[PRCo] Fw: North side details

[Harold G.]

-----Original Message-----
From: Harold G. <transitmgr2 at earthlink.net>
To: ways at dementia.org <ways at dementia.org>; pittsburgh-rai <pittsburgh-rai>
Date: Saturday, March 05, 2005 10:53 AM
Subject: North side details


Bob and all
 
I never lived on the North Side but it was a neighborhood I
often visited.   Starting in l950 when I moved to Pgh and
lived in Dormont.  I was introduced to it by good friend
Charles Dengler.  I went with him in church on madison.
 
I used PRC to shop at the busy North Side district before
Allegheny Center.
 
Later my masonic lodge was a block off of Federal St. (It
is now in Avalon)  I went to makeup Rotary at the NS Rotary
on Fridays.  Harmony and Community buses passed thru
the NS frequently.  I used to see Dengler delivering the
mail on East Ohio Street.
 
If I was out and about on weekends, I would use the Isalys
on East Ohio Street.   And there was a good german restaurant
on a corner nearby.
 
Between Allegheny Center, East Street highway and the
stadium and ethnic change, it all ended.  South Side has
become a viable place again because it has none of these
"improvements"
 
Bob, thanks for sharing.
 
I came from Manhattan.   My mother's family lived on west 36th
street from the Civil War.   My father's father moved to 36th
street in the l890's and he was born there.  They both lived
on 36th street but did not know each other.  The met at a
church picnic after she had moved to Hudson County, NJ
After marriage, they lived in Hudson County where I was
born.  In the depression, we moved back to 36th Street and
I lived there thru college and then moved to Pgh.  The grade
school I attended was on 35th Street (now site of a police station)
One teacher there had my father as a student.  We went to the
Presbyterian Church on 36th Street.  Ninth Ave had every store
you could think of.
 
In short, there were neigjhborhoods in New York City that lasted
for many decades.  All this in the shadow of the Empire State
Bldg, Macys and Penn station.  During the war I was an air raid
warden messenger in a zone that included all 3!  
 
Building Dyer Ave to connect with the new Lincoln tunnel ended
some of this.   But streets not affected by the tunnel have not
really changed.  I have a friend living on East 9th Street in the
East Village and there is not a new building on his block but its
a viable neighborhood.
 
Mots European cities have not had this urge to redevelop.  Thank God.
 
Harold Geissenheimer