Allentown, PA (10/2/2020)

Friday, October 2, 2020

We spent the night in an Allentown hotel. The museums we would visit today have reduced their hours to being open only on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Although we could visit for free through our membership with Tyler Arboretum and NARM/North American Reciprocal Museum Association, we had to make advance reservations for a specific time.

Before the Allentown Art Museum opened at 11:00, we made a couple stops.

Malcolm Gross Rose Garden,
known for its All America Rose Selections.

Fountain with perhaps Flora, the Roman goddess of flowers

Bust of Malcolm Gross, the Allentown mayor
who conceived the idea of a rose garden in 1947

Rose trellises with nesting boxes; the inhabitants looked
like larger light-brown sparrows with dark beaks

A gift from Greece, with a quote from
Plato: "The soul is immortal and eternal"

Modern sculpture, but not the Cube and Thread!

Not roses (KSS)

Another unidentified sculpture (KSS)

Cedar Creek fountain at the opposite end
of the rose garden from the Greek statue

Covered well

Statue in shrubbery (KSS)

Friends of Allentown Parks Office

Cedar Creek (KSS)

Cedar Creek was diverted to form ponds in the park

Memorial (1990) for Miss Pat Bostick,
a teacher of dance

Strangely girdled Spaeth Beech Tree

Memorial (2004) for Sara Kay Steinberg

Sycamore Allée/Hamilton Street

Center Square (1742) with the Soldiers'
and sailors' Monument (1899)

And this square is also not a square, but I cannot identify its shape: the main street is oval, three corner buildings around it define square but the fourth corner building is concavely rounded...

Arts Park

Baum School Leonardo da Vinci Horse (2002, by Nina Akamu,
after 1493 designs by Leonardo da Vinci) (KSS)

Metallurgical Science (1902-1903, by
Jean-Léon Gérôme, commissioned by 
Charles Schwab, president of Bethlehem Steel,
for his residence in New York City)

Metallurgical Worker/The Puddler (1902-1903,
by Jean-Léon Gérôme, commissioned by
Charles Schwab for his home in New York City)

Bethlehem Steel gifted the two statues to the Allentown Art Museum in 1982.

Mural (2010?, by Michael Webb)
on the back of Miller Symphony Hall

Ruins XXVII (1978, by Ernest Shaw)

Along Arts Walk, a glass-enclosed stairwell (KSS)

Miller Symphony Hall (1896, as Central Market Hall,
1899 converted to a theater by J B McElfatrick,
renovated 2005-2006 with new acoustical shell)

Next: Allentown Art Museum.