[PRCo] Re: "place curves" - change to McKeesport

[Derrick Brashear]

On Wed, Apr 18, 2012 at 9:01 PM, Fred Schneider <fwschneider at comcast.net> wrote:
> Fifth at Sinclair ... one of the few blocks in downtown McKeesport that still has most of the buildings intact.   Even the two tall buildings are still there.    Look at Bing Maps.   The town is a disaster today.  Even on Bing Maps the parking lots are mostly empty.
>
> Remember in the late 1950s when the mayor of that city thought he might be able to salvage his city if he got rid of the streetcars that were causing all the congestion.   Maybe if we got rid of those damn trolleys, people would come back downtown to shop.   In the 1940 census, 55,355 people lived in McKeesport.   Today the Tube Works is gone.  The blast furnaces across the river in Duquesne are also gone.   The people are gone too.   The 2010 census found only 19,731 people.
>
> I remember several trips to McKeesport in the 1980s to audit the state employment office.   It still had a reasonably vibrant downtown.   Reasonably.   My boss was a man who could not sleep.   In the middle of the night he got hungry and decided to go out for something to eat.   He did find an all night hot dog stand.   The hotel manager told him that once he left he would have to stay out because in that city he didn't open the door for anyone at 4 a.m.   Dave walked the streets until 6 a.m.  He claimed it was a great Coney Island Hot Dog.
>
> The owner of the Holiday Inn on Lysle Blvd.  was trying to sell it or rent it to the community then for use as a prison.   Don't know if he ever succeeded.  The building is still there but there is no hotel name visible in Bing Maps.   He depended on U. S. Steel for most of his business and it's gone.
>

Was it a Sheraton later? If so, had a fire when my ex-wife was still
my girlfriend and lived in Versailles. Since repaired and reopened as
assisted living.

-- 
Derrick