When Hispanic residents of downtown Allentown want to grab a bite, get their hair cut or shop for groceries, they often head to Seventh Street — but they don’t call it that. To them, it’s Calle Siete. A councilman wants to honor the city’s growing Hispanic population by installing decorative Spanish-language street signs on one of its main commercial thoroughfares, where a profusion of Latino-owned restaurants,
barbershops and corner stores reflects the rapidly changing demographics of the state’s third-largest city. Hispanics now represent nearly half the population of 120,000.But where Democratic Councilman Julio Guridy and other residents and business owners on Seventh Street see the Calle Siete signs as a small but long overdue gesture of respect, others call the proposal unnecessary and divisive. READ MORE
