[PRCo] River crossings

[Bob Rathke]

Fred,

One big difference between Germans crossing the Allegheny River in the 
1800's and people crossing the Rio Grande today....I suspect that most - 
maybe all - of the people crossing the Allgeheny River were legal immigrants 
who in the quest to improve their lives abided by the laws of the land.

Bob 11/18/09

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Schneider Fred" <fwschneider at comcast.net>
To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
Sent: Wednesday, November 18, 2009 1:05 PM
Subject: [PRCo] Re: 22 Crosstown


> Jeanne Cerra ... a German who married an Italian ... is my favorite
> waitress at Max's Allegheny Tavern on the North Side ... good German
> food.   I've been going there since the 1980s.   I remember when
> Jeanne was pregnant.   Last time I went in for dinner ... some time
> in 2009 ... she game me a big hug and announced that the daughter she
> had way back then is getting married.
>
> Well, Jeanne is also a fountain of knowledge about the North Side.
> She and her husband live up on Troy Hill.   She tells an interesting
> story about how they had to lie about her grandfather's ancestry to
> get him into the school on the North Side.   Suspect it might have
> been a parochial school but I never asked.   The boy was German and
> that was during the period when those terrible krauts were moving
> from downtown and taking over what had been an English / Welsh area
> in Allegheny.   We look back now with favoritism on those Germans but
> it wasn't quite that way when they first cross the river.   Sort of
> like the widest river the world ... you know ... like people who
> speak Spanish crossing the Rio Grande.
>
>
> On Nov 18, 2009, at 10:28 AM, Barry, Matthew R wrote:
>
>> Great memories!
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org
>> [mailto:pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org] On Behalf Of
>> Bob Rathke
>> Sent: Tuesday, November 17, 2009 10:06 PM
>> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
>> Subject: [PRCo] Re: 22 Crosstown
>>
>> I also relate the North Avenue trolley scene to medicine:
>>
>> In the 1940's, our family physician was was Dr. Berkowitz whose
>> office was
>> in the light facade building behind the black car in the photos. He
>> was
>> multi-specialty, making house calls for our childhood illnesses,
>> being my
>> dad's surgeon, and my mothers obstetrician. One day in 1947 I fell
>> on a
>> broken glass bottle at West View Park, and that evening was taken by a
>> 10-West View trolley to Dr. Berkowitz's office to be stitched up (I
>> still
>> have the 3" scar on my right palm). He must have worked 18 hours a
>> day.
>>
>> By the early 1960's Dr. Berkowitz retired, and his son - an
>> ophthalmologist - took over his office space and performed eye
>> exams for our
>> family. Then, in the mid-60's that location became the office of
>> our new
>> family physician, Dr. Frank Santora, whose previous office was
>> above the
>> drug store on the northwest corner of North Avenue and Federal St.
>> (the
>> building seen above and behind the roll sign on 1464).
>>
>> From the 1880's through the 1920's my (maternal) great grandfather
>> had a
>> tailor shop on E. Ohio St. at James St. (I have his tailor shears
>> and a wood
>> coat hanger imprinted with his shop's name and address) . His
>> oldest son
>> also had a tailor shop on East St. near North Ave. that lasted
>> until he
>> passed on in 1953.
>>
>> And a couple of blocks east of there my (paternal) great
>> grandfather was
>> fire engineer for the City of Allegheny from 1859-1900.
>>
>> I have photos of them all.
>>
>> Bob 11/17/09
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Schneider Fred" <fwschneider at comcast.net>
>> To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
>> Sent: Monday, November 16, 2009 4:47 PM
>> Subject: [PRCo] Re: 22 Crosstown
>>
>>
>>> In December 1953 my maternal grandfather was apparently running
>>> downtown to catch a 8 car home and the stress caused a heart
>>> attack.   He got off at this corner, apparently because of Allegheny
>>> General Hospital being a block down the street.   He never made it.
>>> He collapsed here and the policeman came to tell my grandmother.   He
>>> only made it a few doors down to Aberly's Funeral Home.
>>>
>>> His father, an immigrant from Germany who spoke limited English like
>>> most immigrants then and now, lived downtown on Virgin Alley (later
>>> renamed without widening it to Oliver Avnue).   When the trade for
>>> his tailor shop moved to the north side (norside?), he did to
>>> settling on Sandusky Street, behind the camera 2/3rds of a block, and
>>> then up the hill to the the right a half block.   House is still
>>> there across the street from the hospital.   He came here because he
>>> was sick and tired of fighting other people's wars and immediately
>>> wound up in our civil war as a condition of getting U. S.
>>> citizenship.
>>>
>>> So much for memories of the North Side.
>>>
>>> On Nov 16, 2009, at 5:02 PM, Barry, Matthew R wrote:
>>>
>>>> Here is a pic from Historic Pittsburgh, dated August 1946, car 1464
>>>> on the 22 Crosstown route, North Avenue, just past Federal.
>>>> Matt
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> -- Attached file removed by Ecartis and put at URL below --
>>>> -- Type: image/jpeg
>>>> -- Desc: crosstown_AUG1946.jpg
>>>> -- Size: 77k (79367 bytes)
>>>> -- URL : http://lists.dementia.org/files/pittsburgh-railways/
>>>> crosstown_AUG1946.jpg
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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