[PRCo] Re: Verona Road at Frankstown 1936

[Schneider Fred]

Amazing.   Simply amazing.
I am sending this to my sister as well.  She might enjoy clicking on  
the link which should appear in red when she gets it.

We grew up in Penn Township, later Penn Hills.   Well, I spent nine  
years there and she was there for the first three and half years.    
She moved back and is living off Penn Avenue above Wilkinsburg,  
perhaps no more than 2 miles from the location of the photo in the link.

I was born three years after the Hulton - Oakmont - Verona -  
Wilkinsburg trolley line was removed.   All that I can remember is  
remnant of the line, i.e. Laketon Road shuttle.   I can vividly  
recall a day in 1949 when my sister tried jumping off the foot board  
of my parent's bed head first on to the floor instead the mattress.    
I spent several hours waiting in the car of a family friend parked  
outside a hospital or doctor's office in Wilkinsburg.   The shuttle  
car went by many times and that was the day I remember observing, at  
age 8, that Pittsburgh Low-Floor cars had arch bar trucks.    My  
sister, by the way, did suffer a fractured skull from her sky diving  
attempt and spent quite a bit of time in a hospital that year.

But back to the picture below.   I don't have a map here.   Was that  
neighborhood not known as Rosedale?   I remember that there was a  
food store there, perhaps a Krogers or an A&P where we did most of  
grocery shopping.   It was situated on the south side of Frankstown  
just to the east of Verona.  I suspect that the photographer was  
standing almost in front of the grocery store.   Sometime after World  
War II they offered a promotional gimmick that I suspect management  
figured would not cost them anything.  If you can bring in the cover  
from the first issue (vol. 1 no. 1) of Life magazine, you will get a  
week's worth of groceries free.   That was probably about a $5.00  
value at that time.   Maybe a little more.   My father marched in  
with the magazine.

Does that suggest that being a pack rat runs in the family?  The run  
of Life magazines was finally destroyed about 1962.   I think it was  
helping to cause the center of the house to sink and pull ends away  
from what was becoming a free standing chimney.

Thanks Matt for forwarding it.

Fred Schneider





On May 26, 2009, at 3:14 PM, Barry, Matthew R wrote:

> I have only ever seen a photograph of a streetcar with a VERONA  
> destination sign, and also, a photograph of the trestle that once  
> crossed over Coal Hollow Road at Verona Road, but no other pictures  
> that documented trackage somewhere on the line.    Taken in 1936, I  
> imagine the cars were still running over this trackage since the  
> line wasn't abandoned until the following year - I think cutback to  
> Laketon Road.   The photo is from the Historic Pittsburgh site, and  
> here is the description:
> Title: Atlantic White Flash
> Date: October 6, 1936
> Creator: Pittsburgh City Photographer
> Description: An Auto Shop and Barber Shop at the intersection of  
> Verona Road and Frankstown Avenue. Looking west from Verona Road.
>
> Matt
>
>
> -- Attached file removed by Ecartis and put at URL below --
> -- Type: image/jpeg
> -- Desc: verona_frankstown_Oct1936.jpg
> -- Size: 64k (66521 bytes)
> -- URL : http://lists.dementia.org/files/pittsburgh-railways/ 
> verona_frankstown_Oct1936.jpg
>
>
>