Posts Tagged Fountain Park
Deep Freeze: Summer – Video Post
Posted by Andrew Kleiner in Read this on January 31, 2010
In the midst of an arctic blast, the following video is to serve as a reminder of warmer times. Check it out.
Winter Sunset on Trout Creek Parkway
Posted by Andrew Kleiner in Uncategorized on January 15, 2010
I left South Mountain just as the sun was setting. I headed back towards my end of Allentown by way of Mack Boulevard, intending to take a look at Trout Creek Parkway as I passed. Upon arrival, the park was bathed in a winter sunset that had me out the door of my car, camera in hand, hopping around like Peter Rabbit. 
I had caught the park at a perfect moment. Light had not yet disappeared into the shadow of evening but had sunk low enough, and been broken by clouds enough to give the park an entirely new appearance. 
Trout Creek Parkway never looked so good.
Each time I thought I had taken enough pictures my eye would catch a sight entirely new to my observations and I was compelled to keep looking.
The bright trees and white snow seemed to magnify the great silence of winter. Every footstep I took sounded as if my feet were boulders, crashing. 
In my hurry, I could barely feel the deep cold that has defined the majority of our early winter. 
As I left the park, I drove towards Allentown constantly distracted by the colored explosion of the sky. Under the Eighth Street Bridge, Fountain Park had undergone the same transformation as Trout Creek Parkway. These places were as new to me as they were following our snowfalls. Our parks in winter are true creations of light and shadow. 
With the sun rapidly disappearing below the horizon I was disappointed to not have the time to see the new Parkway or Cedar Beach. Heading home, I was comforted by the notion that there were many more sunsets to come before the haze of summer steals their vibrancy again. 
Solstice: Second Snowfall (A new look)
Posted by Andrew Kleiner in Uncategorized on December 21, 2009
Winter is arriving on a self made white carpet today, the solstice is upon us. Today is the darkest day of the calendar year; with the sun keeping nearest to the horizon throughout the day. Naturally, it is also the day that signals the end of the growing darkness of winter and the beginning of the slow expansion of daylight that culminates in mid June with the longest day of the year.
Yesterday morning there was no want of light anywhere I stepped across the city of Allentown. Although we were spared the horrendous two feet our southern neighbors were buried under, a six inch snowfall is no slouch. Happily, the sun had managed to poke its energetic self from the clouds early Sunday morning to help clear the roads otherwise I surely would not have found myself stomping around the snowfields of parks that had been left by the nor’easter.
The psychology of snow is well documented whenever a flake is seen or a weatherman announces the possibility of an impending storm. People react to a coming snowfall, regardless of predictions, as if a hurricane was making landfall on the Lehigh. In the wake of the storm, we are left buried to whatever measured degree, we are left “in”, and we fall under a white sameness with silence as its greatest manifestation.
At Muhlenberg Lake, the snow appeared for the most part untouched, save the tracks of skiers and occasional footprints. The cold blue of the sky mingled across the face of the water until the two were all but indistinguishable from one another save the snow to tell them apart. 
The brown stalks jutting from the accumulation and the yellow willow limbs seemed the greatest contrast of all; forming an earthen frame around the ethereal white and blue new portrait of winter. A cold wind that felt as if it curled from the edges of cirrus clouds and unfurled itself shockingly across the park was the herald of winter’s fledgling dominance. Above all, the scene at the Lake was quiet, serene, soothing… as if a great breath was drawn deeply into the chest and time allowed itself to slow for a moment.
Down in Fountain Park, I stopped on a bridge to view the creek. Here, Center City looked starkly clean, as if the snow scoured the dirt of 2009 from the surfaces of the buildings and allowed them to shine again, for the first time. In the distance, the Eighth Street Bridge loomed large over the park as it always does but asserting a greater aesthetic severity with nothing but bared branches and white fields to contrast with it.
I drove up, parked and walked across the bridge for the first time to take a new look at Fountain Park as it showed off its winter coat. The view from the bridge was incredible.
The Little Lehigh almost appears with the same blackness as Martin Luther King Boulevard, as if even a natural aspect of the environment was a foreigner in this new land of snow.
In Trout Creek Parkway, I experienced the greatest absence of the day. The Knotweed was almost invisible in the winter wonderland. Without the thick Knotweed dominating the landscape, Trout Creek Parkway was an entirely new place to stumble around in.
Here though, the persistence of life was present in the nearby feeder stream. Echoing the brown contrast at Muhlenberg Lake, here the contrast turned to green. Green enough that it would seem these plants were blissfully ignoring the fact that winter had arrived six inches deep all around them.
I had spent so much time in these places this past summer that to walk around them this morning, in these conditions, was like walking in them for the first time. It was not just an observable change in appearance but an entirely new distinction of personality. These places are new again and will in all likelihood look this way for awhile. That is until the equinox and the arrival of Spring. Then, just like this snowy Sunday morning, I imagine I will find myself in these places for the first time.
See Also:
First Snow: Lehigh Parkway
Fountain Park: Part 2
Posted by Andrew Kleiner in Uncategorized on July 22, 2009
Revisiting Fountain Park today, following my grand experience yesterday, I had to take a side trip before I could cover the rest of the park.
I have lived in Allentown my entire life and this was my first journey up the legendary staircase. Following the first set, I walked through the tunnel and up the steeper second set of stairs.
The staircase is certainly not in the best of shape. There are broken steps, cracked macadam walkways, graffiti, and in one particular instance a porno mag torn apart and strewn about. Walking these stairs (and you weren’t kidding MM, I was way out of breath by the time I reached the top), I began to develop a nostalgia for something I had never experienced. That feeling intensified as I walked through the second half of Fountain Park.
Fountain Park and Jordan Park were created around the same time in the early thirties and while there are some definite similarities between the parks, the one I noticed most was that they each had the same stone water fountain poolside. On this strangely cool July afternoon, it didn’t appear that the pool was open. It looked ready to swim in though.
Behind the pool lies the frequent star of our city parks, the Little Lehigh Creek. Here, there is a dam and waterfall as well as a Riparian buffer zone that surprised me. I did not know it was there.
There is a basketball court here to complement the baseball diamonds and soccer fields on the other side of 10th street.
Behind the basketball courts, a paved urban trail begins and heads straight towards, and eventually underneath the 8th street Bridge.
Farther down, past another small parking lot and across Lehigh Street is the Wire Hill Meadow Memorial Arboretum. It is signed as maintained by the Allentown Garden Club and is another wonderful addition to our park system by those folks.
The urban trail continues past the arboretum.
Here though, looking at the city of Allentown that feeling I began noticing on the WPA staircase really manifested itself. I looked at the city, and down the trail at Fountain Park and I couldn’t help but wish that with a snap of my fingers I could see this area in its heyday. This is not an urban park as I called it yesterday. It is a post-industrial park caught between two eras of Allentown, just as we are.
Adding to the emptiness this afternoon was the absolute lack of anyone else in the park. I realize this was on account of the rain but it just seemed to amplify the forlorn nature of where I was standing. When I got home I asked my mother what Fountain Park was like when she was a kid. She told me an hour’s worth of stories that solidified my desire to turn back the clock and see what this ghost was like when her heart was pumping.
I do not know what park renovations may occur at Fountain Park over the next few years but I sure am curious as to what they may be. I can’t help but wonder, with a blighted area around it and a city looking for a new identity, if Fountain Park and all our other parks can’t be that identity we so desperately need. 
With the proposed trail network, a revitalized environmental awareness, and what I hope is a dedication to preserving what we already have while making new improvements, I think Allentown can live up to its moniker as Pennsylvania’s Park Place again. For now, at this moment, the city still seems a little lost. Fountain Park shows both that sense and the sense of something new, of something to come. It is the same at Canal Park and Keck Park. These urban parklands deserve the same respect as the Lehigh Parkway and what they have to offer us is priceless. They offer the city and its citizens a reason again.
We’re on the way. (fingers crossed)
Allentown Park Log 14: Fountain Park
Posted by Andrew Kleiner in Uncategorized on July 21, 2009
It had been awhile since I visited a new park, so yesterday afternoon I ventured down to Fountain Park.
Built at the height of WPA park expansion, Fountain Park is most noticeably remembered by the concrete flood walls inside the park. Fountain Park has a very urban location and offers baseball diamonds, soccer fields, and a playground for purpose of recreation. On weekends, FP is usually full of people engaging in activity and is a highly used city park. 
Starting my journey, in a lapse of sensibility, I decided it would be a good idea to walk down the wall.
I was greeted quickly by this:
Perhaps at one time a planter? I am not sure. There were more of them along the top of the wall and navigating around them is difficult when walking up there. Halfway down the wall, I began to realize the height that had developed as I walked. I stand a bit short of six feet and the wall stands at what seems like nine or ten; so my head was about sixteen feet from the ground.
With my palms a little sweatier I reached the corner of the wall and took a look at the creek and down the other side of the wall to where it ends at the playground.
I turned around and very quickly realized the mistake I had made.
It was a long walk back and my now burgeoning fear of heights was causing me some vertigo and nausea. I pushed forward, slow step by slow step thinking about how much of a sissy I was. My dizziness increasing, I decided it would be best if I sat down at least to drain my palms. 
This was my second mistake. Once sitting, it would become next to impossible for me to stand up without losing my balance considering my vertigo. Now, I was dragging my rear end sideways down the wall and doing it in slow increments so as to not look odd to the drivers passing on Martin Luther King. As chafing began to develop, I knew that I had to take my chances standing up. I was successful. Now, with a large lump of potential upset in my throat I gingerly side stepped the rest of the way before hopping off as soon as the ground was high enough to assure safe landing. Do not do this ever. It is a poor decision and I could have been hurt. (Maybe, I’m just a sissy) (Probably)
As the nausea waned I began to make my way alongside the wall; this time with my feet smartly on the ground.
I was heading for a fountain that I wasn’t sure existed. I’ve never seen a fountain down here but I am sure there is one, after all, this is Fountain Park. Looking up at the wall, it didn’t seem as high from down here but I knew the truth.
And then I found the fountain.
It was full of trash and obviously not turned on. I wonder when the last time it was turned on. I don’t ever remember seeing it. As I walked back to my car looking forward to walking past the pool and under the bridge, my camera battery died. This was becoming a not good day. There is much more to talk about down here at Fountain Park. Look for it in Part 2.
