Yesterday's Almanac highlighted a story in Sunday's Tribune-Review that detailed the trials and tribulations of eight members of Duquesne's 1993 state champion football team; they were convicted for their roles in a $13 million multi-state drug trafficking ring.
A few days later, Duquesne City officials responded. How? Why, by blaming the media, of course. (Hey, it works so well for the President, right?)
Jennifer Vertullo explained in last night's Daily News:
Councilors said it was thoughtless and tasteless to print 12-year-old news. (Mayor Phil Krivacek) said it was nothing more than an opportunity to sell more newspapers.
"It's the bad news that sells papers," Councilman Tim Petrisko said. "The good news doesn't sell."
Stop. Right. There. If that hoary old chestnut is the best you fellers can come up with, then we're off on the wrong foot already. Bad news does not sell newspapers. No one ran out to the newsstand Sunday morning hoping to see a story about eight former Duquesne High School football stars. If the Trib sold any extra Sunday papers because of that story --- other than a handful in Duquesne and West Mifflin --- then I'll gladly eat a Sunday Trib at high noon at the corner of West Grant Avenue and Second Street.
(In fact, with circulation slipping at all but a new newspapers, a lot of highly-paid executives right now are trying to figure out just what, exactly, does sell papers.)
Personally, I think obituaries, box scores, lottery numbers, horoscopes and (in the fall) high school football round-ups sell newspapers --- at least local newspapers. Some people say that names and photos sell papers; when the newspaper does a story about the high school musical, for instance, and prints the names of the cast members and their photos, you can almost guarantee that every member of the cast and their families will buy copies of the paper that day. But bad news doesn't sell newspapers.
Also, let's go back to the idea that it's "12-year-old news." The people in the story are in prison right now. Their families are dealing with the aftermath, and will be, for years to come. So it's not "12-year-old news" to them.
Or are the mayor and city council denying that there's still drug dealing going on in the Mon Valley? Because I can introduce them to a few people in Burns Heights who would say otherwise.
And if it was "thoughtless" and "tasteless," then one wonders why the families and friends of the people who were put in jail decided to talk to the Trib. Back to Vertullo's story:
Krivacek asked where newspapers and television stations are looking when good things happen in Duquesne. He asked the same of skeptical residents.
That last sentence slays me. "Skeptical residents." One suspects they're skeptical because they see what's going on in their neighborhoods, despite attempts by elected officials to run around painting smiley-faces all over the landscape. Who are they supposed to believe --- politicians or their lyin' eyes?
The "good things" reference makes me laugh, too. There's plenty of good news about Duquesne in the newspapers. When Duquesne police Sgt. Dan Burns wrote a book about the city two months ago, the Post-Gazette had a story and a photo. Last week, all of the newspapers and TV stations ran stories about Kennywood's plans to redevelop a brownfield and the old Kmart plaza in Duquesne; two weeks ago, I read about improvements in the Duquesne school district.
And here's a lengthy story from last week about the creation of a community crime watch in Duquesne, with a quote at the end from (wait for it) Duquesne Mayor Phil Krivacek.
I suspect that the mayor is right when he says there are many "good things" happening in Duquesne that are going unreported. Does anyone from the city call the TV stations and newspapers to alert them? Personally, I can't count how many times during my mediocre journalism career that people told me about "good things" days or weeks after they happened. Rather than getting defensive, perhaps the city should go on a so-called "charm offensive."
I bow to no one in my belief that the Mon-Yough area has much to recommend it. That's why I started Tube City Online 10 years ago --- to promote the Mon-Yough region on the Internet. I grew up running around with friends in Duquesne and West Mifflin, and I'm still in Duquesne on a regular basis. I think the Mon-Yough area has gotten the lousy end of the stick for 20 years, and I've long grown tired of newspaper stories about "depressed Mon Valley milltowns."
But I'm also not blind to the real problems, including the continued drug problems in every community in our region. (As that loathsome Trib article pointed out, heroin has become an issue in communities like North Huntingdon, Irwin and Latrobe.)
Denying our problems, or chastising the media for reporting what we already know, is not the first step to solving them.
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Jonathan Barnes reports in the Post-Gazette that officials in Our Fair City are close to a deal for the old McKeesport National Bank building at Fifth Avenue and Sinclair Street. Erected in the 1880s, the bank building is a registered historic landmark and was designed by the famed architectural firm of Longfellow, Alden & Harlow.
The city plans to move its offices out of the 1960-vintage municipal building on Lysle Boulevard and the Peoples Building and consolidate them at the National Bank building. About 40 percent of the National Bank building would remain rented to tenants, and the city would occupy the rest.
Historically, it would be an appropriate move. City offices were in both the National Bank building and the Peoples Building (formerly the Peoples Union Bank building) at various times before the municipal building was constructed in the late 1950s.
On the other hand, it's too bad the previous administration sold off the Peoples' Building, at what turned out to be about half of its market value. They could have consolidated the offices over there, couldn't they? But it's too late to cry over spilled milk, and I'm glad to see the National Bank building has a secure future.
By the way, I happen to like the funky '50s aluminum, tile and glass architecture of the municipal building --- but I realize I'm probably the only one.
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To Do This Weekend: Jimmy Beaumont & The Skyliners play the Renzie Park bandshell, 7 p.m. Sunday ... McKeesport Little Theater's production of "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" continues, 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday ... William Dell & The Wee-Jams perform at Gergely Riverfront Park, Water Street, 7:30 p.m. Sunday.
Chris Osher had an intriguing, if depressing, look at a slice of life from the Mon-Yough area in Sunday's Tribune-Review. In "Ring of Fire," Osher writes that eight members of the 1993 state champion Duquesne High School football team are now serving prison sentences for their role in a drug trafficking operation that moved more than $13 million worth of heroin into the region.
Federal prosecutors allege that the eight formed the Western Pennsylvania connection for a Dominican heroin wholesaler in Philadelphia, distributing stamp bags marked with a jaguar from Duquesne.
Thus, Duquesne, which once exported steel around the world, earned the dubious distinction of exporting heroin to Pittsburgh neighborhoods and suburbs alike in the 1990s. (I can remember a cop down in Washington County telling me in the mid-1990s that Route 837 was the "heroin highway," because so much was moving from Duquesne to Clairton, Donora and Monessen, and then out into rural areas.)
Osher writes that not everyone from the championship team ended up dealing drugs. The running back took his football scholarship and put it to good use, earning his degree from Duquesne University and becoming a broker for Mellon Financial. And bless him, Jade Burleigh, now 29, moved back to Duquesne, where he's involved in coaching youth football.
As the football coach, Pat Monroe, points out, sports is just a "temporary distraction." (Duquesne, which once had seven public schools and three parochial schools, is now lucky to graduate 30 high school students a year, according to a school director in Osher's story.)
Blame the professional sports leagues; unsatisfied with drafting college kids, they increasing want to draft high schoolers. That's fueled a lot of fantasies for kids in Western Pennsylvania over the years, who think they can blow off their educations and wait for a multimillion dollar NBA or NFL contract.
No one ever warns them that if they don't get that offer, they're going to land flat on their backs, without a high school diploma or much of a future. When the cheering stops, the stadium sounds awfully quiet.
And blame their parents and peers, too (that translates as "the rest of us") for not placing the same premium on education that we place on watching the Stillers, ESPN, "March Madness," etc.
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On a happier note, historian and West Mifflin resident Brian Butko, who wrote the book (literally) on Isaly's, is getting good notices for his newest release, Greetings from the Lincoln Highway: America's First Coast-to-Coast Road. Appropriately enough, the reviews are coming from newspapers in the small and mid-size towns that the Lincoln Highway has served best for most of a century.
The Canton, Ohio, Repository calls it both "a history book and travel guide," while the Nevada, Iowa, Journal says it's "funny" and "insightful." Bonnijean Adams also interviewed Butko in the Daily News.
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Meanwhile, I mentioned last week that the 15th Avenue Bridge is going to be renamed in honor of retired state Sen. Albert "Bud" Belan. I didn't realize that the Clairton-Glassport Bridge is being renamed in honor of another retired state senator, Clairton's Ed Zemprelli, as Brandy Brubaker and Pat Cloonan reported in the News this week.
The "new" bridge opened in 1985 and cost $22 million; Zemprelli was instrumental in seeing that money was available for its completion. The old Clairton-Glassport Bridge, which opened in 1927, wasn't anywhere near as old as the 15th Avenue Bridge, yet it always seemed to be in a much more advanced state of dilapidation.
I suspect that the chemicals from the coke ovens in Clairton --- which in the old days used to strip the chrome from car bumpers --- caused the bridge to corrode much more quickly than usual. That same pollution also used to kill all of the vegetation on the Glassport-Lincoln side of the river, but ironically didn't prevent several trees from taking root in the dirt and crud that had collected in the superstructure of the Clairton-Glassport Bridge.
At the Clairton (actually, "Wilson") end of the old bridge, all of the traffic had to make a sharp right and then a sharp left to get onto Route 837. In the "crook" of that L-bend in the bridge sat a bar called the "Wiltin' Hilton." I wish I was making that up, but I'm not. Actually, as a kid I thought it was a pretty clever name.
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Correction, Not Perfection: Contrary to the old essay I posted earlier this week, the 15th Avenue Bridge was completed in 1908, not 1906. I've corrected the mistake.
Actually, if you want to be pedantic, the McKeesport & Port Vue Bridge Company was chartered in 1906, but construction of the 15th Avenue Bridge didn't begin until 1907.
The bridge was opened in September 1908 (after a lengthy legal battle with city authorities, who refused to allow the Port Vue Traction Company to connect its streetcar tracks with Walnut Street). I also believe that the 15th Avenue Bridge was a toll bridge, at least at first, because I've seen pictures showing what appears to be a toll booth at the McKeesport end.
You can read all about Our Fair City's legal battles with the Port Vue Traction Company, among other tales, in Ron Beal's wonderful book McKeesport Trolleys.
Short entry today. Your patience is appreciated.
After roughly 30 years (on and off) of living in the Mon-Yough area, it never ceases to amaze me that I keep discovering new places and things. I recently noticed for the first time that the recreation center at Harrison Village has been renamed for Detroit Shock forward and city native Swin Cash. It's also been decorated with a very colorful sign incorporating the Olympic rings, in honor of Cash's gold medal at the 2004 Athens Games.
It's nice for Our Fair City to be known as the hometown of Swin Cash; some how, it has more cache than bragging that it's the hometown of Miss America 1935, Henrietta Leaver. (Other famous McKeesporters include Art Rupe, founder of Speciality Records, one of the all-time great R&B labels. But I digress.)
In a way, it's gratifying to keep learning on turf that's otherwise familiar to me, but it also frustrates me to think that I never noticed this giant sign on Harrison Village before. Worse yet, it was covered by the Daily News. Where was my head at that day? (On second thought, don't answer that.)
Incidentally, Harrison Village has benefitted from extensive renovations in recent years after a long period of neglect; no one will confuse it with the Ritz-Carlton, but neither should people in public housing be forced to live in buildings that look like cell blocks, either. But that's just one man's opinion.
I also discovered that 12th Avenue between Walnut Street and Market Street has apparently ceased, technically, to exist. I discovered this, to my chagrin, when I made a quick left turn from Walnut (inbound to Downtown) onto 12th, trying to bypass the little knot of congestion that always forms on Walnut between Lysle and Ninth Avenue.
Suddenly, I found myself off of the pavement and into gravel and dirt, and about halfway to Market, the street ends. Would anyone who knows care to tell me what the heck happened to the road? I know there was a sinkhole in that area, but presumably it's been repaired. Why is the pavement gone? And if it's not going to be replaced, shouldn't the road be barricaded?
It could be worse, I guess. I could have found myself in the sinkhole.
As promised, I spent last night rustling up old photos of the 15th Avenue Bridge. That means today's Almanac is going to be fairly short again. There are seven pictures up now, including pictures of the demolition.
A note on the photos: These were taken in roughly 1993 or 1994 with my fixed-focus plastic Kodak 35 mm camera, because I didn't get a decent camera (a secondhand Canon QL17, bought at Photographics Supply for about $85) until 1995 or so.
As a dorky pre-teen and teenager, I was always running around Our Fair City, taking pictures of things, never knowing that someday, Al Gore would invent the Internet, and I'd be able to bore the hell out of people all over the world by forcing them to look at blurry snapshots of old buildings and bridges.
I only wish I had a better camera back then. If I had a time machine, I'd go back and confront the 14-year-old version of myself. I'd say, "Kid, ditch the camera, comb your hair, and go get a girlfriend, for crying out loud."
Also, a note on terminology: While many people call it the "15th Street Bridge," all of our Our Fair City's numbered streets are technically "avenues." Thus, it should correctly be called the "15th Avenue Bridge." I didn't know this little tidbit of information when I wrote the bridge demolition story 10 years ago, but I was educated later on by Don Dulac and Elmer Brewer when I went to work for the News.
It also occurred to me last night that I've now seen two bridges get blown up (or as Joe Flaherty and John Candy used to say, "blowed up real good!"). The other was the old Station Street bridge in North Irwin.
The photo above, incidentally, shows the Port Vue side of the 15th Avenue Bridge, in the view that a motorist coming from Our Fair City would have had. Just past the end of the bridge was a hairpin left-hand turn, and past that was a intersection providing access to River Road, River Ridge Road and Liberty Way. The entire intersection has now been re-aligned, and no longer exists.
That picture may make the 15th Avenue Bridge look a little bit ratty, and I apologize for that. In person, it actually looked a whole lot worse. And we drove over it in this condition for years.
In honor of Friday's Almanac and Derrick's comments about the character of the new 15th Avenue Bridge (or the lack of character), there is no new Almanac.
Instead, I've reached back into the vast (half-vast?) archives of Tube City Online and resurrected a 1995 piece I wrote about the 15th Avenue Bridge called "15th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Lousy)." (I was on a Simon & Garfunkel jones at the time.) In the best tradition of non-fiction essays by undergraduate English majors, it's probably as pretentious as all heck, but I didn't have time this weekend to re-write it. Also, I don't know what (if anything) I would add.
Check back there in a few days, and I should have some photos scanned in.
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