Sep 21, 2017

The Mad Men Of Allentown


Back in the day, the titans of Allentown would fill the five barberchairs of the Colonial Barbershop, 538 Hamilton Street. That was when the town had three department stores. That was when Wetherhold and Metzger had two shoe stores on Hamilton Street. That was when Harvey Farr would meet Donald Miller and John Leh at the Livingston Club for lunch, and discuss acquiring more lots for Park & Shop. By 1995 all that was gone, but Frank Gallucci, 82, would still give some old timers a trim. The Colonial Barbershop property, closed for many years, has been purchased by J.B. Reilly. It is my pleasure to present this previously unseen portrait of Gallucci, toward the end of his career.

photocredit:molovinsky

reprinted from January of 2015

4 comments:

  1. It's a shame it won't be a barber shop again under Reilly. Some of those guys downtown look like they could use an improvement of their appearance. Also for those proverbial "white collar yuppie" jobs that are touted by the Morning Call, those guys could also use a good barber shop

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  2. White collar guys are long gone. Forget barber shops...what we need down here are emergicare centers with lots of tetanus shots for the earrings, nose rings, and rings in the nether regions....let alone the oozing tatoos.

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  3. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  4. And so have the horse buggy whip shops and men's hat stores and the record & video stores. Titans of Allentown commerce don't meet downtown anymore because there are few local autonomous chiefs left here. The CEO's of our banks and major businesses are elsewhere, little of import is locally owned. The managers live here, but, they follow policy & directives dictated from above.

    In contrast to major commerce, the local governmental/regulatory/administrative structure chiefs are here, but, and reported incessantly by Mr. M and others, little attention is paid to local comment. Such input is deemed irrelevant if the Commission/Councils/whatever already know what they want to implement.

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