The boarded up and paved house next to the Hill Hotel on Franklin now has a sign from Sinatra that "luxury apartments" are now coming to the property. I wonder if he's behind the LLC that boarded up the house and paved the lawn? But finally! I can't believe it's sat vacant for so long.

If this is true I can't imagine the Hill hotel is going to be the way it is much longer.

On one hand I hate the owner for putting nothing into it and letting it rot (the Erie County Real tax site says Richard A Panicali is in care of trust that owns it). It's one of the worst properties in Allentown (how long has that busted Porsche been rotting there?). Any sort of renovation or improvement would make the street and Allentown so much nicer. Maybe it would even kick off development on the parking lots all down the street.

On the other hand I do feel sorry for some of the residents if they get kicked out for nicer housing. There aren't many low cost housing options this central to everything. And the fact that the owner has put zero into it and could probably turn a huge profit by selling it makes me sick.

(or raspberries) is what I thought these were. But they're really just unripe blackberries. I'm glad Paul told me before I tried to eat them. There's a ridiculous amount of them on the blackberry bush, I can't wait for them. Not so many blueberries but the ones that are ripe are huge.

The garden looks so colorful right now. Apparently we are a Buffalo in Bloom garden, whatever that entails.

Allentown put out these bike tires as some sort of art thing in May. Since then they've been floating around as a living trash sculpture. One time someone hung it in a tree and it looked like a spider.

Someone also filled in the trash garden with some plants. Hopefully it'll stay nice.

After getting out of work early tonight I forced (e:paul) out of bed for a walk.
Ant errywhere. They were swarming this dead slug, it was really gross.




This parking lot next to Globe is on it's way out, woop. Beyonce even visited to tag her name on the barriers.

Bike or Bar had a redonk light show going on

Mode finally has a new place opening up in it. After 5 years. The sign says Saigon Cafe - is it related to Saigon Bangkok?

After the Italian fest we continued our bike ride through Parkside and the Park before heading home. The Starin Parkside neighborhood is so ridiculous and I always forget about it. Not only are the houses huge but the roads and lawns too.

One of my favorites that is not so big but so cool is the old belt line train station at Starin and Amherst. It's sunk below the street next to the tracks and has this old cobblestone driveway down to it. You can rent it on airbnb for $300 a night.


We had a pretty shitty experience at the park (ask (e:paul)) but Hoyt lake was especially bad that day. I assume it was the rain.