex. Here the components for Mack Trucks were manufactured. The parts were then trucked to the Assembly Plant (5C) located on S. 12 Street, right off of Lehigh Street. "Built Like A Mack Truck" became a figure of speech across America. It was a prouder time than the lyrics from Billy Joe; little did we know that things could get worse.

reprinted from September of 2009

Allentown"s First Waterfront

Although cheerleaders for the current waterfront NIZ think that they're inventing the Lehigh River, Allentonians already had a river port in the 1800's. As this section of the 1899 map shows, Wharf Street, which is still partially there, led to a man made river port, with two channels back to the river. The Lehigh Port was dug out in 1829, and was used in conjunction with the canal on the other side of the river. In the early 20th century, as the canal commerce was replaced by the railroads,  the port was filled in,  by an expanding Arbogast & Bastian Meat Packing.  Currently, a private boat club utilizes the river front near that location.  I exhibited the map at a recent session held for those interested in Allentown history.

The river port was slightly north of the current America On Wheels Museum, by the Hamilton Street Bridge, going over the Lehigh River to East Allentown.

reprinted from April of 2016

A Changing Confluence

Future cartographers will locate the confluence of the Little Lehigh Creek and the Lehigh River as south, and slightly east of the current LCA sewage plant. Historians will know better. Up to forty years ago, nature joined the Little Lehigh with with western channel of the Lehigh, halfway down the side of Kline's Island. In the mid-1960's, the City of Allentown decided to reclaim the river channel north of the confluence, ending Kline's status as an island. What is now the last section of the Little Lehigh, was previously the Lehigh. The map shown was produced in 1900. Also gone from current geography is the man made harbors, shown north of the Hamilton Street bridge. The new google map shows that the

former bridge to Kline's Island still stands, crossing the now reclaimed former west channel of the Lehigh River. Also visible is the footprint of Allentown's former gas tank.




reprinted from June of 2013

UPDATE APRIL 14, 2020: I surmise that the change noted above was done to make the sewer plant less vulnerable to flooding, and the Lehigh less susceptible to contamination. Shown here is a portion of the city blueprint from May of 1964, clearly showing the abandoned western channel of the Lehigh. Note that the current last portion of the Little Lehigh was formally the bed of the Lehigh itself.

108-110 Union Street

When the illustrated map of Allentown shown above was marketed in 1879, 108-110 Union Street were already long standing twin houses. Behind the houses was the western channel of the Lehigh River, which went around Jeter's Island. Years later the island would be called Kline's, and become the city sewage plant. In the mid 1960's, that portion of the river would be filled in and no longer exists. While maps now indicate that the Little Lehigh joins the Lehigh at the southern end of the former island, previously it joined the channel on the western side of the island.

When the map was produced, 108 was owned by William Goetz, and 110 was owned by the Remaley family. Over the years the two sides appear to have been occupied by a number of families,  as both owners and tenants.

In 1921, both houses were purchased by H.H. Steinmetz, a former meat manager for Swift Packing. Steinmetz built a modern 10,000 ft. addition, opening his meat packing plant in 1922. Steinmetz Meat Packing supplied the chain of Economy corner markets with meat and provisions.

In 1941, the packing house was purchased by the Molovinsky family, and renamed Allentown Packing Company. While wholesale operations ceased in 1949, the business continued as a retail meat market until 1970. The plant was demolished several years later to provide parking for A&B Meats. The vacant parcel was then purchased by the neighboring commercial property.

Parkway Memories

We who lived in the Parkway during the 1950's have a special bond. We know we grew up in one of the most nurturing neighborhoods possible. Slow driving parents would keep a sharp eye out for dashing kids. The Halloween Parade would start and end at our own elementary School. The Easter Egg Hunt would take place on an open slope of our beloved park. 

reprinted from April 2010

When 6th Street Was West Allentown

In 1903, the 600 block of 2nd Street housed one Russian Jewish family after another. They built a small synagogue there, which was kept open until about twenty years ago. My grandfather, who then worked at a cigar factory, had just saved enough to bring his parents over from the old country. They lived in an old house at 617 N. 2nd. The current house at that location was built in 1920. By the time my father was born in 1917, the youngest of five children, they had moved to the suburbs just across the Jordan Creek.

My grandfather lived on the corner of Chew and Jordan Streets. He butchered in a barn behind the house. The house is still there, 301 Jordan, the barn is gone. He would deliver the meat with a horse and wagon. On the weekends, when the family wanted to visit friends, the horse insisted on doing the meat market route first. Only after he stopped in front of the last market on the route, would he permit my grandfather to direct him. excerpt from My grandfather's Horse, May 13, 2008

Allentown has just designated the neighborhood west of the Jordan to 7th Street, and between Linden and Tilghman Streets, as Jordan Heights. The area encompasses the Old Fairgrounds Historic District. Allentown's old fairground, in the years between 1852-1888, was in the vicinity of 6th and Liberty. It was an open space, as is the current fairground at 17th and Chew Streets. When my grandparents moved to Jordan Street it was a modern house, just built in 1895. Many of the Jewish families moved to the suburbs between Jordan and 7th. The Jewish Community Center was built on the corner of 6th and Chew, today known as Alliance Hall.
I wish the Jordan Heights initiative well. There's a lot of history in those 24 square blocks, and hopefully much future.

reprinted and retitled from previous years

photo: Opening of Jewish Community Center, 1928, 6th and Chew Streets.  Now Alliance Hall

Hurricane Diane, 1955

Hurricane Diane hit the Lehigh Valley in August of 1955. Living in Little Lehigh Manor, I remember huddling in the house, while the metal garbage cans of the era flew around the neighborhood. My father, whose meat market was on Union Street by the Lehigh River, worked throughout the night. Fortunately for him, his market had an second floor backup cooler, and a small freight elevator. While the retail business district on Hamilton Street is elevated enough to be unaffected from flooding, center city Easton was devastated by the Delaware. The next morning was rather surreal for a nine year old boy. A large willow tree on the corner of Lehigh Parkway South and Catalina Ave. was lying on it's side. Although the Little Lehigh receded quickly, the park road and basin had been flooded. Diane remains a record in flooding and damage. Let us hope it remains that way.

photo from August 1955. Lehigh River rising by former A&B Meats. The row of houses shown were demolished to make way for a new bridge approach several years later.

reprinted from previous years

All Aboard For Model Train History

Going into center city Allentown during the Christmas season was a thrill for boys of all ages during the late 1930's and early 40's. Going to see a large display of model trains, built to professional standards, was the icing on that cake. Once a holiday season, the Lehigh Model Railroad Society would publicly exhibit a large display of their handiwork.

While the society maintained a permanent resident on a 3th floor in the 100 block of 7th Street, the holiday shows occurred in various vacant 1st floor storerooms.

The photo shown above is courtesy of the Salomon family. Gerhard Salomon was a local historian of both trolley and train. I considered him a valuable resource when I began this blog, and would impose on his vast knowledge at his family's jewelry store.

Reflecting On Cameras and WW2

We are all being challenged by the "Stay At Home" order, and the stress from the reason for it.

Over forty years ago, for a short period, I operated a photographic darkroom in center city. During that period I purchased a box of camera accessories from a then-old camera dealer. These objects are what is referred to as new old stock. Among the items in their original small boxes is a lens hood, from the Reich-Hela Corporation. For what camera was this shade produced?

You won't find much about the Reich-Hela Corporation on google. However, I did discover that they applied for a trademark, Reflecta, for a camera in 1937. It turns out that this camera, with the same logo, named Reflecta, had already been produced for years in Germany, by Richter Company. While that camera manufacturer went through a couple of ownerships, and was even distributed by Sears and Roebuck under a different name, there exists no other mention of the Reich-Hela Corporation, except for one... In 1944 they are listed as a contractor and producer of technical journals for the United States Department of Defense.

I don't know how you spent Sunday, but this was one day in the life of a shut-in blogger/photographer.

Constitution Drive

As an advocate and student of the WPA, I'm often asked about the stone walls on Constitution Drive. None of the walls there invokes as much curiosity as the one I'm shown photographing. Locals refer to this structure as The Spring. Notice that there is a small short wall in front. This stone barrier protects vehicles from driving into the pit, designed to drain water through a pipe under the gravel roadway. Culverts and other practical structures were common WPA projects. Constitution Drive has several WPA culverts, but none of the other retaining walls are as elaborate as the spring structure seen in the photograph above. Although Lehigh County designated funds several years ago to repair this wall, the work was never done. Such neglect is also the case in Allentown. The top wall of the double stairwell descending into Union Terrace is in dire jeopardy. This blog will soon once again document the condition of that structure. While our history and legacy crumble, this community and its leadership is preoccupied with the arena and Philadelphia cheesesteaks.

UPDATE: Since I published the above in November of 2014, I successfully advocated to have the top wall of the Union Terrace Stairway repointed. However, the landings on that structure and the landings on the Lehigh Parkway Staircase desperately need work.  The  two cheesesteak establishments have come and gone in the same spot on Hamilton Street... One was a famous Philadelphia operator, the other a local vendor. The opening ribbons were both cut by a mayor who also has come and gone.

photograph by K Mary Hess, 2014  

The Aineyville Viaduct

The other day I referred to myself as a local historian. I earned that self appointed degree by a long standing interest in local history.  Another interest, photography, enabled me to record some things that are no longer here to see. My degree is not unique. As I mentioned several times before, the local rail buffs are the real local historians. Their knowledge of our former industrial base is unsurpassed. Shown above is the Aineyville Viaduct (Bridge), which allowed  Lehigh Valley Transit's Liberty Bell trolley to cross over Trout Creek,  on the way to Philadelphia. Shown in the background is the Good Shepherd Home.  The bridge was in line with St. John Street.   Aineyville refers to the area south of Trout Creek, now referred to as South Allentown,  in the area of S. 4th  and Basin Streets.  The photo dates from 1948, photographer unknown.  The viaduct was dismantled in 1953.

reprinted from August of 2013

Nagy Novelty Company

In Downtown Allentown's commercial years, stores extended 3 blocks out from Hamilton Street. The only remaining remnant of that era is the parking meters, which apparently haven't noticed that the stores have been gone now for over 30 years. A magic shop mentioned in the previous post was on 9th Street, between Linden and Turner. On 8th Street, also a couple blocks off Hamilton, was the Nagy Novelty Company. The dictionary defines novelty as a small, often cheap, cleverly made article, usually for amusement. The Nagy's had thousands of them, floor to ceiling. There were little jokes and gags, sometimes risque, passed around parties in the 40's and 50's. When you pulled " Miss Lola, The Snappy Bubble Dancer" leg's out, your finger got snapped. The Nagy's, an ancient father, son and dog, stayed open till around 1980. I was never sure which one was the son. To me, as an aficionado of the old and curious, the store was a shrine. Items which they sold for a few cents, now sell on ebay for many dollars. They manufactured their own greeting cards. Shown here is the front and inside of an embossed card probably dating back to the 1920's.

reprinted from December of 2008

Trolley To Dorney Park

When the Allentown-Kutztown Traction (Trolley) Company purchased Dorney Park in 1901, trolley companies were buying or building amusement parks all across the country. Perhaps the most famous was Coney Island. Usually located between two cities serviced by the company, it was a plan to increase weekend rider-ship. Passengers could spend a day at the park, swimming, picnicking, and partaking of the rides and amusements. Through merger, the trolley would become the Allentown-Reading Traction Company, whose line began just south of Hamilton, on 7th Street. The line went west on Walnut Street, and then followed the Cedar Creek to the park. The roller coaster was built over the tracks in 1923, the year that the Allentown-Reading sold the park to the Plarr family.  Trolley service would continue to 1934.

Jim Layland contributed to this post.

reprinted from 2013

The Magic Of Allentown

We who grew up in Allentown during the 50's know that Hess's was a magical place, but did you know that Hess's actually sold magic. The advertisement shown above is from 1941.

By 1915, Allentown sported the Willard Magic Shop on Allen Street. In the 1940's Allentown's own Houdini, Harry Beehrle, started his shop on Hamilton near 4th. Later, after a wave of urban renewal, he would move to 9th and Linden Streets.

I remember Arthur Neimeyer's Fun shop on 9th Street. It was on the corner, below ground level. As I got older, into jr. high school, I rarely went to Neimeyer's, because he really didn't carry club or stage props, no apparatus actually, just the little S.S. Adams & the Robbins' E-Z Magic line, of basically packet magic and/or gag items. So, for magic, there was only one shop at that time (the 1950's) and that was Harry Beehrle's Magic shop, downtown on Hamilton, just up from the train station....... Harry was a gruff curmudgeon type, not kid friendly at all. In his youth he had been an escape artist, Allentown's "Houdini" and there were photos in the shop of him as a young man hanging upside down doing the straitjacket escape, etc., etc. That was where I purchased all my U.F. Grant magic and such. By the time I was in high school, Harry was either ill or had died, ........ I can't remember which, and his daughter was running the shop. notes from a former Allentonian and magician.

In the mid 80's Jim Karol sold magic from his home on Front Street. Years later, Ed White would continue the tradition from his home shop.

A Tailor From North Street

The Allentown Housing and Development Corp. recently purchased a home at 421 North St. That block of North Street was destroyed by fire, and the agency has built a block of new houses on the street's south side; it will next develop the other side of the street. The deed transfer caught my attention because Morris Wolf lived in the house in 1903. Wolf signed up with the Pennsylvania Volunteer Cavalry on July 18, 1861, in Philadelphia, when he was 22 years old. He was a private in Company A, of the 3rd Cavalry. This unit was also known as the 60th Regiment and was later called Young's Kentucky Light Cavalry.It defended Washington, D.C., until March 1862, then participated in many of the war's most famous battles: Williamsburg, Antietam, Fredericksburg and Gettysburg. Wolf had signed up for three years and was mustered out Aug. 24,1864.

Recently, to commemorate Memorial Day, the local veterans group placed more than 500 flags at Fairview Cemetery. If that wasn't enough of a good deed, the group also set upright more than 300 toppled grave markers. Visiting Fairview recently, I saw they had not overlooked the graves of either Mr. Wolf, or another veteran, Joseph Levine. I have concerned myself with Allentown's Fairview Cemetery for the last few years. I first became interested in the small Jewish section, called Mt. Sinai. This was the first organized Jewish cemetery in Allentown. Currently, all the synagogues have their own cemeteries, and Mt. Sinai has been mostly unused for many decades.

Mr. Wolf lies next to his wife, Julia, who died in 1907. Morris would live on for 30 more years, passing away in 1937, at age 98.
Mr. Levine, a World War II veteran, and his wife, Ethel, were the first and last people to be buried there after almost 25 years of inactivity. When Ethel died at age 93 in 2000, it was the first burial at Mt. Sinai since 1976. Joseph was 103 years old when he passed away in 2006.

The Housing and Development Corp. and North Street are now part of Allentown's new neighborhood initiative called Jordan Heights.Although soon there will be a new house at 421 North St., there is a history that will remain with the parcel. Once a tailor lived there who fought in the Battle of Gettysburg.

reprinted from 2010

Allentown Archeology

When it comes to the history of industrial Allentown, the railroad buffs are among the current experts. Our heavy manufacturing base moved it's materials on the tracks of several railroads. The Front Street area was crisscrossed with tracks and sidings. The West End Branch ran along Sumner Avenue, crossed Tilghman Street, looped around 17th Street and ended near 12th and Liberty. The Barber Quarry Branch ran along the Little Lehigh until it then followed Cedar Creek. It crossed Hamilton Street near the current Hamilton Family Restaurant and ended at what is now the Park Department Building. The rail buffs are current day archeologists, looking for remnants of those glory days. Shown above is a portion of the Barber Quarry pier and track. This is at the bottom of Lehigh Street hill, near the former bank call center, near the former Acorn Hotel, in a former city still called Allentown.
photo courtesy of Mike Huber, Coplay
related posts
The Train of Lehigh
Parkway
The World of Mirth
Lehigh Valley Railroad Piers
Depot at Overlook Park

reprinted from April 2013

ADDENDUM: This remnant of the previous railroad bridge is part of the Wire Mill Bridge over the Little Lehigh, which will soon be closed for repairs.

reprinted from previous years

The Spandex Yuppie Dilemma

The spandex yuppies, who have been championing for decades for Rails to Trails, have created a dilemma for themselves. This is the same constituency who would like to see rail service reestablished between Lehigh Valley and NYC. Norfolk Southern, the current rail freight operator, has informed those yuppies that there is essentially only one track left, and that they need it exclusively for the freight service.

molovinsky on allentown is a teacher and student of our past rail history. I have documented all the major rail and spur routes that intersected Allentown. Recently, I protested against the riverfront NIZ removing the last remnant of the Lehigh Valley Rail Road Old Main Line from along the Lehigh River.

$Millions have been wasted on both removing tracks for the spandex crowd, and planning to restore rail service on tracks that no longer exist.   Even as I write this, the Allentown Economic Development Corporation has a plan to restore a freight track back to its building on S. 10th Street, although a tenant who could possibly utilize such service hasn't existed for 50 years.  Spare us the expense of bureaucrats who want to fund solutions to problems that they helped create.

Shown above, a Lehigh Valley RailRoad freight train heads north on it's Old Main Track.  That track has recently been removed to make more Rail to Trail.

reprinted from September of 2016

The Bicycles Of Allentown

I thought that in these tense times some levity might be in order

produced by Gary Ledebur, Netherfield Studios, Philadelphia
contains adult content

reproduced from March 15, 2010

Ban The Bikes

In 2007, mayor Pawlowski hired his first director for the combined park and recreation department. The hire was recommended by Pawlowski's  city manager, Fran Dougherty. The new park and recreation director had no background about parks per se, but did have a masters in recreation. Dougherty would also hire the next two directors, who had the same identical background in recreation.

Cycling became their common goal for the parks, and in 2009, a consultant was hired to formulate a plan for an interconnected cycling path throughout the city park system. Two new parcels were later purchased to facilitate the connection between existing parks. Advise about managing the park land itself was farmed out to the Wildlands Conservancy, and we ended up with the weed walls they call riparian buffers. Iconic park features, such as the WPA structures, were allowed to deteriorate.

During these years there was only one person speaking out in defense of our traditional park system, yours truly, on this blog. It is a battle I have mostly lost. I failed to save the small picturesque dams in Lehigh Parkway. During the summer the buffers still block both view and access to the creeks.  Ironically, the buffers have no actual benefit, because the storm water is piped under them, directly into the streams.

During this coronavirus crisis the parks are especially crowded with families and their young children. A cyclist whizzing by at 30 miles an hour is a tragedy waiting to happen. The other morning a cyclist passed me looking down reading his iPhone.

I call upon Mayor O'Connell and park director Karen El-Chaar to ban cycling in the parks during this period of heavy use.

photo above:  In 2009 I conducted a press conference about the dangers of combining cyclists with people walking in Allentown parks.

The Allentown Parking Authority Monster

Although the shopping district in Allentown has shrunk down to only Hamilton and 7th Streets, the meter district remains as it did during the heydays of the 1950's. The meters extend from Walnut to Chew, from 5th to 10th, well over 1000 meters in 20 sq. blocks. Parking meters extend out to 10th and Chew Sts, three full blocks beyond the closest store.* These meters are a defacto penalty for the residents, mostly tenants. In essence, it is a back door tax on Allentown's poorest citizens. The apologists claim the tenants can purchase a resident meter pass, however their friends and visitors cannot. To add insult to injury, in 2005, to help finance a new parking deck for the arts district, the Parking Authority doubled the meter rate and fines. Testimony to City Council permitting the rate increase indicated it was favored by the merchants. At that time I documented to the Council that in fact the merchants were not informed, much less in favor. The vote was 5 to 2, with Hershman and Hoover dissenting
* I used the above copy on my posting of October 3, 2007. In the past several weeks the Parking Authority finally removed the meters in the 900 block of Chew St, 50 years beyond their legitimate need.

UPDATE: The post above is reprinted from September 2009. I have published dozens of posts on the Parking Authority. In 2005, I conducted two press conferences on their abuses; One conference was at 10th and Chew Streets, and concerned the oversized meter zone. The second conference, directly in front of their office, concerned the fabricated merchant survey that they  presented to City Council. Old tricks die hard. Forward ahead to 2015, and the Parking Authority will once again penalize both existing merchants and residents.  The new plan is to double the meter parking rate from $1 an hour, to $2, and extend the metering time to 10:00pm.  They claim that the merchants are in favor of this plan. Although I will not conduct my own survey, as I did 2005,  their survey defies logic.  Why would any of the few surviving merchants want their customers submitted to a destination city parking rates in Allentown? Despite the hype,  Allentown is not Miami Beach or N.Y.C.. In reality, just as the taxpayers are subsidizing the arena zone,  now the merchants and residents will be subsidizing the arena plan through punitive parking rates.

UPDATE Memorial Day Weekend 2015: I did end up asking several merchants, and no, they were not surveyed. Eight years from the original date of this post, and the Authority is still up to the same shenanigans.   Reilly's City Center tenants, merchants and customers will get a free pass for the Authority's inconvenient parking lots. Other existing tenants in the NIZ, such as the south side of the 900 block of Walnut Street, will not be eligible for residential parking permits.  If you have a problem with any of this, remember, you must now put money in the meter at night, before  complaining to City Council.

UPDATE MARCH 20, 2020:  As of noon yesterday, the Parking Authority suspended tickets in the residential permit zones.  However, normal parking meter tickets will continue.  This would have of course punish merchants still open for business during this virus crisis. However, while there are virtually no merchants left on Hamilton Street since the NIZ revitalization, the punishment would have mostly affect the minority merchants on 7th Street....or in other words, life as usual in Allentown. Governor Wolf has declared that all non-essential businesses must close. Will the monster also now stand down?

Morning Call Doubles Subscription Rate

Digital subscriptions to the Morning Call are increasing from $15.96 to $27.72 per month. This is at the same time when some other home internet services are being lowered, to help the self isolated cope during  the Coronavirus crisis. This is at the same time that the Morning Call has cut back on staff and news coverage.

I've been a subscriber for 50 years. I only stopped the hard copy version a few years ago, because their delivery became both unreliable and too late in the morning for my preferences.

Readers of this blog know that I have issues with the paper, mostly with their reluctance to confront local sacred cows about hypocrisy. Although I have documented ex parte communications between the state and the Wildlands Conservancy about Wehr's Dam, the Morning Call refuses to allow me Another View piece on the topic. However, last month they did promise to investigate the situation themselves.

I will continue my subscription regardless of the price, but I'm not sure how many other readers will do likewise.

Crimes By The Wildland Conservancy

photo by Tami Quigley

The top photo shows the Robin Hood Bridge, before the Wildlands Conservancy demolished the little Robin Hood Dam, just downstream beyond the bridge. The dam was only about 10 inches high, and was built as a visual effect to accompany the bridge in 1941. It was the last WPA project in Allentown, and considered the final touch for Lehigh Parkway. Several years ago, the Wildlands told the Allentown Park Director and City Council that it wanted to demolish the dam. The only thing that stood between their bulldozer and the dam was yours truly. I managed to hold up the demolition for a couple weeks, during which time I tried to educate city council about the park, but to no avail. If demolishing the dam wasn't bad enough, The Wildlands Conservancy piled the broken dam rubble around the stone bridge piers, as seen in the bottom photo. I'm sad to report that the situation is now even worse. All that rubble collected silt, and now weeds and brush is growing around the stone bridge piers. I suppose the Wildlands Conservancy considers it an extension of its riparian buffers.

The Wildlands Conservancy is now going to demolish Wehr's Dam at Covered Bridge Park in South Whitehall. The township commissioners are cooperating, by having a grossly inflated price associated with repairing the dam, to justify a disingenuous referendum. Sadly, by next spring I will be showing you before and after pictures of that crime.

top photo by Tami Quigley

above reprinted from August 2016

UPDATE: To everyone's surprise, especially the Wildlands Conservancy and the South Whitehall Commissioners, the referendum to save the dam was approved by the voters in November of 2016. The Wildlands Conservancy and the South Whitehall Commissioners are now conspiring to have the dam demolished anyway, by exaggerating its problems with the Pa. DEP...I have documented the communication between the Wildlands, State and township,  As for Lehigh Parkway, the Wildlands Conservancy should be made to remove the former dam rubble that is despoiling the vista of the Robin Hood Bridge piers.  I have been trying to interest the Morning Call about the voter suppression in regard to the Wehr's Dam referendum.  In today's paper there is an article about the danger high hazard rated dams pose to residents downstream.  I hope the paper's article today is a coincidence, and not intended to serve the Wildlands conspiracy about Wehr's Dam.  BTW,  Wehr's Dam is rated low hazard, because it poses no danger to residents.

reprinted from November of 2019 and before

The Morning Call Inadvertently Enables Deception

The Morning Call continues to inadvertently  support deception by one of its favorite sacred cows, The Wildlands Conservancy.   Last year I provided documentation to the paper demonstrating that the Wildlands was working with South Whitehall Township to ignore the voters referendum saving Wehr's Dam.  The paper continues to ignore this violation of the voter's trust,  and refuses to print my op-ed on the topic.  Yesterday,  the paper had a story about road salt getting into our waterways,  and  once again presents the Wildland Conservancy as the local authority on the problem, and the corresponding solutions to it.  The Wildlands recommends riparian buffers to help filter the salt from the streams.  What the Wildlands fails to divulge is that they get grants to design buffers in the parks, but that the storm sewer systems are piped directly into the streams,  bypassing the buffers.  This is the sort of  omission  and deception regularly used by the Wildlands to justify the grants that they use for these projects.  They are allowed to use a percentage of the grants for administrative purposes,  providing a revenue stream for their salaries.

The consequences of their distortions have been substantial.  Lehigh Parkway lost its beautiful decorative Robin Hood Dam, which was the last WPA construction in the park.  The removal of the Fish Hatchery Dam resulted in a massive trout kill during the next major storm.  They continuously cite current generalized environmental trends, but ignore the specifics related to a particular site.

In fairness to The Morning Call, circumstances help the Wildlands  pass off these deceptions. For instance, the Wehr's Dam controversy which stretched out for two years, was covered by five different string reporters.  There is no regular reporter assigned to the South Whitehall Township meetings. Allentown has City Council members, a park director, and a mayor who are not native Allentonians,  nor are they very familiar with the park system.  Never the less, the paper should be committed to protecting our icons,  before promoting any organization's agenda ahead of our history.
photo of former Robin Hood Dam, demolished by The Wildlands Conservancy
POST ABOVE REPRINTED FROM JANUARY OF 2018

ADDENDUM MARCH 17, 2020:  A month has passed since I was told by another publisher of The Morning Call that he would look into my documented allegation that the Wildlands Conservancy was actively conspiring to subvert the Wehr's Dam Referendum, and demolish the dam.  The miniature Robin Hood Dam pictured above was demolished by the Wildlands Conservancy, its rubble piled around the stone bridge piers,  which degraded the esthetics of the bridge.  Before, during and after, the Morning Call never wrote a word on that destruction....They remain missing in action once again, as another historic icon of the valley is threatened.

Walking Dead Journal

In a recent post I used the word retiring in the title. I have an unwanted update for the local paper and politicians... I'm not literally retiring from this blog. I used the phrase to emphasize a shift in blog content... The blog recently has contained less politics, and more local history.

There are less political posts because I attend far fewer meetings than in the past, and frankly I'm exasperated by the ones that I do attend. For instance, it is outrageous for Allentown to have created the Noise Exemption Zone, so that the Maingate Nightclub can avoid normal Liquor Control Board guidelines. The city should not be sacrificing the tranquility of a neighborhood to help out one business owner who is friendly with some members of the administration... That is cronyism straight from the Pawlowski era.

I have been republishing historical posts because I started a facebook group concentrating on local history. My posts are different than most historical posts...I do not reference Wikipedia, but rather my own personal memories.

The title for this entry refers to the current atmosphere about the coronavirus. I've been getting ridiculous notices about policy changes from companies that I would never have any physical contact with, such as the server for a domain name I own. While molovinsky on allentown has no new policy for the virus crisis, I always recommend drinking alcohol when reading these posts.

Allentown And Litter

When I grew up in Allentown and graduated from Allen in the mid 1960's, the sidewalks were clean. Now, I don't mean just free from litter, but they were actually clean. Women in babushkas would come out of their houses with buckets of water, and wash off their stoops and sidewalks.

On Monday mornings, from the amount of litter downtown, you would think that there was a parade over the weekend. Years ago a bureaucrat said, "You see litter on the street, but you don't often see people littering." Actually, you can see them littering...Park near any center city market, and watch the wrappers drop like leaves off a tree in the fall.

 The Parking Authority could issue tickets for littering, but of course it's much easier to sneak away after ticketing a car, than confront a person directly.

Years ago there were not so many barbershops downtown, and the streets were clean. Now there are endless barbershops, but the streets are filthy.  People seem much more concerned about their appearance, than that of the city.

When I write posts such as this, people get very offended, and accuse me of being culturally insensitive. I could care less, but wish that they would pick up after themselves more.

photocredit: old stock photo from Baltimore Sun, not Allentown.

Boxing Tournament Sets Low Bar For Students

The  Executive Education Academy Charter School is hosting a boxing fund raiser next month... It's tone deaf on every front....

The first version of the promotion said come watch your favorite celebrity get punched in the face.  I'm actually a boxing fan, and I certainly don't think that boxers are any less intelligent or accomplished than anybody else. But, never the less, I hope that our school taxes, being diverted to charter schools, find more academic goal models for their students.  Furthermore, schools should not be staging any public event during the virus crisis.  I suppose they don't think that any of their students  aspire to a career in public health or medicine.

Because many local celebrities are involved in this promotion,  this post, like many other of my posts over the years, will offend more than a few people.  As usual, I could care less. I was offended last week when three young men shot a fourth in the head, to steal his gun. I'm offended by how low the community allows the bar to be set for our students.

Empty Nesters Flocking To 7th and LInden

According to Matt Assad of The Morning Call,  millennials and empty nesters are flocking to Strata Flats to rent the apartments.  I suppose that they like the ambience of the 7-11, which is catty corner from the apartments.  Demand is so great that Reilly will build additional apartments across from Symphony Hall, which is next to the Hook Restaurant, formerly the Cosmopolitan, once the project gets through city planning.  Sure hope the city planners go along with Reilly, I know that they're tough on him.  Wonder if they will allow him to use wood frame like he did on the first building?  You will also be surprised to know that Alvin Butz's new NIZ Phase 3 passed city approval.

This is the second infomercial that Assad has written for Reilly, promoting his apartments.  It's apparent to me that Reilly has found a way to harvest NIZ money from residential tenants. If he isn't somehow tapping their  state income tax,  I would then be suspicious of  the prorations between the residential and commercial portions of the buildings;  Understand that nobody checks the NIZ figures, nobody produces or checks financials, and nobody cares.  All is fair in love and the NIZ.

shown above Plywood Plaza, aka Strata Flats 

above reprinted from November of 2015

ADDENDUM MARCH 11, 2020: The reporter mentioned above has moved on to officially writing press releases for a local commercial development agency. Reilly continues to use wood and plywood framing on his new Walnut Street apartments. Community activists need not worry about inclusionary zoning. Reilly will have to rent the Walnut Street units to the dominant intercity rental market, no millennials will live there.

Flash From Past

Occasionally, some of the older boys in Lehigh Parkway would get saddled with taking me along to a Saturday matinee in downtown Allentown. We would get the trolley, in later years a bus, from in front of the basement church on Jefferson Street. It would take that congregation many years to afford completing the church building there today. The trolley or bus would go across the 8th Street Bridge, which was built to accommodate the trolleys operated by Lehigh Valley Transit Company. Downtown then sported no less than five movie theaters at any one time. Particularly matinee friendly was the Midway, in the 600 Block of Hamilton. Three cartoons and episode or two of Flash Gordon entertained our entourage, which ranged in age from five to eleven years old. We younger kids, although delighted by the likes of Bugs Bunny, were confused how the Clay People would emerge from the walls in the caves on Mars to capture Captain Gordon, but our chaperones couldn't wait till the next week to learn Flash's fate. Next on the itinerary was usually a banana split at Woolworth's. Hamilton Street had three 5 and 10's, with a million things for boys to marvel at. The price of the sundae was a game of chance, with the customer picking a balloon. Inside the balloon was your price, anywhere from a penny to the full price of fifty cents. The store had a full selection of Allentown souvenirs. Pictures of West Park on a plate, the Center Square Monument on a glass, pennants to hang on your wall, and picture postcards of all the attractions. Hamilton Street was mobbed, and even the side streets were crowded with busy stores. Taking younger kids along was a responsibility for the older brothers, the streets and stores were crowded, but predators were limited to the Clay People on the silver screen.

reprinted from previous years