Falling down
The collapse of the Hunter Building illustrates a bigger problem in McKeesport

	The Hunter Livery building on Aug. 6, 1999, a few days before its demise. (Jason Togyer photo)

By Jason Togyer

From street level, it looked like a melted Hershey bar, a 5-story-tall optical illusion, an M.C. Escher drawing come to life. Even kids walking past the old Hunter Livery building could tell that its upper walls looked absurd, bulging into the street and defying gravity.

But to city officials, it was no laughing matter. And after the upper two stories came tumbling down, smashing part of a funeral home and damaging an apartment building, it was left to the city to clean up the mess.

The collapse early on the morning of Aug. 8, 1999 came one day before demolition crews were to begin tearing down the teetering structure; the crane was already on the scene. A last minute insurance snafu for the demolition company kept them from beginning work earlier.

The wall of the 107-year-old building began to bow after heavy rain caused the roof to collapse Aug. 3. City officials closed roads, severed gas lines and other utilities, and evacuated homes. Police guarded the area 24 hours a day, shooing away gawkers and pedestrians for safety reasons.

Their efforts spared the surrounding neighborhood from more damage and, thankfully, there were no injuries.

"They say it could (collapse) at any time," said one patrolman working a 3 to 11 p.m. shift "babysitting the building" as he put it.

His comments were prescient. The structure was leaning periously close to the Hunter-Edmundson-Striffler Funeral Home across the alley -- a successor firm to the livery from which the Hunter building takes its name -- and when the wall collapsed it crushed a two-story office and garage at HES.

Luckily, HES' main building, built 1866, was not damaged.

Constructed as a stable, used later as a Buick and Cadillac dealership, the Hunter building's lower three stories dated to 1892 or 1893. Its upper floors were added a decade later. Though not unique architecturally, the brick and wood structure had unusual detailing around some of its windows that, while crude, showed some influence by the popular works of the day by Richardson or Sullivan.

The building had been empty for several years; most recently, an auto-repair firm occupied the lower floor. Time and neglect ravaged the structure. Many upper windows were broken or hanged open and pigeons flitted into and out of gaping holes.

The decline began after the building was purchased by a corporation which is fronted by local businessman Michael Newman, city officials claim. Newman is a former McKeesport councilman who was embroiled in scandal during the 1970s and is owner of Newman's Landing (a boat launch in the 10th Ward) and Newman Concrete.

He also owns the vacant and decaying Penn-McKee Hotel nearby and, ironically enough, was owner of the building that caused the greatest conflagration in McKeesport history. The Famous Department Store -- which sat on a lot catty-cornered from the Hunter building -- burned in 1976, taking several blocks of McKeesport's business district with it.

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The wall of the Hunter Livery building leans ominously into Strawberry Alley, Aug. 6, 1999. It would collapse two days later. (Jason Togyer photo)

In Downtown Pittsburgh or Squirrel Hill or the North Side, preservationists years ago would have snapped up the Hunter Livery building for reuse.

But within the City of McKeesport, where real-estate prices show few signs of bottoming out, the Hunter building is more proof that the economic recovery propelling the stock market to new heights has largely bypassed the Mon Valley.

Abandoned buildings have spread through the city like a cancer and with no mechanism in place to save them, many of its most significant structures have been lost or are in danger of demolition.

Losses include the 1900s-vintage U.S. Post Office on Walnut Street, torn down in the 1980s after being replaced by a forgettable building next door; St. Mary's German Church on Olive Avenue; part of the McKeesport Water Works; the 1950s Cox's Department Store; and all of the former U.S. Steel National Works subway entrances.

Some of the preservation efforts have not been wise. The main National Tube pipe mill building has been recently altered almost beyond recognition by Regional Industrial Development Corp.; the machine shop was also recycled for new tenants but, happily, less drastically changed.

Threatened structures include several downtown churches; the aforementioned 1927 Penn-McKee Hotel; the old McKeesport Connecting Railroad roundhouse; Baer Bros. Studebaker (currently home to Progressive Music); the National Works general office building (with its cupola on top from where the company could watch employees); and many of the historic homes along Jenny Lind Street, Lincoln Street and Shaw Avenue, an area once known as "Millionaire's Row." An attempt to save and restore the latter homes -- some of which are so deteriorated they are about to be demolished as threats to public health -- is being sparked by a group calling itself McKeesport Historical Society.

Members of the society have told local newspapers that they realize they face an uphill battle.

Barely saved from destruction was the old People's Union Bank building at the corner of Walnut and Fifth avenues. The landmark Victorian skyscraper was about to be closed by Integra Bank before city officials took over its management. Now it struggles to survive in a car-crazy suburban society where upstairs offices or apartments are harder to get rid of than poison ivy.

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Unlike preservation groups in Pittsburgh, which can draw on the deep pockets of wealthy benefactors, McKeesport's money fled to the suburbs or to warmer climes many years ago. And with no large corporate presences any more, there are few underwriters available for risky real-estate investments.

Retail development continues unabated in McKeesport suburbs like White Oak, North Versailles and West Mifflin, where lower taxes, vacant greenspace and few restrictions on zoning or lot sizes allow builders to construct the "big box" stores that modern chains want.

Farther away in Hempfield, Rostraver and North Huntingdon townships, good quality farmland is being paved over for similar purposes.

In the meantime, McKeesport's failed Midtown Mall, only 20 years old, remains mostly empty. Good quality storefronts are also vacant throughout downtown. America's throwaway culture has reached its apex; we are now throwing away our cities, and with them, our rich history, and our sense of place and neighborhood.

And another vacant lot in Downtown McKeesport -- the one where the Hunter building is meeting its end -- will soon be available, but is likely to sit fallow for years.