Category: General Nonsense, Mon Valley Miscellany || By

I finally replaced the photo on the Tube City Online homepage with something a bit more suitable to the season.

Since it's been kind of a mild winter, there haven't been too many opportunities to shoot local scenes in snow. All of these pictures are from last year.

Here's Our Fair City, shot from Port Vue.

The W.D. Mansfield Bridge, lower 10th Ward and Glassport, seen from Skyline Drive in West Mifflin.

By the way, I stood up there for 20 minutes last winter, holding a long, 300-mm lens and freezing my butt off as I watched this towboat.

And I'd like to thank the jerk who blew his horn as he drove past, trying to spoil the picture. I hope he hits a pothole while he's picking his nose.

Finally, here's Third Ward and the Youghiogheny River. That stuff floating on the water is ice, not sewage (no thanks to the Elizabeth Township Sanitary Authority).

. . .

Business News: Several people emailed to ask about a real-estate listing in the papers two weeks ago, listing a $2 million transaction on Seventh Avenue, Downtown. (Some of them thought you could buy Downtown for $2 million, which is just mean.)

A little detective work reveals it's the state Department of Public Welfare office on Sixth Avenue. The front entrance of that building, and the parking lot, are both on Sixth, across from the parking garage, but it's all part of a larger parcel that goes through to Seventh Avenue, according to the Allegheny County Recorder of Deeds, and that's how they've listed the property.

The seller was local businessman David Sunstein, president and CEO of city-based Pennsylvania Coach Lines, while the buyer was a New Jersey-based real estate partnership called "220 South 6th Street LP." Sale price was $2.2 million.

State agencies in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware have no listing for a limited partnership called "220 South 6th Street," and the address that the county lists for tax bills is that of a mortgage broker in Howell, N.J., which doesn't tell me much.

. . .

Radio Killed the Website Star: On a local message board, an alert reader suggests that Tube City Online should take over WPTT (1360), at least at night, to talk about McKeesport.

First, thanks for the nice words, reader, but make sure you spell my name right. This is a toyger. It has more hair than I do. It's also cleaner. Those are the main differences.

Second, I'm part of a group that wants to create a local, Mon Valley-oriented public radio station. If someone from WPTT wanted to talk to us, we'd sure talk to them. But I don't think they'd realistically be interested.

In the past, we approached two commercial radio station owners about buying or leasing their stations; the amounts of money they wanted for even struggling AM stations would blow your mind (think high six figures) and weren't realistic.

That's why we'd like to go the LPFM route. Now, since Penn State Greater Allegheny also would like an LPFM, we've asked them twice over the past year if we can help them in any way, by raising money, organizing volunteers, etc.

So far, Penn State has not responded, but we're still open to a partnership. (If someone from PSGA wants to get in touch with me, my email is j togyer at g mail dot com.)

Anyway, I appreciate the mention, but I think there's a better chance of Terry Lee coming back to do overnights on 1360 than me.