[PRCo] Re: McKeesport

[Fred Schneider]

Very interesting..... 

I loved the pictures but after about 15 minutes I was running my head into a brick wall.  Please understand, I don't need to just look at trolleys or trains.   I can look a good history of a town like McKeesport, if done right, and really enjoy it.  

Honestly, the pictures are good.

Just too many of them!   

It's like looking at Charlie Dengler's Pittsburgh Railways pictures.   (Charlie attempted to take a picture of every car PRC owned, all with the car filling the entire negative and no background.)  Grisly!   

In the 2010 census, the City of McKeesport is down to 19,731 people, slightly more than one-third of its peak of more than 55,000 in 1940.    The actual peak, if a census had been done, might have been 1942 before we began drafting servicemen.  The loss of the Tube Works and the open hearths over in Duquense and other steel mills caused the city to literally fall apart.   The honorable mayor was demanding that Pittsburgh Railways get rid of the streetcars in the 1950s in order to bring back downtown because he felt that was the problem.   Well, I think his problem then was the steel workers had enough money to move to the hilltops outside of town and do their shopping at the new mall on Lincoln Way east of East Pittsburgh.   But then in the 1980s the bottom fell out of steel, the mall closed, the rest of the city collapsed.  That whole story needs to be told.     

I remember staying in the Sheraton Hotel on Lyle Blvd about 1984 on state business ... my boss decided to go out in the middle of the night because he couldn't sleep.   The desk clerk told Dave it was OK if he was dumb enough to walk around the city at night on his own but they were not going to unlock the door and let anyone back in before 7 a.m.   At that time they were attempting to sell the Sheraton to the city or county to convert it to a jail.   It fell through.   I was walking my little orange google man down Lyle Blvd a few minutes ago and I discovered the former Sheraton is now called "Senior Care Plaza."   You can be sure they can find a little money taking care of old people but there are no longer business travelers coming to McKeesport.   

It deserves a good portrayal of what happened and why it happened and what changed.

Good is not necessarily taking every picture you have and inflicting it upon the viewers for 25 minutes simply because you have all those pictures and therefore someone must look at them and love them as much as the portrayer does. 

Good is not using every picture you have without explanation of why they are important to the history of the city.

Good is also not experimenting with every different fade and dissolve software mechanism you can possibly use to drive your view to the point of distraction where he wants to throw a shoe through his monitor.

Good is also not using canned, public domain music because someone told you not to have dead air time.     

In my mind, these three films fit in the same category as railfans running trolley museums, antique car nuts running car museums, bottle cap collectors creating museums to their artifacts or doll collectors displaying dolls for your enjoyment.  Far more often than not they come off conveying to the visitor that I love my toys and you must love them too.   That is why I have often said that railfans running trolley museums are often their own worst enemies.   

The man needs to figure out what it is he wants to tell the viewer.   Then he needs to write a script to convey that theme.   And only after he finishes the script should he select the pictures that illustrate that script.   He needs to understand you only pick the best pictures, not everything you can find.    

He might also be well advised to do what the professionals do ... after you write the script, you give it to someone with a good voice and have them dub in the sound because most of do not have the voice to do that.   If you ever bought any of the tapes or DVD's from Transit Gloria Mundi, Carl Schultz has always uses professional narrators because they are easier to understand.   (Carl got some flack once because of one of his choices for the voice over.   He hired his girl friend who was quite talented because she could speak both English and Baltimorese.   The film was about the Baltimore light rail cars and he wanted her to do it in Baltimorese ... there were a lot of people who though it was deliberate put down of women!)   You may recall the stories that most of the silent film actors / actresses never made died once the talkies came to your theaters in the 1930s because they didn't have the right voices.   

He also needs to learn some history of not only McKeesport but some general history and he needs to understand that no matter who you are ... Fred Schneider or the editor of the New York Times, you need a proof reader and an editor to keep you from making stupid misteaks (oops, mistakes).   And that was intended.   Every single one of us that rights (or is that writes)  needs proof readers.   We all make errors.   (Those PCC books by Schneider and Carlson were read by the resident English teacher as well as by the publisher and there were still mistakes that got through.  The worst was renaming a street in Pittsburgh.    I used to admire David P. Morgan for his writing but I think a lot of it was Rosemary Entringer's parochial school background hammering on David and catching his mistakes, and mine, and everyone else's that made Trains magazine so good.)   

At 3:05 in the first of the three tapes, its probably 1948-1952, not the 1960s because the 99 line was not running in the 1960s.

At 5:05, that scene was probably taken in 1952, not the 1930s.   

At 6:42, it is hardly likely that a view with a battle scarred 1939 Chevy right in the foreground would have been taken in the 1930s.   I would buy early to middle 1940s.

At 8:23 ... Second time he used this image.   The 1400s were not delivered until 1942.   Therefore it cannot be in the 1930s.   Note also the preponderance of postwar automobiles.  

At 9:56 ... Second time he used the same picture.   Note the pristine 1948 Ford on the left.   It is probably brand new.   Therefore not 1930s.   

In the second film, he moved the B&O station to "Fifth Avenue near the East End School." 

In the third film he has a new part of town called the Prositution district. 

I leave you with one other story.   My first wife and I stayed in a motel just off route 30 up in East McKeesport back in the 1960s.   I was young, not overly wealthy, living on about $6,000 a year.   There was no way I was going downtown to the Hilton.    The tip off should have been that you checked in at the bar because this motel had no office but it didn't register.
In the middle of the night there people talking outside our door that work up my wife.  Apparently they were trying to find a room for a short term visitor.   The dialogue outside the room that she heard went:

"But you didn't check room 3?"

"Don't need to.   They're legitimate guests in that room."     







On May 15, 2011, at 10:58 AM, Ray wrote:

> I agree the special effects were way overboard.
> 
> You might try clpgh.org to see if these photos
> are online at the Carnegie  library. I wish PTM could do 
> some thing with the University of Pittsburgh
> and their Historic Pittsburgh web site and put their
> collection on line.
> 
> Ray
> 
> 
> May 15, 2011 09:14:33 AM, pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org wrote:
> 
> ===========================================
> 
> Yes, interesting content but the most hellish video
> I have ever watched.  A different special effect every
> photo is massive overkill isn't it.  It is highly
> annoying.  Does the Carnegie library have online
> photos?
> 
> Phil
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ________________________________
> From: Ray 
> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
> Sent: Sat, May 14, 2011 7:21:06 PM
> Subject: [PRCo] McKeesport
> 
> 
> Pretty interesting. Some cool PRCo shots in Part 3. 
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bw4HgtpGMgI&feature=related
> 
> Ray
> 
> 
>