FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
West Park’s 51st Art-in-the-Park a Success — WPCA Announces New Canopy Committee and Exciting Historical Discovery of Original West Park Plans
SEPTEMBER 14, 2026 ALLENTOWN, PA — This past Saturday, the West Park Civic Association hosted the 51st annual Art-in-the-Park in Allentown's very first public park — an event that keeps drawing bigger crowds to the neighborhood every year.
This year, though, the park’s south side was a little less shady. On July 4th, we lost four majestic trees, each nearly 120 years old, in a severe storm (as we reported at the time). Several younger trees were also lost. That communication reached 140,000 people and garnered thousands of reactions and hundreds of responses. We've been moved by how many people have reached out to mourn these losses alongside us.
In response, the WPCA created a permanent Canopy Committee — a group dedicated to being friends, advocates, and caregivers for our park's irreplaceable trees, as well as the street trees throughout the wider neighborhood.
On September 1, we had the pleasure of meeting with a representative from Mayor Tuerk’s office, Director of Parks Mandy Tolino, Superintendent of Parks Christian Bianco, Trexler Trust CEO Janet Roth, Parknership Executive Director Ruffian Tittman, and other city officials and staff. Together, we talked through next steps for restoring General Trexler and J. Franklin Meehan's original park plan — carefully, and to the highest standards of arboricultural care.
We were so thrilled that everyone at the table shared our commitment to taking the extra time needed to get this right: preserving the picturesque, naturalistic character of Meehan's original planting design, and honoring General Trexler's remarkable legacy in giving Allentonians one of the finest, most mature park systems in the nation.
Everyone agreed on a unrushed, intentional approach to replanting, which will include:
Taking inventory of the park's existing trees and shrubs
A parkwide assessment by tree care experts
Research into the historic planting design
Succession planning for the canopy's future
Sourcing the right tree specimens even if it takes some time
Bringing in transplantation expertise
Building better long-term canopy management practices
The lives of trees are very slow. It takes decades to reach a mature height, and a century or more to reach the full breadth of canopy, trunk, and root. Every decision we make about trees, to prune or to fell, to leave be or to intervene can have consequences that will long outlive us. It is for that reason that we want to thank the stakeholders for agreeing that there is no urgency in making only the right decisions for the next 120 years.
And we have some exciting news to share! Adam Bond, a member of the WPCA board and chair of our Canopy Committee, spent the past couple of weeks digging through primary and secondary historical sources — and uncovered something remarkable: a previously unknown period newspaper report listing every single species, hybrid, and cultivar originally planted in the park. All 1,200 original trees and shrubs!
Adam has since cross-referenced this discovery with supporting materials from the work of J. Franklin Meehan and his assistant Robert B. Cridland, who went on to become a celebrated landscape architect and educator in his own right. Together, this research has let him reconstruct the park's original planting plan — including good approximations of where missing species once stood, and how the perimeter and entrance beds were originally composed.
Adam plans to publish his full findings very soon. The WPCA remains deeply grateful to the City of Allentown and its staff for their cooperation and patience as we work together to restore our beloved park.