Art Museum Cafe Opening Tomorrow!

Good news for downtowners! The Cafe at the Allentown Art Museum will open its doors tomorrow, adding another great lunch option to downtown Allentown. Operating hours are Tuesday through Saturday 11am to 3pm and Sunday noon to 3pm.

The Museum café will be operated by Karen Hunter, a self-taught cook who began her career preparing hors d’oeuvres for friends at their parties, and built an incredible reputation in catering for Lehigh Valley businesses such as Sayre Mansion and The Eastonian. She has been the exclusive caterer at Museum events for the past eight years, has been voted “Best of the Valley” by Lehigh Valley Magazine readers five year in a row and voted “Favorite Foodie” in 2011 by readers of Lehigh Valley Style.

The Museum Café’s menu includes a variety of sandwiches, paninis, salads, soups and desserts. Everything will be made fresh daily and available for takeout.

Downtown Allentown Tree Lighting

The weather should be perfect for kicking off the holiday season the right way tomorrow! Join Santa and a host of local musicians on the 800 block of Hamilton Street from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Thursday, December 1 as Allentown lights its tree. There's free parking in the Farr Lot and refreshments available for sale. The horse and carriage rides will be back, as will the ice sculptors. Let the kids know that Pip the Mouse should be making an appearance as well. Sounds like fun!

Wise Guys Moves In On Allentown Beer Market

New Beer Depot To Offer Knowledgeable Service, Local Brews, Sampling and Tasting Events

Allentown, Pa. – The Wise Guys Beer Depot is moving in on the Allentown beer market with great selections, a knowledgeable sales staff and offers that can’t be refused by beer lovers across the region. Located at 209 W. Union near the heavily traveled intersection of Union and Second Street, Wise Guys will also offer a convenient stop for commuters when it opens on Nov. 18.

Allentown businessman and company partner Jeff Barber said the goal is to update and upgrade the traditional beer distributor model to provide a “convenience store” merchandising system for shoppers.

“We will be set up like a convenience store, but with a large variety of beer,” Barber said. “Our customer service representatives will have vast knowledge of the beer business and brews that we're selling and will on hand to help customers with new selections of beer that they may want to try.”

The Depot will also host weekly beer and food samplings from area restaurants and breweries in an effort to support other businesses in the City of Allentown, Barber said, adding praise for city officials and staff who worked with the partners to facilitate the review and permitting process that led to Friday’s opening.

Barber and partners Bob Chapleski and Phil Casciano say the upscale atmosphere will cater to the Center City residential market but also appeal to the daily professional commuter traffic on Hamilton and Union streets because of its convenient location.

The “Wise Guys” theme was suggested by Barber’s son during a family brainstorming session and the concept of a “depot” as opposed to a distributorship was suggested by Casciano to differentiate the business from other beer stores in the region, but also because it pays homage to the railroad and manufacturing history of the neighborhood, he said.

“I truly believe in the revitalization of Allentown and this location for a business,” said Barber, who purchased and renovated the building over the past several years. “I felt that if nobody else had the guts to rent the space and start a business, I would. I'm an entrepreneur by nature and have always taken risks on things, but I felt that this was one business I understood very well based on my own career and experience.”

Barber said the partners used Allentown businesses for the building renovations, including Meinser Services for HVAC, ElecTek for all commercial electrical work, Lugo Roofing and Construction, CSI Inc. for the video and surveillance and Lehigh Valley PreCast for concrete work.

The business will employ two full-time and three part-time customer service representatives.

“This was totally beneficial for Allentown tradesmen,” he said. “Also, we're working with PA CareerLink to fill our staff positions locally.”

Reading Make It in America, Chapter 1 The Rise and Fall

A few months ago, we started to read more about a book with some strange peripherals. For one, the book advocated strengthening American manufacturing, a sector thought dead by many. Secondly, the author, Andrew Lieveris, was an Australian arguing for American investment in advanced manufacturing. Finally, Make It in America is penned by the CEO of Dow Chemical, one of the largest companies in this country. We decided to read the book and share our thoughts on its connections to urban manufacturing.

The first chapter, tells the story of Amazon's Kindle and the company's difficulty in manufacturing the device in the United States. This opens the door to talk about how the economic trajectory in the US led people away from careers in manufacturing and toward the service sector. Liveris makes an argument that the multiplier effect of manufacturing is much greater than that of the service sector, meaning that $1 of GDP from the manufacturing sector supports an additional $1.40 in other sectors while the same dollar spent in the service sectors generates only an additional $0.71 of additional output. If any creative economics students out there want to do the research, we'd love to see how the multiplier effects differ between urban manufacturing and suburban manufacturing.

Further, manufacturing drives the innovation sorely needed to remain competitive in a modern global economy. Thus, Liveris contends that we should build an advanced manufacturing sector with a focus on high technology, rather than the basic production of the past. Two points on this for urban manufacturing: 1) We know that cities are existing hubs of innovation. Building those advanced manufacturing centers in urban environments plays on an existing strength. 2) The diversity and richness of cities can support both advanced manufacturing for export and basic manufacturing for local and hyperlocal markets.

As a matter of comparison, he compares the economic fortunes of the UK and Germany, suggesting that Germany's relative strength is a reflection of its investment in advanced manufacturing. From what we've seen, Germany has similarly invested in its cities that had existing strengths in manufacturing (i.e. Leipzig). He recommends that the USA follow the path of Germany rather than that of the UK. "Globally, manufacturing isn't dying. It's evolving."

Bloomberg Talks Manufacturing in NYC

New York city Mayor Mike Bloomberg has taken a great step forward in encouraging urban manufacturing. It is very encouraging to see the mayor of America's largest city taking an active stand on promoting urban manufacturing. Mayor Bloomberg announced on his website a program of 22 initiatives to help small industrial businesses stay and grow in New York City. NYC has experienced loss of manufacturing in the past few decades in line with the national average and officials hope that its location will give it an advantage as manufacturing grows nationwide. Industrial sectors provide 16 percent of New York city's private employment, and over 25 percent of employment in the four boroughs other than Manhattan.

The programs are designed to revitalize, modernize, and preserve underutilized industrial space, create and retain jobs, and generate revenue for businesses and the City. The program is the result of an inter-agency review of the City's industrial policy.

The 22 initiatives are designed to meet one of three goals: increase access to modern industrial space, increase access to and create new financing resources, and better align City resources with industrial business needs.

Increase access to modern industrial space:

This includes several Request For Proposals (RFP), in which the City is beginning a competitive process to find developers for several industrial sites throughout the city. The City is favoring industrial uses including manufacturing for potential developments on these sites.

The City is also developing a food manufacturing step-up space. The New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) will offer several food manufacturing spaces to companies wishing to expand their production capacity and hire more workers.

Create new financing resources and increase access to existing programs:

In partnership with Goldman Sachs, the City is creating a $10 million fund to provide loans to food entrepreneurs. The City also formed the Industrial Development Program to fund City-sponsored industrial projects alongside traditional lenders. At least 20 new businesses will be given financial assistance from the Industrial Development Authority. The City is also funding the creation of new Business Improvement Districts that will provide funding for services such as sanitation, public safety, and graffiti removal.

Better align City resources with industrial businesses' needs:

NYCEDC will create a new full-time "desk" to focus on industrial sector policy. NYCEDC will also manage a public competition to identify innovative ideas from start-ups in the industrial and manufacturing sectors. NYCEDC will also conduct on a study on how to enhance the prototyping and fabrication sub-sector and meet entrepreneur's needs in this area.

This program of action can serve as a blueprint for other cities. Not all of these initiatives are appropriate for all cities, however. For example, New York City's use of RFPs to develop land may be less realistic for cities who have a large amount of available land but no demand from developers. However, the three basic points of Mayor Bloomberg's program could be helpful in the promotion of urban manufacturing in cities like Allentown.

Krugman on Manufacturing

Economist Paul Krugman recently wrote for the New York Times about the recent growth and success of the manufacturing sector in the United States.  He calls manufacturing "one of the bright spots of a generally disappointing recovery."  


It's fantastic news that American manufacturing is being reinvigorated.  In a response to Krugman's piece, New Deal 2.0 gave six reasons why manufacturing is still important.  I won't list them all here, but having a lively manufacturing sector creates good jobs and is the foundation of a strong economy.  Krugman mentions Caterpillar and General Motors as examples of strong American manufacturers.  These companies contribute a lot to the economy and their communities, but it's not just the household names that make up the manufacturing sector.  We should also remember the smaller and urban manufacturers "hidden in plain sight."  According to a report by the Pratt Center and Brookings Institution on small urban manufacturers, the large and vertically-integrated companies of the past are being replaced by smaller "webs of production and distribution."  Some provide components and parts to other manufacturers, some produce custom or niche products, others produce artisanal foods or beverages.  Urban environments are perfect for these types of firms - the businesses win by locating in the middle of both a large potential workforce and large market for their products, and the community receives the benefits of a stronger local economy.  This is a true win-win situation.


Paul Krugman and others have written about the manufacturing sector making a comeback.  But what has come back is not the manufacturing sector of the 20th century.  Manufacturing can not only be reinvigorated, but reinvented.  This means bringing manufacturers back from the suburban industrial parks and into our cities.

Coworking in Allentown

The Morning Call ran a story this morning detailing our efforts to start a coworking space here in Allentown. It coincides with the soft opening of our permanent space at Hive 4A in the Bridgeworks Enterprise Center. 

Starting today, independent professionals with workplace flexibility can work in the Hive 4A coworking space Monday through Friday from 9 am to 5 pm. The cost is $25 a month, and members are expected to abide by the core values of coworking: collaboration, openness, community, accessibility and sustainability. Amenities include abundant parking, wi-fi, shared reception services, good coffee, and shared conference room space. We are continually improving the space with member input.


Our goal is to promote entrepreneurship and business start up in Allentown and the Lehigh Valley. We believe that by providing low-cost and low-risk space to potential entrepreneurs, the natural creativity of our regional professionals will lead to exciting new businesses and growth for existing small businesses.