Filed Under: default || By jt3y
Category: default || By jt3y
Category: default || By jt3y
Neither snow, nor snow, nor snow will keep me from filling up an Almanac with your letters and emails.
Alert Reader D.C. writes:
I would also like to know how Terry Lee is. I was yet a 'tween when my sister and her friend danced on his TV show. Loved watching the show, and as young girls, me and my friends just adored Terry. Read on another blog that Terry is related to one of The Fenways. I got to see them live when I was about 10 years old and got their autographs! I still have my autograph book. Thanks Fenways and I managed to hang onto one of your 45's while moving around the country!
I don't know if you have seen the thread running on the Pittsburgh Radio Nostalgia group but Tom Lacko posted a link to his Soundboard site with a collection of Radio Airchecks. I have been listening to airchecks from KDKA in 1976 by Joel Zoell, KQV in 1974 with Jeff Christy who as you know is Rush Limbaugh, WESA in 1983 by Tom Lacko, WIXZ in 1973 with Terry Lee and WKTQ 13Q in 1975 among others. Some really great stuff!
After reading your article on Brick Alley, my husband informed me that Brick Alley was a part of Rose Alley, not Strawberry, as his family grew up in the Third Ward.
I came across your website strictly by accident while doing some sort of search on Yahoo. I immediately became fascinated and bookmarked the site until I had more time to view all of it. And you bring back such memories! To put the memories in perspective I graduated from McKeesport High School in 1964.
I love the pictures of the Peoples Bank Building. My doctor had his office there and my dentist also. My father was in the plumbing business (316 Shaw Ave.) and also on the Board of Directors of the Peoples Bank for many years. My fondest memory was visiting the bank and just inside the entrance where he could be seen by all was the bank Cashier, Thomas C. Baird. He was the father of my uncle by marriage ( i.e. my mother's sister's father-in-law). He was a distinguished looking gray-haired banker with a big smile for everyone. He sat at a desk behind a low railing and knew and greeted all the customers as they entered.
But for me the biggest thrill was the nickel that he always gave me for an ice cream cone from Stallings Bakery across the street from the bank -- it was later replaced by Cox's addition. Stallings had a big tall scoop of ice cream in a cone for five cents.
When the values go up, up, up,
and the prices go down, down, down ...
It sure is nice to pay low prices
For more quality
Take your family
To Robert Hall and see!
Save on quality clothes at Robert Hall and you'll agree:
It sure is nice to pay low prices for more quality!
School bells ring and children sing:
"It's back to Robert Hall again."
Mother knows for better clothes,
It's back to Robert Hall again!
Ha! I keed, I keed.
Robert Hall became a casualty of mall mania. Its outlets, often in poor locations, could not compete with newer stores in shopping malls and clothing discounters. Last year UM & M began an 11th hour attempt to refurbish older outlets and in some cases, as in Manassas, to close freestanding stores and open new shops in malls. But it was too late.
"i have a pizzelle maker that is over 30 years old. one of the wires inside of it has come un-crumpped. i was wondering if you could send me a catalog with parts or maybe you could send a new one or new parts i don't know?"
i just need parts one of the wires broke and it won't heat up maybe you can send a catalog or something or send parts your self i don't know but it is my dads b-day and i wanted to get his old pizzle makerf ixed for himhe has had that since he was a kid
Category: default || By jt3y
They used to have a lot of boxing matches at The Palisades, back in the day. They still do, occasionally, along with wrestling matches.
But nobody told Port Authority CEO Steve Bland. If he knew, no doubt he would asked the referee to stop the pummeling he was taking last night during a four-hour hearing on proposed public transit service cuts.
Bland, who looks a little like Chris Noth from the Law & Order TV shows, spent much of the hearing staring off of the stage at the Palisades at a point somewhere in the back balcony, over the heads of the audience and the speakers. One after another, every three minutes, they took the microphone to lambaste Bland and seven other Port Authority officials who sat beside him on the stage.
"Mismanagement and greed --- that's what's wrong with your system," one man said. "It's mismanaged because it's political." Another man accused Bland of being "ungodly" for cutting bus service to his neighborhood.
Sometimes Bland managed a wan smile, like when Mayor Jim Brewster came to the microphone and said: "Welcome to McKeesport. How did you get down here? Did you take a bus?"
A few times, Bland even made eye contact with the people testifying and smiled, sympathetically, as when a young mother with a Russian accent suggested that people should be "proud to ride public transportation ... it is a privilege to ride a bus, not a shame," or when a little gray-haired lady stumbled midway through her speech and confessed, "I'm nervous and I lost my place."
Most of the time, though, Bland just stared blankly at the back wall of the ballroom --- no doubt wishing he were anywhere but in Downtown McKeesport on a Thursday night, where the miserable cold outside was nearly matched by the bitterness inside.
. . .
Some of the other Port Authority officials on the dias wouldn't even attempt as much contact with the hostile crowd as Bland did. One woman spent much of the evening staring at her shoes. Others looked numb from all of the abuse they took in McKeesport --- and have obviously been taking, night after night, in hearings throughout the county.
If a proposed service reduction goes through later this year, McKeesport and much of the Mon Valley stands to lose most of its local bus routes. There would be little or no bus service south of Versailles, leaving a broad section of the county completely without public transportation. Several trips that connect McKeesport to surrounding communities would be rolled into a single bus route, and several routes to Pittsburgh would remain.
Yet even Pittsburgh commuter service would be vastly curtailed --- express buses from Port Vue and McKeesport would end while the heavily-used 56C would stop running after 9 p.m. on weekdays, and not at all on Sundays.
Ted Keeler, who described himself as a bus operator for 19 years, quoted a line from the Port Authority website that says the agency "connects people to life."
"How are these people going to be connected to life?" Keeler asked. "They can't go to the doctor's, they can't go shopping --- some of these people are 90 years old. These buses are the only thing that's keeping them alive."
A man from Greenock who says he rides the 60A said he would have to walk nearly four miles to catch the nearest bus after the service cuts take effect. "I'm on disability and my wife is on disability. I don't think we qualify for ACCESS. If you take away my bus service you're taking away my life."
"All I'm asking for is maybe four buses a day," he pleaded.
"I am single, live alone, and I never learned how to drive," said a woman who rides two buses each way to get from her home in McKeesport to her job in Cranberry Township. "I have to grocery shop on Saturday and I go to church on Sunday and I teach bible school on Monday. I make maybe three or four trips a day."
. . .
She, like many speakers, blamed wasteful Port Authority spending for the current crisis: "There has to be an independent audit. If we do not correct the problems now, three years from now, we will be back at the same place."
Many speakers pointed fingers at projects like the Wabash Tunnel HOV lane and the North Shore subway connector as examples of foolish spending.
"We can find the money to run a tunnel under the river," said Carol Katz of Port Vue, "while Port Vue and Liberty Borough have been completely eliminated from any service whatsover. Why not reduce the frequency of trips to two in the morning and two in the afternoon? Or at least give us local transportation so that we can get to the Olympia Shopping Center or to the transit center. And another thing --- why haven't you taken a pay cut?"
Her last remark got loud, lusty applause from the audience.
"When a tree dies, it starts from the top," said one elderly man. "You are responsible for the money coming in. If you can't handle it, resign."
"Scratch this," said another man as he brandished a copy of a Port Authority pamphlet explaining the service cuts. "It's garbage. It's trash!"
"I heard Governor Ed Rendell say that why is it that SEPTA is twice the size of Port Authority of Allegheny County, but Port Authority has more management staff than SEPTA," said Edward Craig of McKeesport, who rides four buses to get to his welding job in Jefferson Hills.
Pat McMahon, business agent of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 85, which represents Port Authority drivers, asked why the agency has been spending money to rent offices in Pittsburgh's Heinz 57 Center when its old office building in Woods Run is empty.
"What business would eliminate its best performing products, like the 28X to the airport, or the park and ride lots in the North Hills?" he said. "We've brought these things to the attention of the Port Authority management and county officials, and they say, well, these are just little issues. Well, where I come from, a lot of little issues add up to a big problem."
. . .
Others, like Schnel Simmons of the McKeesport branch of the NAACP, blamed the state Legislature for failing to increase public transit subsidies. "I think you should already have had an increase from our officials, knowing that the price of gas has increased," she said.
Several speakers blamed Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato, accusing him of pushing the Port Authority into drastic service cuts at a time when the county is pledging money to build a new arena for the Penguins.
"I've been to three of these hearings already," one woman from Park Street in McKeesport said. "This is the fourth one and I might be going to a fifth. I did try calling Mr. Onorato and left a message, but I haven't seen him yet. I think he's a freaking chicken."
There were a few moments of levity, as when a Port Authority official tried to locate a registered speaker who didn't come to the microphone when called.
"Is Patricia Jones here?" he said.
"She probably had to go catch a bus," someone shouted from the back of the ballroom.
A few speakers said Port Authority is cutting service when existing transit already doesn't work well. "Bus routes in the valley have been problematic from day one," said Judy Monahan Grystar, executive director of Mental Health/Mental Retardation, Inc., in Braddock. Patients trying to get from one side of the Monongahela River to the other are often forced to take buses all the way to Pittsburgh and back out again.
"I can't believe you're looking at cuts in these communities when we already don't have enough service," Grystar said.
A woman from the Rolling Hills apartment complex in North Versailles asked why the 60M bus from McKeesport to East Pittsburgh passes through so many unpopulated areas. "I'm a little disappointed in the utilization," she said. "Some of the places it goes, they don't pick up anybody." One of her neighbors asked why "we need so many 68J's in the morning, one after another."
. . .
Despite newspaper stories that have focused on the salaries and benefits provided to the Port Authority's best-paid bus and trolley operators, few directed their anger at the agency's rank-and-file, though a few did criticize what they considered inefficencies.
"I think there should be some accountability on behalf of the bus drivers and trolley operators," said Vince DeAngelo of Clairton. "Some of them, it seems like if people pay fares and show a pass, that's OK. But if they don't, that's OK too. I'm not trying to point fingers."
He suggested that bus passes should carry bar codes that would enable drivers to make sure they're valid, and that would track who is riding buses. Several drivers agreed. "We need updated fare boxes --- there is so much fraud taking place between bad Pitt (bus) passes and counterfeit passes," Keeler said.
McMahon, from the bus drivers' union, said he has tried to make suggestions to improve efficiency in the past, "not only to the old administration, but to you, Mr. Bland, and it falls on deaf ears."
"I've talked to a lot of people on that (Port Authority) board of directors, and they're business people, and I respect that, but there's a lot about transit that doesn't relate to a business decision," he said. "There should be citizen representation on that board of directors. There should be worker representation on that board of directors."
Many speakers, like Brewster, focused on how cutting intra-city bus routes would prevent residents from getting to jobs that don't pay enough to maintain and operate a car.
"I intend to bring 2,000 jobs to this area in the coming years, and many of them are dependent on the buses," Brewster said. "Move slowly is my request. McKeesport, Port Vue, Liberty, Glassport, Lincoln, Elizabeth don't have to be forgotten."
An employee of Echostar, the satellite TV provider, said up to 50 percent of her co-workers rely on buses to get to the company's national call center in Downtown McKeesport. "It would kill us," she said. "We'd be completely cut out of the loop."
Another woman, who rides the 60E bus from her home in White Oak to make a connection to Pittsburgh, predicted she will lose her job if the route is cancelled.
"Since these cuts were announced, every day my boss asks me, what alternate arrangements have you made to get to work?" she said. "I don't have a backup. And if these cuts go through, I will be fired. I already know that."
McMahon predicted that many transit riders would end up on unemployment, and then on welfare, "and I don't think anybody wants that."
"There's supposed to be 10,000 jobs coming into this area in the next year, but how many of them are going to be middle-income jobs?" he said. "They're not. They're going to be clerks. How are they going to get to work?"
. . .
Some of the people testifying tried to keep their tones concilatory. "This problem wasn't created overnight, and I think it's unfair to try to solve it overnight," said Joanne Beckowitz, president of the Elizabeth Township board of commissioners. "Please consider providing bus service Monday through Friday to our residents so they can continue to tend to their health."
Said Ed Falco of Port Vue: "It might not be a high income area like Squirrel Hill or Bethel Park or Mt. Lebanon, but we need the buses. We use them."
But most others were just angry. "Put yourself in our shoes," said Jermaine Scott of North Versailles. "Pretend that your cars are being stolen right now. We need these buses."
"How are we going to get to doctors' offices? How are young people going to get to school?" Kimberly Spencer, also of North Versailles, said.
Many Mon Valley residents will be forced to rely on jitneys, she said. "The jitney drivers are eating this up," Spencer said. "They're going to get rich. They're waiting for us to lose our services --- they're going to charge us extra money and we don't have it.
"The powers that be --- y'all got to resolve something," she said. "If you stop our transportation, there's going to be a war."
. . .
Back in the days when they used to have weekly boxing matches at The Palisades, they also used to have roller skating.
Someone should have told Steve Bland. At least he wouldn't have looked so helpless. He have known that there was a long history at The Palisades of people going around in circles without finding an exit, and then falling down on their rear ends.
And unless someone arrives quickly with nothing short of a miracle, roller skates may be the only way that Mon Valley residents who don't own cars can get from town to town.
Category: default || By jt3y
It's your chance to speak out on the planned Port Authority service cuts --- which would eliminate all local service around McKeesport and neighboring communities as well as some trips to Pittsburgh.
Tonight's hearing at the Palisades starts at 4 p.m. It's one of nine public hearings on the transit changes, which would include a fare increase to either $2 or $2.50.
Speakers are limited to three minutes each. Pre-registration is suggested by calling (412) 566-5437 or TTY for the speech and hearing impaired at (412) 231-7007.
The next nearby hearing will be held from 5 to 9 p.m. Feb. 7 at Memorial Hall on Route 88 in Castle Shannon. If you cannot attend, call (412) 566-5335 to leave your comments.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
4 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Palisades Ballroom
501 Water St.
Category: default || By jt3y
This is an update from the WMCK storm center. The following schools are closed today:
Category: default || By jt3y
I was sick a lot as a kid --- mostly allergy-related stuff --- but if truth be known, I probably could have went to school on several of those occasions. (Has the statute of limitations run out, or is there a chance I might have detention? The mind reels.) Lord knows I've dragged myself to work in worse shape than the headache-stuffy head-fever stuff that often kept me out of class as a child.
I don't remember what kept me home from school on Jan. 22, 1987, nor do I remember what I was watching on TV that morning --- probably some garbage. What was on at 11 a.m. weekday mornings besides "The Price is Right"? Maybe I was watching "Price is Right," but I doubt it, because I had to be watching NBC.
Because I saw it.
R. Budd Dwyer's suicide.
And as far as I know, WPXI-TV (an NBC affiliate) was the only station in Pittsburgh to show the video, and they only showed it at noon.
Anyway, I didn't notice any news organizations marking the anniversary yesterday until I saw an item in last night's Daily News under "this date in history." In fact, Google News turns up only two stories in the entire state --- and one is a blog entry from the editor of the Delaware County Times, the other is a TV listing about a panel discussion on PCN featuring KDKA radio's Tony Romeo and Dennis Barbagello, former Harrisburg correspondent for the Tribune-Review.
I don't think I have to repeat the particulars, but just in case, Budd Dwyer was the state treasurer. In 1986, a federal jury in Williamsport convicted Dwyer and the head of the state Republican Party of 11 counts of bribery for accepting $300,000 kickbacks from a California computer company that was awarded a state contract. (I'm not reciting this from memory --- I looked it up in the New York Times archive.)
Dwyer was supposed to be sentenced on the morning of Jan. 22, 1987, and he called a press conference in his office at the state capital. Reporters arrived assuming that he intended to announce his resignation.
Instead, Dwyer, "red-faced and sweating" (again quoting the Times) got in front of the crowd and for a half hour, "protested that he was innocent and criticized some people who had been connected with his conviction, and included news organizations that had reported it."
And then he picked up a manila envelope and reached inside.
I can see it like it was yesterday, and although I know the clips are available on the Internet (go look 'em up for yourself --- I'm not linking to them) I don't need to see it again. I've never watched it again. Once was enough.
I don't even know why I watched. I can't remember who Channel 11 was using to anchor the noon news then --- maybe Ron Jaye? --- but I can clearly remember them warning viewers that the footage was graphic, and that we should consider sending children out of the room.
Well, I was home alone, and I was not about to send myself out of the room.
You actually didn't see much blood. You didn't see much of anything. He put the gun in his mouth (very awkwardly --- as we found out later, it was a .357 Magnum) with one hand, and waved several people away with the other hand. Some yelled, "No, Budd, don't do it." God, I remember how he had to stretch his mouth to open it around the pistol's barrel.
Then there was a loud noise, and Dwyer jerked up in the air and fell down. I seem to remember the camera panning down to him lying on the floor, but I can't be sure. I remember calling my mother at work, but I seem to remember being more surprised than horrified.
What was served by showing Dwyer's suicide on TV? I don't know. I couldn't answer that question then, and I can't now. By Williams, then the news operations manager of WPXI said it was "an historic event" about an "important man," but the station didn't show the video at 6 p.m. It didn't become less historic six hours later, and yet they didn't show it.
Personally, I can't see any journalistic value in it, but then again I was told by several editors that I have an "attitude problem" and that I was a poor journalist.
I know that when the jokes began circulating at school on Monday ("Have you seen the new Budd Dwyer commemorative coin?" someone would say, and hand you a metal washer) I didn't find them very funny.
I could imagine being Budd Dwyer's son; it wasn't bad enough that your dad had been convicted of a crime. Now, all he'd be remembered for was being "the guy who shot himself on TV." (Take a look at Dwyer's Wikipedia entry if you don't believe me. The first sentence? He was "a former Pennsylvania politician who, on the morning of January 22, 1987, committed suicide by shooting himself in the mouth with a handgun during a televised press conference.")
So, maybe I learned a little something by watching after all. Maybe I learned something that day about other people's feelings, and trying to be sensitive to them --- especially the family members of people who have done horrible things. That didn't always serve me well as a reporter, either.
I wonder what would have happened to Budd Dwyer if he hadn't killed himself. Would someone have pardoned him? Would he have been paroled? He might have even rehabilitated himself. Former state Attorney General Ernie Preate has. He did 14 months in federal prison for mail fraud, but now he's remarried, has a young child, and is practicing law again and campaigning for sentencing reform.
Maybe that's another lesson --- that situations are rarely as dire as they seem, and that you can survive a public humiliation and move on.
It's a shame that I only learned those lessons after another man lost his life, in compatible color and "videotaped in front of a live audience," 20 years ago yesterday.
Category: default || By jt3y
Boy, this didn't take long:
I snapped this photo on University Drive in Our Fair City at 11 a.m. Saturday. You don't suppose they had the signs already made up and waiting for installation, do you? To quote Bugs Bunny: "Eh ... could be!"
Anyway, in case you missed the news:
Penn State University's campus at McKeesport has a new name.
The western Pennsylvania campus will now be known as Penn State-Greater Allegheny after the board of trustees approved the name change Friday.
The switch "will more readily describe the region served and more accurately reflect the 21st-century mission of the campus," Penn State president Graham Spanier said. (Associated Press via Centre Daily Times)
Category: default || By jt3y
Today, it's a very special episode of Good Government ... On The March! And our fickle finger of fate points at the Allegheny County Airport Authority. As you may have heard, the airport authority (Motto: "Bending over for US Airways for more than 20 years") plans to demolish 15 hangars at the county airport in West Mifflin that it considers old and "uncompetitive" and replace them with 12 spiffy new hangars.
That sounds pretty good until you learn that, er, the county doesn't own the hangars it plans to tear down. These hangars are privately owned by various individuals and companies that base aircraft at AGC.
It seems that the county has been leasing the land to the hangar owners. Originally, the land was on long-term lease, which spurred major companies and private plane owners to invest money in permanent improvements and hire personnel. Several years ago, the county announced that it would only renew the rental contracts on a month-by-month basis.
"Ah!" I hear you say. "But the county plans to compensate the owners of the hangars for their losses, right?"
Au contraire, propeller-heads. The county's attitude is "take it and git." Decades of private investment will be destroyed; many of the hangars are being vacated this month. Tenants have until May 1 to leave the premises.
The Allegheny County Airport Authority says that the 12 new hangars (to be built by Voyager Jet Center, one of the charter companies with a base at AGC) would be the "first new development" at the West Mifflin field in "at least 25 years." But that's a little disingenuous, since the county was only renewing leases on a monthly basis --- and if you owned a hangar at the airport, would you invest any more money under those circumstances?
It gets even worse for the taxpayers of West Mifflin Borough and school district. Right now the hangar owners pay real-estate property taxes, but after the Voyager hangars are erected, the airport authority will ask the county to make them tax-exempt. West Mifflin officials are already engaged in a messy tax tug-of-war (largely of their own creation) with Kennywood Park; they've asked for county officials to meet with them to discuss the airport hangars and have gotten no satisfaction, according to the Post-Gazette.
This comes, of course, after years of neglect at Allegheny County Airport, and several service cuts, including the closure in 2004 of one runway and the airport's fire station. The latter move shifted the burden of fire protection onto West Mifflin Borough --- which, of course, is now going to take it in the shorts again with the loss of the property tax revenue.
The airport authority says the changes are necessary to attract business to Allegheny County Airport (already one of the busiest in Pennsylvania), but many of the hangar owners being chased away say they're going to other fields in Westmoreland County (Rostraver, after all, is only a few air miles away).
And although Kent George, executive director of the airport authority, says the county will offer "incentives" to get the planes back, it doesn't seem likely that someone who's had thousands of dollars of investment destroyed by a land grab would ever want to do business with Allegheny County again.
Not to mention the fact that the airport authority plans to double the rent, according to pilots and plane owners interviewed by Lynn Cullen on WPTT (1360) this past Tuesday.
George says that the airport authority is just trying to reverse "bad management of the past" and restore "professionalism" to the operation of Allegheny County Airport. Well, who has been running the Allegheny County Airport Authority (and before that, the county Aviation Department) for the past nine years? Why, step forward, Kent George!
On behalf of hundreds of private pilots and airplane owners, and thousands of West Mifflin taxpayers, the Tube City Almanac salutes the Allegheny County Airport Authority for its unfailing ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Your unswerving devotion to shooting yourself in the foot has made you another sterling example of Good Government ... On The March!
. . .
To Do This Weekend: If you're not a hangar owner who's moving this weekend, there's country line dancing tonight at the Palisades, Fifth Avenue at Water Street. Boot-scoot your way to a phone and call (412) 678-6979. ... On Saturday, drop by the Bost Building, East Eighth Avenue in Homestead and see the exhibit "Masters of Their Domain: Little Steel, 1750-Present." Call (412) 464-4020 ... And if you think you're funny, the McKeesport Little Theater is having open auditions for its upcoming performance of the play "Curious Savage." That's at the theater, 1614 Coursin St., from 7 to 9 p.m. Sunday and Monday. You should be prepared to deliver a one to two minute comic monologue. Call (412) 673-1100.
Category: default || By jt3y
First things first: The other day I met Ellen Show, who coordinates volunteer activities at the McKeesport Heritage Center. Show is one of a group of people who is preparing a picture history of the city for Arcadia Publishing.
Most of the photos are coming from the Heritage Center's own files, though a few have been contributed by other groups. (Mrs. Show is disappointed that a request for submissions mailed to local churches, for instance, elicited only one response. Frankly, I am too --- but that's a story for another time.)
Anyway, they still need a photo of one prominent McKeesport landmark --- the notorious cobblestones and wooden shacks of Brick Alley, Our Fair City's infamous red-light district of the 1930s, '40s, '50s and '60s.
Brick Alley (which I think was part of Strawberry Alley, but you'll forgive me for not having actually been there) was home to houses of ill-repute and patrolled nightly by ladies engaged in the world's oldest profession (no, not farming).
The houses of prostitution were an open secret throughout the Mon-Yough area, and when people talk of "corruption" in McKeesport during the postwar boom era, they're often referring to the city's tolerance of places like Brick Alley. Some police officers tended to look the other way (or so I'm told), and it was widely assumed that several city officials were on the take from the madams and pimps.
You can point some fingers, I suppose, at those of us who tolerated Brick Alley as a necessary evil and weren't outraged at the idea of the sex trade being openly conducted on Downtown streets.
On the other hand, given the concentration of business, churches, bars and prostitutes in Downtown McKeesport in the 1950s and '60s, it might have been the only city where you could get a job, get drunk, get laid and get religion in the same two blocks.
(If that's not a bustling city, I don't know what is. Hey, Richard Florida measures a city's vitality based on the number of Internet cafes and coffeehouses. I don't think my idea is that dumb.)
Occasionally, county detectives or the district attorney's office would stage a "vice raid" and round up the johns and hookers, the Daily News and the Pittsburgh papers would come out and take photos, everyone would be hauled before a magistrate ... and the following night, Brick Alley was back to normal.
For a slightly fictionalized account of life in Brick Alley (and of vice generally) in McKeesport and vicinity during the 1960s, I highly recommend David Chacko's novel of the same name.
Though I'm not sure when Brick Alley itself disappeared, I suspect it was during one of the many redevelopment projects that happened when the railroad tracks were removed in 1970. Supposedly, the late Al Julius played a key role in finally getting the street cleared of hookers by hammering city and county officials in commentaries over KQV radio.
Prostitution and vice haven't disappeared, of course --- and probably never will --- but a check of the police blotter any given day is a pretty reliable indicator that the cops aren't looking the other way, either.
Anyway, my point --- and I did have one --- is that Mrs. Show and the other volunteers have only been able to find a single, not-very-good photo of Brick Alley. I doubt that many patrons of Brick Alley took a camera with them, because if you did try to take a picture in those days, the resultant beatings tended to ruin the film. But if you know where one's available, email me, and I'll put you in touch with her.
Also, the Heritage Center is taking pre-orders for the book, which is slated for publication this summer. The cost will be $20 plus tax, and money will be due at delivery. Call (412) 678-1832 or email mckheritage@yahoo.com.
By the way: The video documentary of the life of pioneering woman airline pilot Helen Richey is on sale right now at the Heritage Center. Produced by Andrea Naipus and Brian Grundy and funded by the Wivagg Foundation, it's available on DVD or VHS for $20.
. . .
In Other Business: As reported by the Almanac back in November, demolition is underway at Eastland Mall in North Versailles. The News reported last week that asbestos abatement was recently completed.
A visit earlier this week revealed that the mall has been surrounded by a fence to keep out visitors (and "midnight plumbers," I assume), and cranes and backhoes are now tearing down the outlying buildings.
The newest rumor to reach the Almanac is that the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center is eyeing the property for some sort of an outpatient surgical center serving UPMC McKeesport and Braddock hospitals, but I have no confirmation on that.
The website for Benderson Development Co., the real-estate company that controls the Eastland property, has a brochure online (PDF) for something called "Eastland Centre," an office-retail-warehouse complex with "200,000 square feet" on one floor and "parking for 6,000 cars," "strategically located near major interstates ... just 10 miles from Downtown Pittsburgh."
The brochure strongly implies that the "Eastland Centre" already exists, so I'm wondering if they simply plan to tear down most of the outlying buildings at the mall and gut the old Gimbels store for renovations. The rendering, indeed, looks suspiciously like Gimbels with some new windows punched through the sides.
It seems to me that it would be more cost-effective at this point to level the place and start over, but what do I know?
Benderson did not return calls for comment from the News, but here's hoping that they really do have this "Eastland Centre" project in the pipeline. The people of North Versailles have lived with that eyesore on East Pittsburgh-McKeesport Boulevard for far too long.
. . .
Coffee Klatch: It looks like McKeesport is finally getting a coffeehouse, which means that trend is well and truly dead. (Rimshot.)
City administrator Dennis Pittman told the Post-Gazette that a chain coffeehouse is expected to locate in the 11th Ward, next to the new Rite Aid drugstore that will soon be open on the old Reliance Steel Co. site along Walnut Street. (Alert Richard Florida --- we're joining the creative class!) An Aldi supermarket is also to be built.
I'm no fan of fancy, overpriced coffee, but a Starbucks or Caribou would at least provide some indication to the outside world that we're not a bunch of savages out here. The Aldi is a nice alternative supermarket, too, and all of this activity should be most welcome to people in Christy Park, 11th Ward, Haler Heights and Versailles.
Now, would it be too much to ask for a bookstore? How about a Half Price Books? Based on what I've seen at the store on McKnightmare Road, a Half Price Books would do a land-office business in McKeesport.
After all, it offers two things that we in the Mon Valley love (looking at other people's junk and saving money) but it also offers some intellectual stimulation to boot --- and that ain't a bad thing.
That's not the same kind of stimulation that you used to find in Brick Alley, but on the other hand, you don't need penicillin afterwards, either.
Category: default || By jt3y
From the archives of Tube City Online, here's a few select stories from The Valley Independent of April 8, 1968.
Category: default || By jt3y
Apparently prompted by Monday's Almanac, "A New Year's Resolution," an Alert Reader from Yorba Linda, Calif., writes:
I left McKeesport (in June 1962). Downtown died a thousand deaths since then. Among them:
Former mayor Andrew Jakomas's scandal and "banishment" to Miami. Taking out the streetcar tracks, not allowing parking and painting that hideous "artwork" on the pavement of Fifth Avenue. Not rebuilding downtown after The Famous fire. McKeesport's "Finest" not cracking down on the crime downtown. I could go on and on.
Finally, I took my wife back there in '95 to show her my native city. Susie always looks at the positive and pictures her living in all of the places she has visited in the country. McKeesport is the first place where she said she would "never" want to live. We haven't been back since.
Unless McKeesporters wake up and clean house of your crooked politicians, you're doomed to never recover.
It's a shame the G.O.B. couldn't have been used for something --- it was kind of an attractive, funky-looking building, and I was always amused by the cupola on the roof. I was told that the cupola was used by company guards to spy on employees, especially before the plant was unionized in the 1930s, but I have a feeling the uses were more prosaic --- monitoring train movements in the freight yard in front of the plant, for instance.
Category: default || By jt3y
I couldn't find a parking space Downtown the other day.
Normally, I'd be thrilled to not be able to find a parking space in Our Fair City. I would give dearly to see Downtown crowded every single day. I hope that Downtown McKeesport gets so crowded that --- like Yogi Berra said --- "no one goes there anymore."
But Downtown wasn't crowded. No, there actually weren't that many cars around, but I still couldn't find a parking space.
You see, I had to spend about five hours Downtown, so I couldn't park on Fifth Avenue --- the meters there only allow you to park for one hour. I checked the meters on Market Street, but they only go to two hours.
I checked the ramp from Lysle Boulevard to Water Street --- those used to be 10-hour meters, and I usually parked there when I worked at The Daily News. But all of the mechanisms have been removed from those meters, which I suppose means that you can't park there any more. In any case, there weren't any other cars there.
I went to the Sixth Avenue Garage, somewhat reluctantly, since I assumed it would be more expensive. I drove up to the ticket dispenser and hit the button.
Nothing. It was either out of tickets or turned off. I suspect it was turned off, because there was no one in the little booth to collect money --- I guess only leaseholders are allowed to use the Sixth Avenue Garage now.
I drove to "Cox's Corner," the lot across the street from the People's Building. A sign on the booth says to pay the attendant, but I looked all around and didn't find one. Maybe parking is free there now, but I sure didn't want to risk it.
Instead, I drove down to the new city hall (the old National Bank Building) to see if I could park there. Nope! And the Midtown Plaza Garage has been "closed for renovations" for two years, while the Lysle Boulevard Garage is just closed. (You may remember my idea for that --- a park-and-ride garage for Port Authority --- a concept which may become moot if all of the buses are cancelled.)
At this point, I was seriously considering leaving the car on the street and paying a ticket. My last city parking ticket was for $4 (expired meter), and it seemed like a small price to pay to not deal with the aggravation of looking for someplace legal to park.
On a whim, though, I cut down Sheridan Alley and checked the meters between the PNC Bank and Lysle Boulevard. Eureka! Ten hours. And it only took me 20 minutes to find a meter.
How many visitors to Downtown McKeesport are going to try for 20 minutes to find a meter, though? In a business district where two out of every three storefronts is empty, it should not take 20 minutes to find a place to legally park. Hell, it shouldn't take 20 minutes in a crowded business district.
Here's a modest proposal. Anyone from City Hall or the Parking Authority who sees this is welcome to steal it:
Category: default || By jt3y
If you don't like this one, blame the priest who told it during his New Year's sermon. That's where I heard it:
It was the Great Depression, and Clancy was laid off and looking for some way to stay busy. Just after Christmas he went down to talk to Father Murphy.
"Well," said Father Murphy, "the vacant lot next to the church is full of weeds and junk and garbage. I suppose if you've time, you could haul away the trash and clean that lot."
Clancy set to work that January, dragging old tires and broken boards and all sorts of debris out of the lot. Next he cut down the overgrowth, dug out the rocks, and turned over the soil. In the spring he planted row after row of vegetables --- tomatoes, lettuce, cabbage, corn --- and that summer he began distributing the spoils to the hungry families in the neighborhood.
Father Murphy was astonished and gratified, and one afternoon, when he spotted Clancy on his hands and knees, pulling weeds, he went over to greet him.
"Clancy," Father Murphy said, "what has happened here is a miracle. Isn't it marvelous what the Lord can do?"
Dripping with sweat, Clancy leapt to his feet. "Aye," he said, "and do ye remember what this land looked like when He was working it by Himself?"
Category: default || By jt3y
News Item:
The Port Authority today proposed two different fare increases and fare structures and the elimination of more than half of its bus routes to help it address the biggest funding deficit in its 43-year-history. (Post-Gazette)
Category: default || By jt3y
And now, a commentary from KHB-TV Vice President and General Mangler John G. Econoline.
In this editorial taped last week, Mr. Econoline addresses the Penguins' desire for a new arena and the slot machine license awarded to Majestic Star.
The views of Mr. Econoline do not necessarily represent the views of this website or its mismanagement. For a transcript, learn to write really fast. Responsible replies are unlikely.
P.S. Mike Madison has a slightly less curmudgeonly take on the Pens' arena --- and other ridiculous nonsense raised by a ridiculous and nonsensical Post-Gazette op-ed --- at Pittsblog.
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