A Brief Sunday Note
Cheers to the Morning Call for the railroad and arena articles this weekend. I deeply support both of these things happening here in the next few years and I believe that both projects could serve as catalysts to a true revitalization of Allentown.
It is hard not to wonder sometimes whether things will really start to get on track around here or if they will stay as they are and just meander along so long that people begin to forget what a real positive change could bring. This week I will be posting about WPA projects in the Valley and how this stimulus business could possibly have the same effects on our city.
O, before I go, please check out Allentown: From the Ground Up for a recap of last nights big debut!
It is hard not to wonder sometimes whether things will really start to get on track around here or if they will stay as they are and just meander along so long that people begin to forget what a real positive change could bring. This week I will be posting about WPA projects in the Valley and how this stimulus business could possibly have the same effects on our city.
O, before I go, please check out Allentown: From the Ground Up for a recap of last nights big debut!
posted by Andrew Kleiner at
2:20 PM
4 Comments:
You should look into taking these short form posts and expanding them into a photo history book of Allentown or in parks in general. There have been other books like City Life and such that focused on the development and lifestyles present in some of the major cities but I'm not aware of one that chronicles some of the more interesting and comforting aspects of smaller cities like Allentown. Possibly you could do a book where you visit a wide variety of cities and do photos, interviews, etc of the city and talk to the actual people who live there and have familiy ties for generations. Like the ABCs of America or something where each letter is a city Allentown is A, etc. Or you could try ot find one city like Allentown for each state. Just a thought...
That is a great idea Anonymous. I'll keep posting my park logs and whatever else and I'll see what happens. I would love to do a book about the parks in Allentown.
Cool. I'm saying you might not want to limit yourself to just Allentown parks. It would be hard to get something published on just Allentown. What I'm suggesting is taking your basic theme about rediscovering the good qualities and values of parks and other things in smaller cities like Allentown and expanding it to other cities. It would take visits and research but the advantage of that is you get to expand on your theme for more than just a single city. It also would be much easier to publish and gain exposure because you'd be tapping in the entire country as a demographic. In other words people from Atown might see it and decide to buy it to learn about other cities as well as someone buying it in Arizona because they see a random small AZ city there and they want to learn about other cities similar to the one they know etc.
If you wanted to really drive it home you could make it kind of a 3 pronged approach and do the city's history, its period of loss of population and hope/prospects for the future. You'd need to do research and take pictures and interviews but if you did something like 50 cities you could do something like 5 pages per and have it be a very nice read with pictures, etc. If you want to do that though you will need to get a pitch, etc prepared and send aggresively to publishers. I love the blog but its hard to get noticed even if you have a good idea/concept. If you push for it though I think what you're doing would be of interest to a lot of people. Take Care.
Thank you for the advice and I am glad for it. For the immediate moment I do have to finish Allentown's parks but I had considered publishing something on a small scale through Penn State publishing just about The Lehigh Valley park system. Incorporating both geologic and human history, etc..
We'll see though; right now, I am unemployed, nearly broke and trying to finish school. If some publisher reads this blog and in a faery dream land gives me money, I would be up for whatever.
Thanks for reading, and seriously, thanks for the input. I look forward to seeing future comments.
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