Like an Alley Cat

First things first: The other day I met Ellen Show, who coordinates volunteer activities at the McKeesport Heritage Center. Show is one of a group of people who is preparing a picture history of the city for Arcadia Publishing.

Most of the photos are coming from the Heritage Center's own files, though a few have been contributed by other groups. (Mrs. Show is disappointed that a request for submissions mailed to local churches, for instance, elicited only one response. Frankly, I am too --- but that's a story for another time.)

Anyway, they still need a photo of one prominent McKeesport landmark --- the notorious cobblestones and wooden shacks of Brick Alley, Our Fair City's infamous red-light district of the 1930s, '40s, '50s and '60s.

Brick Alley (which I think was part of Strawberry Alley, but you'll forgive me for not having actually been there) was home to houses of ill-repute and patrolled nightly by ladies engaged in the world's oldest profession (no, not farming).

The houses of prostitution were an open secret throughout the Mon-Yough area, and when people talk of "corruption" in McKeesport during the postwar boom era, they're often referring to the city's tolerance of places like Brick Alley. Some police officers tended to look the other way (or so I'm told), and it was widely assumed that several city officials were on the take from the madams and pimps.

You can point some fingers, I suppose, at those of us who tolerated Brick Alley as a necessary evil and weren't outraged at the idea of the sex trade being openly conducted on Downtown streets.

On the other hand, given the concentration of business, churches, bars and prostitutes in Downtown McKeesport in the 1950s and '60s, it might have been the only city where you could get a job, get drunk, get laid and get religion in the same two blocks.

(If that's not a bustling city, I don't know what is. Hey, Richard Florida measures a city's vitality based on the number of Internet cafes and coffeehouses. I don't think my idea is that dumb.)

Occasionally, county detectives or the district attorney's office would stage a "vice raid" and round up the johns and hookers, the Daily News and the Pittsburgh papers would come out and take photos, everyone would be hauled before a magistrate ... and the following night, Brick Alley was back to normal.

For a slightly fictionalized account of life in Brick Alley (and of vice generally) in McKeesport and vicinity during the 1960s, I highly recommend David Chacko's novel of the same name.

Though I'm not sure when Brick Alley itself disappeared, I suspect it was during one of the many redevelopment projects that happened when the railroad tracks were removed in 1970. Supposedly, the late Al Julius played a key role in finally getting the street cleared of hookers by hammering city and county officials in commentaries over KQV radio.

Prostitution and vice haven't disappeared, of course --- and probably never will --- but a check of the police blotter any given day is a pretty reliable indicator that the cops aren't looking the other way, either.

Anyway, my point --- and I did have one --- is that Mrs. Show and the other volunteers have only been able to find a single, not-very-good photo of Brick Alley. I doubt that many patrons of Brick Alley took a camera with them, because if you did try to take a picture in those days, the resultant beatings tended to ruin the film. But if you know where one's available, email me, and I'll put you in touch with her.

Also, the Heritage Center is taking pre-orders for the book, which is slated for publication this summer. The cost will be $20 plus tax, and money will be due at delivery. Call (412) 678-1832 or email mckheritage@yahoo.com.

By the way: The video documentary of the life of pioneering woman airline pilot Helen Richey is on sale right now at the Heritage Center. Produced by Andrea Naipus and Brian Grundy and funded by the Wivagg Foundation, it's available on DVD or VHS for $20.

. . .

In Other Business: As reported by the Almanac back in November, demolition is underway at Eastland Mall in North Versailles. The News reported last week that asbestos abatement was recently completed.

A visit earlier this week revealed that the mall has been surrounded by a fence to keep out visitors (and "midnight plumbers," I assume), and cranes and backhoes are now tearing down the outlying buildings.

The newest rumor to reach the Almanac is that the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center is eyeing the property for some sort of an outpatient surgical center serving UPMC McKeesport and Braddock hospitals, but I have no confirmation on that.

The website for Benderson Development Co., the real-estate company that controls the Eastland property, has a brochure online (PDF) for something called "Eastland Centre," an office-retail-warehouse complex with "200,000 square feet" on one floor and "parking for 6,000 cars," "strategically located near major interstates ... just 10 miles from Downtown Pittsburgh."

The brochure strongly implies that the "Eastland Centre" already exists, so I'm wondering if they simply plan to tear down most of the outlying buildings at the mall and gut the old Gimbels store for renovations. The rendering, indeed, looks suspiciously like Gimbels with some new windows punched through the sides.

It seems to me that it would be more cost-effective at this point to level the place and start over, but what do I know?

Benderson did not return calls for comment from the News, but here's hoping that they really do have this "Eastland Centre" project in the pipeline. The people of North Versailles have lived with that eyesore on East Pittsburgh-McKeesport Boulevard for far too long.

. . .

Coffee Klatch: It looks like McKeesport is finally getting a coffeehouse, which means that trend is well and truly dead. (Rimshot.)

City administrator Dennis Pittman told the Post-Gazette that a chain coffeehouse is expected to locate in the 11th Ward, next to the new Rite Aid drugstore that will soon be open on the old Reliance Steel Co. site along Walnut Street. (Alert Richard Florida --- we're joining the creative class!) An Aldi supermarket is also to be built.

I'm no fan of fancy, overpriced coffee, but a Starbucks or Caribou would at least provide some indication to the outside world that we're not a bunch of savages out here. The Aldi is a nice alternative supermarket, too, and all of this activity should be most welcome to people in Christy Park, 11th Ward, Haler Heights and Versailles.

Now, would it be too much to ask for a bookstore? How about a Half Price Books? Based on what I've seen at the store on McKnightmare Road, a Half Price Books would do a land-office business in McKeesport.

After all, it offers two things that we in the Mon Valley love (looking at other people's junk and saving money) but it also offers some intellectual stimulation to boot --- and that ain't a bad thing.

That's not the same kind of stimulation that you used to find in Brick Alley, but on the other hand, you don't need penicillin afterwards, either.