Easton's 1753 Bachmann Publick House, Easton's oldest building, one-time tavern and home to Northampton County's first courtroom, has fallen upon hard times, just like Easton herself. Easton Heritage Alliance, the building's owner, had no money to repay a $500,000 county loan.The deed has been surrendered to the county, and a determined group of Bachmann believers are working on a business plan that will hopefully allow continued use of this historically significant property as living museum. And at a recent budget hearing, the county revealed it intends to fund an estimated $75,000 for repairs, operating expenses and maintenance of this building from some of the anticipated $1.2 million in hotel tax revenues.
Enter the Imperious Ann McHale. She instructed county administrators that hotel taxes can't be used to fund this Easton treasure because it is not a tourist attraction.
Huh?
Somebody better tell George Washington and Ben Franklin, two tourists who spent time there.
And she was just re-elected. Should we refer to her as Queen Ann? We need to bring Paul home from DC
ReplyDeleteOne thing I'll never understand. Why not make Bachmann a Tavern again. In Hellertown they spent buckets of cash to convert a building into an "authentic" Irish pub and Easton is sitting on an authentic circa 1700's tavern and they're trying to turn it into a museum? As someone who has worked in local museums, shoestring is an overstatement when it comes to budgets. Whats wrong with making a historic pub into a historic pub?
ReplyDeleteget me a liquor license and i'm there. a lot of our history was formed over a good bottle of ale. right bernie.
ReplyDeleteThat's really not a bad idea and is probably one of the things that should be considered as part of a business plan.
ReplyDeleteReview the recent history of Bethlehem's historic SUN INN...and that's right it the heart of the downtown tourist area - a few blocks down from where you used to live Bernie.
ReplyDeleteI had taken some out-of-town guests there for dinner a few years back and we had a real nice evening, but alas, the next time I was in the neighborhood, it was shuttered! (Is it still?)
Maybe it was bad management, I dunno, but I guess historic significance no longer carries the charm it used to.
Then there's another side of me that observes the discussions concerning the plight of the have-nots and it challenges my social/civic conscious about how we can justify directing this amount of public monies to these historic "nice-to-haves" when real human beings are in need. (and don't get me wrong, I LUV olden things having grown up in an old stone farmhouse).
I haven't figured it out in my own mind yet.
History IS important, but means little if you're hungry/homeless, struggling with your local taxes in just trying to stay in your home, or more relevant to most of us - the bridges that are endangering public health as they approach collapse.
Where do you draw the line - or does it become more palatable to spend money here if you're drawing these expenditures from some imposed (nuisance) tax?
This is a conundrum for me Bernie. Put some perspective on it for me as I know you care about both sides of what I've presented. (needy have-nots vs. historical preservation)
The goal should not be a shuttered building, but a living and breathing structure where people can visit, whether as a museum or to hoist a few. It is an important structure for we "have nots" because of its role in determining that the "have nots" are equal to the "haves." Eastonians, in particular, are very proud of that building. Giving that building life gives them life and pride.
ReplyDeleteThat building is also valuable as an education tool. I listened to an elementary school teacher nearly break down in tears as she described how that building opened up ther eyes of a lot of her students.
I'd agree its importance pales in comparison to our basic needs. But if those are met, I think it makes us better people to remember our history.
You tell me you don't like to comment, but you make te best possible objection that can be made to continued public funding of this building. I don't know if my answer is good enough.
Bernie,
ReplyDeleteYour post on the Jacob Bachmann Tavern reminds me that for a brief period it wasn't a building at all, but a tree.
And not just an ordinary tree, but one that bore money - Northampton County taxpayer money, that is.
Chief caretaker Phil Mitman, painstakingly pruning and carefully cutting back any unwanted branches, coxed the tree into yielding a half-million-dollar harvest of its fruit.
And when the harvest was done, and the tree was bear, what did the intrepid Easton Mayor do?
Why, he climed the tree, straight past the next he had built there for himself and into the Executive Directorateship of the Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corporation, or LVEDC - at a per annum salary of $125K, a whopping $15,000 more than that of his short-lived predecessor in the job,
Beth Gorin.
I don't get it either, as someone who is both trying to save a historic bridge in Lower Saucon and strugling to pay the increasing taxes where I live. With all these developers who are getting perks, why don't more of them give back?
ReplyDeleteIn LST, Lou Pektor gave the Lower Saucon Township Historicial Society a few years back about $150,000 dollars to restore the Luzt-Franklin school house. You of course can debate the ethics of that one, especially in a township that decries devlopmemt and raised taxes to buy open space to stop development. Need I say how many of the developments in the township are his? But since these developers can't be stopped from builing altogether, might as well get something back from them.
I remember the days the good old fashion fund-raising and volunteers were all that one needed to save a historic strucutre, but in these times, it just isn't enough. People don't seem to care or can't afford to care.
Again in LST the 2008 budget includes $110,000 dollars to repair a bridge called the Old Mill Bridge (iron truss) which was once a county owned bridge that will never be open to traffic again. But it needs $150,000 dollars of work to preserve it so it looks nice.
Meanwhile the township will not take ownership from the county of a stone arch bridge that will be 150 years old in 2008 that still carries traffic because LST says that they don't have the money for the yearly maintenece and upkeep. So, if the township does not save the bridge, the county will tear down the stone bridge and one of the oldest structures in the township will be lost forever.
I don't know what the answers are either...
There is historic and there is historic. Just because something is old doesn't make it historic. The Bachmann House is truely a historic treasure and Easton needs all the treasures it can find. Hopefully Queen Ann will stop pandering for Exec votes and weigh the merits of helping preserve the building and at least see if a responsible plan can be put together. Enough with the Community dogooders find someone who has actually successfully run something and work some ideas.
ReplyDeleteWhile I have no insight into the Sun Inn's budget, I can only assume that the restaurant was mismanaged as it is surrounded by many viable and lively restaurants and while they thrive, the Sun Inn can't seem to cut it. The real trick for Bachmann would be if they could get it to be what it once was, an evening meeting place for the 3rd St. and Spring Garden crowd where as a previous post put it "history was formed" Something I don't think Drinky's will ever be.
ReplyDeleteAnon 108 AM
ReplyDelete"Queen Ann," as you call Northampton County Council District 1 also voted yea to subdivide the historic Governor George Wolf building on Easton's N. 2nd St., only a few building north of the Jacob Bachmann Tavern, subdivided the building from its parking lot so that Easton Mayor Phil Mitman, Richard thulin, Lou "Mr" Easton" Ferrone, and Armand Greco and Fred Williams of LANTA could build a bus station-500+space parking garage-chic shoppin center-luxury condominium complex in the Delaware River-Bushkill Creek Complex.
This was just a practice run for yea vote for the Sands BethWorks Now Casino LLC complex on the banks of and in the flood plain of the Lehigh River (known as early as the Delaware-Lenni Lenapi Native Americans as the west branch of the Delaware - a historical fact explaining why Easton, located as it is at the confluence of the Delaware and Lehigh rivers is still known as the "Forks of the Delaware."
Once again I call all who treasure the environment, natural and man-made, to preserve not only the Jacob Bachmann (but only after Mayor Phil Mitman as the tavern's chief fund-raiser has repaid the half-million-dollar loan he owes Northampton County taxpayers).
ReplyDeleteI also remind environmentalists again that in an article written by veteran reporter Anthony Salamone published by The Express (now called The Express-Times) on December 11, 1988, wrote:
"Bill Givens of Easton, a member of the Paulinskill Valley Trail Committee, got the the Warren County Historical and Genealogical Society's support to help convince government officials that an old railbed in northern Warren County should be made into a recreational trail."
This can be corrorated by Tony Salomone, who's still at the paper, or by requesting a copy of the article from the paper's librarian.