[PRCo] Re: Fw: North side details

[Harold G.]

Greetings

My former secretary in Pgh was of slovak decent.
Her father came to USA to work in Homestead
works and lived in West Homestead.  Marha
still lives there.  And she has traveled the world.!

A little side humor...US Steel moved a manager from
Slovakia to run the mill in Braddock three years ago.
Its a small world...Martha's father came to work in the
mill..and this man came to run the mill.

Harold Geissenheimer
-----Original Message-----
From: Ken & Tracie <ktjosephson at earthlink.net>
To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
Cc: Scott Greig <sbgreig_m1 at yahoo.com>; Robert Schwerer
<rschwerer at sandiego.gov>; paulwey at freecongress.org
<paulwey at freecongress.org>; Gregory Forster <gforst.1956 at sbcglobal.net>;
FRANK GRILLO <frank-j at webtv.net>; Eugene Kittredge <geno59 at wi.rr.com>;
Michael Loth <barracuda at wi.rr.com>
Date: Saturday, March 05, 2005 12:05 PM
Subject: [PRCo] Re: Fw: North side details


>Off Topic Warning!
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Harold G." <transitmgr2 at earthlink.net>
>
>
>> Most European cities have not had this urge to redevelop.  Thank God.
>
>The day of the average urban dwelling U.S. citizen being guaranteed
>reasonable stability in a given neighborhood for even one generation is
long
>over.
>
>Do Europeans have the same issues with violent, poverty stricken "victim
>class" people being moved into working class and middle class neighborhoods
>by well intended but misguided social programs? Programs which give the
>former the opportunity to prey on the latter, forcing the latter to flee to
>outlying areas in order to recapture the security and quality of life they
>are accustomed to?
>
>I have friends who grew up on Pittsburgh's North Side. Some told me the
>horror stories about "the projects" built below their neighborhood during
>the late 1950s and early 1960s. It started out okay, but by the late 1960s,
>the officials responsible for the housing programs began losing control
over
>this housing project. At first, the crime was confined within the housing
>complex, but it spread into the surrounding  old, established areas.
>
>Only the most politically connected and wealthy can establish themselves in
>a nice neighborhood and have some control over what the local, state or
>federal governments dump upon them!
>
>I am amazed that so many mass transit supporters and environmentalists
align
>themselves politically with people whose social programs destroy good
>quality, high density urban living. The very thing which would be conducive
>to rail transit development. And such development would also protect
>outlying rural areas from urban sprawl.
>
>Try to displace the criminal element and rebuild these "war zones" and you
>are accused of "gentrification." Kick longtime, established homeowners out
>to give their land to either deep pocketed commercial developers or public
>housing projects and it's called "urban renewal."
>
>K.
>
>P.S.- Please do not read anything racist into this! The last neighborhood
we
>had to flee was next to a Section Eight apartment complex full of WHITE
>single parent households....households full of out of control children who
>vandalized and burglarized the longtime homeowners nearby. We were lucky.
>They never bothered us (READ TWO LARGE DOGS!) We got out just in time.
>
>
>