[PRCo] Re: Verona Road at Frankstown 1936

Fri May 29 19:26:54 EDT 2009

You should never say Thanks for the Memories because some damn fool  
might just add more to it.

I remember being told that after World War II, the two fastest  
growing municipalities in Pennsylvania were Levittown, Bucks County  
and Penn Hills Township, Allegheny County.   But much of that came  
after I left.

My parents remembered Deere Brothers running school buses from  
Universal to Pittsburgh and Wilkinsburg via Frankstown Road.   I  
remember in 1955 that he had escalated up to 35 foot air-ride GM  
diesels and Mr. Deere, as my mother called him, was one of a handful  
of profitable carriers that actually fought inclusion into the Port  
Authority.   He was making money for the same reason that Merrit  
Taylor was churning over dollars in Delaware and Chester Counties  
with his buses and trolleys .... location, location, location.

But what is a suburb.   It is nothing more than the next ring beyond  
the urban core that we are now filling up.   At least that is a  
definition that works for me.   In the aughts, teens and twenties  
there were trolley suburbs within the city of Pittsburgh.

Penn Hills was simply the suburb of my youth.   Dad had a aerial  
photograph of Crescent Hills, where we lived, that Meadow Gold dairy  
was giving away.   About one out of every four lots was filled so it  
must have been exposed in the very late 1930s.

There were no major stores out there.   At the top of Crescent Hills  
Drive on Frankstown Road, there was a small frame convenience  
store ... the 7/11 or Turkey Hill or Get and Go of its era.   Seems  
to me it had a soda fountain in one end.   Eastwood was the nearest  
major grocery store.

Wilkinsburg was vibrant.   If we went out to dinner on Saturday  
night, Wilkinsburg was the place to go.

Doctors made house calls.  But he also stayed in his office until he  
had seen the last patient in much the same manner that barbers  
work.   You go, sit in the waiting room, and when he gets to you, you  
see him.   Our family doctor's office was on the main drag in  
Swissvale.  Now remember that this was before the era of two, three  
or four car families.   Mom never drove a car.  So if it was my  
mother who had to visit the doctor or my sister, then dad had to  
driver her there.   Then he had the problem of entertaining me for an  
hour or two.  Well, my father was sort of a closet railfan.   Not as  
nuts as me though he did makes some models in OO gauge and he was  
charter subscriber to Model Railroader.   So, when they were in the  
doctor's office, dad would introduce me to sitting along the PRR in  
Edgewood or Swissvale or up on the high level platforms in  
Wilkinsburg.  I remember getting scared of a fast moving train and  
running into the enclosed platform shelter.   I guess all kids do  
that at age 6 or 7.   I also remember him parking and killing time  
along Ardmore Blvd. in Forest Hills one night.  I wonder if that  
helped to spawn an interest in trolleys?  It might be or it could  
also be his tale of being overtaken as be a fast moving Ohio Electric  
car as he drove his aunt's 1925 Chevy (that was pre Govm't Motors  
car) along the National Pike.

You want a haircut?  For a while dad frequented a barber in Oakmont  
until he found Charlie in East Liberty.   Rather strange isn't  
that ... fits right in with the commercial, "Get Wildroot Cream Oil,  
Charlie."   I used to assemble Strombecker wooden models that I  
acquired in a model store on Penn Avenue in East Liberty.   Seems to  
me that East Liberty might have had seven movie palaces at that  
time.  I remember going there once to see something.

What about the Miracle Mile in Monroeville or the shops on Rodi Road  
just off Frankstown?   They were built after we moved out in 1949.    
Monroeville was where you went on Sunday to milk from a farmer if you  
ran out.   The other option was the man who ran Stoner's Dairy on the  
hill between Coal Hollow Road and Lime Hollow Road.   Rodi Road?    
That's where the old Morrow School was ... one of those classic eight  
room yellow brick schools.   I went there for first and second grade.

It was all country out there up until we moved out in 1949.

Yes, I can remember when the Parkway East and West were built.   I  
can also remember that you drove out old route 30 to get to the  
turnpike at Irwin.

But John Swindler would have to tell you about West Penn.   My only  
memory of that was conning my dad into letting me ride 289 for a few  
blocks in Jeannette just after I turned 12 and a few months before it  
quit.   It was a Saturday morning and the car had a full seated  
load.  But apparently there were not enough passengers at all hours.

In was the next year that I finally managed to break away.    We were  
in Pittsburgh for the obligatory Easter vacation week at grandma's  
home.   Dad had given me enough money to buy two interurban zone fare  
books.   I rode to Roscoe and Washington on my own.    Come summer we  
were on vacation in Montreal.   Dad was asked to solve a corporate  
problem between his plant in Lancaster and the Armstrong Cork plant  
in Montreal.   (He never did get that day back.)   Mom took us on the  
sightseeing tour car around Montreal thinking that would get trolleys  
out of this 13-year-old's system.   Was she ever in for a rude  
awakening.   By lunch time she apparently tired of my wining and told  
me to "be gone" but I had to be back a intersection on Rue Ste.  
Catherine at 5:00 that afternoon.   I took off like wild for the  
Montreal and Southern Counties.  When I got back she wasn't there.    
Mom was almost a half hour late.   I took having my own children to  
realize that sometimes it is better to be late yourself than be on  
time and risk worrying about where your children are.   I had one  
more trolley ride on that trip and that was on a former wooden New  
York or Staten Island trailer on the Quebec Railway for the eight  
miles from Montmorency Falls into Quebec.    That was one of hell of  
a ride.

Funny thing about growing up.   In your youth you tend to have tunnel  
vision.   I've spent a lot of money in my later years seeing all  
those places that I didn't want to see when my parents were dragging  
me around on family vacations because the trains and trolleys were  
all important then.

On May 29, 2009, at 9:59 AM, Barry, Matthew R wrote:

> Great memories!   Thank you for sharing!
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org  
> [mailto:pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org] On Behalf Of  
> Schneider Fred
> Sent: Thursday, May 28, 2009 9:30 PM
> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
> Subject: [PRCo] Re: Verona Road at Frankstown 1936
>
> Correct.   Brain is at low energy state Art.
>
>
>
> On May 28, 2009, at 7:43 PM, ArtS32 at aol.com wrote:
>
>> I don't think it was Rosedale, I believe this was Eastwood.
>>
>> Art Swartz
>>
>>
>> In a message dated 5/28/2009 6:25:17 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
>> fwschneider at comcast.net writes:
>> 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
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>>
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