At the height of the controversy in 2009 over “improvements” that were planned at Cedar Creek (Beach) Parkway, a frequent complaint in my comment feeds (usually after an insult or a challenge to a fight), was that the City planned on razing The Rose Gardens with bulldozers and paving over everything. Well, almost three years later, it hasn’t happened. Yes, they put in the stone path, cut out some trees and changed the aesthetic of the place but it is by no means destroyed. As a matter of fact, the new trellises are nice and so are the new benches.
The rest of the area surrounding The Rose Gardens and especially the regions nearest to the creek, those conditions –well, No Surprises there. The issues I brought to light three years ago remain and little if any improvement has been made. This is, as I mentioned yesterday, due to a public demand for the way folks here in Allentown think a park should be. The ecologic consequences of our park management strategy here in the City are not now and have never been a concern of the individuals who so desperately seek to keep the Parks the golf course analogs they have been since their inception.
What I mean is, Why is there an area of mowed grass separating the tiny grow zone from the walking/running/biking path? You can see clearly that this is a very wet area and as such has absolutely no valid reason to be shorn on a regular basis. You can see divots from machinery and patches of grass so frequently inundated that they are permanent mud patches! This isn’t some radical reforestation I am talking about here folks. Let Nature have it. The cost of the maintenance coupled with the ecologic destruction are not worth this area being mowed! ( Let me state clearly – this situation is on us, not the City. The City is maintaining the Parks the way Allentonians demand for them to be managed) 
Behind the silly grass strip, are the infamous mirror ponds. Yep, there they are. With how many resources the City has to pour into these things to keep algal blooms minimized, it really makes me wonder why they are still there. O yeah, a lot of people would go Bill O’Reilly berserk if they were removed. Given the massive suburban expansion over the last fifty years and the major increase in polluted runoff ending up in these ponds, they are simply no longer tenable. It’s my guess that they will always be there though, with problems just getting worse in years to come. 
O and here is another grassy strip that should not exist:
With frustration and disappointment building to a fever pitch… LOOK A DUCK!
Yeah, Cedar Creek Parkway is mostly an ecologic mess. Let me be clear, this is not some radical environmental mission to turn the urban park into some magical forest that may or may not contain fairies and sprites. The call for riparian restoration is to protect a source of drinking water for the City of Allentown and to dramatically lower maintenance costs in the future. Wildlife habitat creation and a more natural appearance are bonuses.
You have got to admit though, when you leave a park that is 100% contained in a floodplain of a creek that floods after 30 minutes of drizzle, and you see neighboring gardens with better vegetation, that there is a problem in the park.
Down where the creek banks have been left to grow, there is less stream bank erosion and gabion projects from previous attempts at bank stabilization have actually worked. There is even a sign that the Allentown EAC has placed down there to explain the purpose of the Grow Zone. Yeah, there are a lot of invasive species in there but this Grow Zone remains a rare bright spot in an otherwise ecologically dark park. 
This isn’t 2009. I am not going to preach anymore about the subject of Cedar Creek Parkway on Remember. The situation is what it is and until the populace comes around, learns about what is going on, and demands the needed changes; nothing is going to change. I am working on some education events regarding these matters in the coming months and I will be sure to share them on here.
For now and likely for the future, there are no surprises at Cedar Creek Parkway. I’ll be popping down to Muhlenberg Lake in a bit but for now and for the purposes of my Park Logs 2012, I am finished with Cedar Creek Parkway.
Otherwise, I’ll go nuts and well, LOOK! THE SKY! 
No surprises.
#1 by michael molovinsky on February 1, 2012 - 7:07 am
andrew, in all the heat of 2009, nobody ever said that they would pave over the rose gardens. of relevance, they did pave all the paths, and even add unnecessary additional paved paths. sorry, but your title is a conciliatory political statement, unbecoming to an objective blog on the park and it’s ecology.
#2 by Michael Weiss on February 1, 2012 - 7:53 am
Andrew,
Might I suggest talking to the Rosegarden Neighborhood Association at one of their monthly meetings? That group has a lot of clout with the city in our neighborhood, esp when it comes to that park (although the pipeline couldn’t be stopped).
#3 by Andrew Kleiner on February 1, 2012 - 10:28 am
Hello Sir! I have actually worked with them before, and they are a great organization. Those folks tried (when all this construction happened in 2009) to see some of the thing I mentioned in the post come to fruition.
It may be worth trying again.
Thanks for the idea!
#4 by Capri on February 1, 2012 - 8:58 am
Andrew, for what its worth – I not only learned a lot about Riparian buffers from your blog, but it prompted me to find out even more about them on my own.
I know it takes more than a few “changed minds” to get the kind of sea change that Allentown needs to start prioritizing ecologically-sound care of the parks, but you changed my mind, and I’m sure some others too.
Also Michael Molovinsky – you personally may not have been saying the Rose Gardens were being bulldozed, but other people certainly did. They also literally thought that the “mega playground” was going to be an Allentown-Fair sized amusement park with roller coasters and all.
I don’t see Andrew’s post as being conciliatory or unbecoming of his blog – merely an acknowledgement that though the public got outraged over rumors of destruction that truthfully wasn’t even on the agenda, there has been a deafening silence on ecological restoration of the park.
#5 by Andrew Kleiner on February 1, 2012 - 10:25 am
Thanks Capri.
#6 by Andrew Kleiner on February 1, 2012 - 10:42 am
Also, I was really glad for this comment as you got entirely what I was trying to say here!
#7 by michael molovinsky on February 1, 2012 - 10:22 am
capri, i’m fully aware of of what was said and written, everywhere, during 2009. it was never said that the rose gardens would be paved, or that the playground would be bigger than it is. by saying such fabricated predictions never came to pass, it justifies the additional paved paths added and other degradations to the ecology. i’m disappointed that andrew would resort to such tactics. there are far too many compromises in this city already. during that time you were employed by the city affiliated friends of the parks, literally working in the park department building; hardly an objective broker for this discussion, then or now.
#8 by Andrew Kleiner on February 1, 2012 - 10:34 am
MM,
The title of the post is intended to be humorous, as in – well nothing has changed but hey! they didn’t pave the Rose Gardens.
The comments I am referring to were left on my blog by various anons and by Rolf. The anons were probably Rolf as well. He is the guy who challenged me to tackle football games and the like. Those posts I made in 2009 were always responded to in vitriolic and nasty ways.
My title, my work and my continued efforts here in the City of Allentown does not now and never will justify any deliberate effort to undermine ecologic stability in the Park system. A funny blog title doesn’t either.
I haven’t done a Park Log post on Cedar Creek in 2 years and it only took 2 to bring all the fun back in the comments thread.
#9 by Andrew Kleiner on February 1, 2012 - 10:35 am
Seriously MM, how many “bring on the bulldozers” comments did Rolf and friends leave on your blog? I sure had a lot.
#10 by michael molovinsky on February 1, 2012 - 10:46 am
andrew, i see your point, and hope you see mine. that said, i invite you and your readers to the lower level of the allentown public library, this coming tuesday, where a group will continue to support the WPA structures throughout the park system. btw, friends of the parks is participating in this effort. the meeting is at 7:00pm.