Congressional candidate Sam Bennett likes to call her pad the "Historic Benner Home," but former Allentown Mayor Roy Afflerbach has a pretty ritzy place himself. He lives in a West Park Mansion located on Chew Street.But he won't be there much longer. Looks like Roy is jumping ship.
Realtor Gail Hoover recently emailed a "private invitation" to Allentown's aristocracy for a home showing yesterday, and her web page contains a breathless description of this "absolutely stunning example of early 1900's craftsmanship & attention to detail."
If your invitation got lost, don't fret. The property is also at craigslist. It's yours for $297,360.
Bernie,
ReplyDeleteI expect this home like many others around here will fall into the wrong hands and become just another problem property. Thanks to Roy and now Ed our days are numbered here in the neighborhoods that surround the downtown.
Scott Armstrong
Moment to plug Gail: she was my realtor when I bought my first house. Very easy to work with, though I think I was such a difficult client that I drove her to a severe cold by the time we hit settlement.
ReplyDeleteI'm happy and proud to call myself a homeowner in Center City Allentown. I owe much to Gail for helping to make that possible. Now, back to the renovations!
Geoff, Your comments re Ms. Hoover are quite nice.
ReplyDeleteWill the Morning Call throw Roy a going away party? Roy was their very own annoited saviour of Allentown. Oh how the bleeding heart liberals at the Call loved Roy. The least the Morning Call could do is offer the citizens of Allentown an apology for their total lapse in judgement.
ReplyDeleteRoy can only imagine what that house would be worth if he hadn't fu**ed up everything.
ReplyDeleteHey Roy, Don't let the door of your mansion hit you on the a** on the way out of town!
ReplyDeleteGood bye and good riddance.
Scott - outsider's view (I live in Emmaus) is that the geographic line of problems in Allentown is relatively stable - somewhere around 15th or 16th Street - and that the west end is in good shape. Recognizing that you can have problems anywhere, how accurate is that assumption?
ReplyDeleteDid anyone look at the pictures of the house on Gail's website? Very nice home.
ReplyDeleteDid I see parquet flooring in there?
ReplyDeleteThat seems to be a bit off spec for this home I would say.
If I had an extra $300k around, I would buy it. I love old(er) homes..they have real character. In any event, this post was about Mr.Afflerbach, not the dated parque flooring in his home.
...back to my conclave
i take issue with 15th street as the line of demarcation. the "hood" now starts at 22nd street. it started at 4th street when i was in school and over the years has extended westward.
ReplyDeletegood job, roy.
Anon 2:45pm, don't "take issue" with a question, as that's what it was - not a statement that you can disagree with.
ReplyDeleteAs to the line being 4th St., I'm a 1982 graduate of Central Catholic HS, and the line back then was btw/ 10th and 15th. Not sure how far back you go, but was it truly 4th St. or is that an exaggeration to make your point?
There are neighborhoods that are just fine all over, however, 15th street is the line that most people reference when making the point you are trying to gain insight on.
ReplyDeleteViolent pretty much never happens West of 17th St.
"Violent crime pretty ..."
ReplyDeletea 1966 CCHS grad . . . and at that time 4th street was the critical line of demarcation.
ReplyDeleteviolent crime hardly ever west of 17th street....where you been, dude?
Violent crime happens everywhere, including areas we deem to be "safe," not just in respect to Allentown.
ReplyDeleteI think a better question would be, how does the area west of 17th St. fare in comparison w/ those "safe" areas - Emmaus, Salisbury, Parkland, etc.
1966 beats me by a bit! Thanks for the clarification.
ReplyDeleteOh my! All the nice words about Gail, who makes a living selling real-estate. Bernie, I will write you off line a good first person story of Gail, who used a good woman’s name without permission. The person in question has since passed on but I still have an independent witness to the event. It was deplorable. Speaking of deplorable, does anyone still recall Gail’s single term on city council?
ReplyDeleteScott Armstrong
Fort Apache
ReplyDeleteThe demarcation line, where is it now? What I tell people is this, those of us who call the West Park neighborhood home have a Fort Apache feeling because the blight now surrounds us on every side. To the east the Franklin Park group no longer even meets. The woman who ran it now feels besieged in her own home. Before Afflerbach was mayor West Park was making real progress picking up litter in this neighborhood and signing up new memberships. We were hoping for a “meeting at the Elbe” moment with “Old Allentown at 12th street, such fond memories. To the north there is Kay Pickles group, that area has deteriorated remarkably as well. I did some door to door there last January. The home owners I knew were now gone replaced by renters many of whom couldn’t speak a word of English. The one Allentonian who remained told me how he was cited by the city for putting his trash out early. He did so because in the winter it gets dark after 4:30 and he was afraid to go out in the night because of the crime on his street. To the West, past 17th one can see the steady spread of litter and blight going far into the west end on both Chew and Liberty. To the south we have the West Walnut Street group, they seemed very energetic until recently when one of the founder put her house on the market. After a year she still hasn’t sold it and I no longer get e-mails from this group.
SOS, SOS,SOS………………………………………………………………………………………………………… Scott Armstrong
15th or 16th street? Yeah, that'd probably be about right, although I'd say that the line of demarcation has moved up to 17th street.
ReplyDelete22nd street? Not west of Hamilton Blvd, in any case.