Celebrate the history of one of Pennsylvania's busiest airfields as Allegheny County Airport marks its 75th anniversary tomorrow. Opening ceremonies begin at 9:30 a.m. at the terminal on Lebanon Church Road in West Mifflin with remarks by county and airport officials. Steelers chairman (and licensed pilot) Dan Rooney will also be on hand.
Vintage and military aircraft will be on display both Saturday and Sunday, and rides will also be provided for fees starting at $70, depending on the aircraft and the pilot. Food will be available and parking and admission are free.
Paper airplane making contests will be held in front of the terminal for all students in kindergarten through high school.
Allegheny County Airport opened on Sept. 11, 1931, as Pittsburgh's main commercial airfield, with three runways on 432 acres. In its first year, AGC hosted nearly 8,000 passengers. By 1952, when commercial air traffic shifted to Greater Pittsburgh Airport in Moon Township, more than a million people were flying out of Allegheny County Airport each year.
At various times, AGC served as the headquarters for Pennsylvania Central Airlines (a predecessor to Capital and United) and the Pittsburgh terminal for Allegheny and TWA, as well as an important base of operations for the U.S. Army Air Corps and the Military Air Transport Service during World War II.
Visit flypittsburgh.com for details.
. . .
Are you ready for some football? It's a Route 837 rivalry, sorta, kinda, as Steel Valley (1-0) takes on South Allegheny (0-1) in a conference game at Gladiator Stadium in Glassport tonight. Kickoff is 7:30 ... My alma mater, Serra Catholic High School, plays its first game its new lights at 7 p.m. Saturday at the stadium, 200 Hershey Drive, as it hosts Bishop Canevin in a game that will be televised on Fox Sports Pittsburgh. Serra is 1-0 after beating up on North Catholic last weekend. ... The McKeesport Tigers (1-0) are at Gateway in Monroeville tonight for a 7:30 p.m. kickoff ... Duquesne (1-0) hosts Monaca tomorrow at 1:30 p.m.
About 15 years ago, a pimply-faced teen-ager who wasn't half as clever as he thought he was started doing some research about McKeesport. Much of what he thought he "knew" turned out to be folklore at best.
After pestering his neighbors and family with one time-consuming question after another (What color was "The Famous"? When did Menzie Dairy go out of business? Who was the "Lysle" that they named the boulevard for?), it became obvious that he was going to have to go do some actual work.
Since there was no World Wide Web back in those primitive days, his first stop was the high school librarian, who sent him to the Carnegie Free Library, where he learned that most of the city's historical documents, along with copies of The Daily News on microfilm, weren't there. They were at a place called the McKeesport Heritage Center.
The what in the where? The Heritage Center. In Renzie Park. Next to the "Little Red Schoolhouse."
So one day, after school, he walked down the hill, in the rain, to the old schoolhouse. Next door was a new brick building he hadn't noticed before. The door was locked. He rang the bell.
. . .
The stern-looking woman who answered was shorter than the drenched kid standing outside, but she still seemed to tower above him.
"Yes?"
"I need to look up some information about some buildings in McKeesport."
She peered over her glasses. "What kind of information?" she said.
"Well, um ... everything, I guess. I don't know."
"Hmm," she said, sizing him up. She looked like an elementary school teacher, straight out of Central Casting, and suddenly he felt like he was about to be sent to the principal. His mom wasn't coming for another two hours. What if she refused to let him inside?
"Come in and get out of the rain, already," she said, finally, holding open the door. She gave him a quick tour of the building --- pictures were in these binders, the microfilm readers were over there, and maps and charts were back in this room.
He unknotted his tongue long enough to ask some questions. She patiently answered them that day, as she would patiently answer them for years --- even though, eventually, she trusted him enough to go look things up on his own.
. . .
That was Cynthia McLane Neish. She wasn't rude, and she wasn't unfriendly, and she wasn't mean, but she knew what she wanted, and once she had set her mind to something, it was going to happen. The phrase "tough cookie" was invented to describe people like her.
Cynthia set extremely high standards for herself, and she expected the same behavior out of everyone else --- and woe betide those who failed to live up to her expectations.
Once, about a year ago, she called and left a message on my answering machine. I fully intended to call her back the next day, but one thing led to another. She left another message. Call Cynthia tomorrow, I thought, but, well, sometimes the hamster falls out of the little wheel in my brain --- and I forgot.
Her third message was a perfect sound portrait of exasperation, and when I immediately drove over to pay a personal visit and make amends, she just peered at me and shook her head.
When the McKeesport Heritage Center was first formed (largely at Cynthia's instigation) as a museum, genealogy resource and repository for city documents, it was shoved over in a corner of the J. Clarence Kelly Library at Penn State McKeesport. By the time I discovered it a few years later, it had moved into its own building, but everything was still sort of disorganized, and it was difficult to see how it would amount to much.
Difficult, I guess, if you didn't know Cynthia McLane. (She hadn't yet married --- late in life --- longtime McKeesport advertising executive Frank Neish, a man every bit as jolly as Cynthia could be stern. Some how, they made a good match.)
With unswerving devotion and relentless drive, Cynthia brought order to the chaos. New collections were formed. Exhibits began to appear.
. . .
Pretty soon the original building had filled up, and plans for an addition had to be drawn up. In the meantime, the Heritage Center set about restoring the old "Little Red Schoolhouse." A brick shelter was erected to protect the 1832 log cabin from the elements. The addition went up a few years later.
It wouldn't be fair to credit Cynthia McLane Neish with all of the growth at the Heritage Center --- there were a lot of volunteer hours expended by many, many dedicated people --- but it's fair to say that no one dared abandon their posts until their tasks were completed. You wouldn't dare disappoint Cynthia.
Was she tough to deal with? Sometimes. I can think of a few people who held her in disdain. No one who sets high goals, and demands that others keep their promises, is beloved by everyone.
Her health hadn't been good of late, although until recently, she was still putting in regular hours at the Heritage Center. I have been spending a fair number of Saturdays this year at the Heritage Center doing research, and it was unusual not to see Cynthia at some point during the day.
And when she spotted me, she'd want to know what I was working on, and whether I was making any progress. Instantly, my posture became a little bit straighter and my diction became a little bit clearer. Cynthia had that effect on people: You shaped up when she was around, and you'd better be ready to answer her questions.
I won't be seeing her this Saturday, or any Saturdays, any more. Cynthia died last weekend in UPMC McKeesport hospital. She was 81 years old.
. . .
I'm not going to try to give a real, professional eulogy for Cynthia McLane Neish. Carol Waterloo Frazer did a fine job of that in Wednesday's Daily News, and city council members and Mayor Brewster eulogized her that night. You can also download (PDF) the resolution that city council passed last year, when Cynthia marked 20 years as director of the Heritage Center.
All I can write about is her impact on the life of one kid --- now, a slightly bigger kid.
It's tough for me to write this, because I had never really thought about Cynthia McLane Neish, or what she meant to me. I guess I assumed that she was just a force of nature that would always be there, though I know better.
Maybe I just didn't want to accept the fact that someone who commanded such respect from me --- and, I guess, intimidated me, too -- was just a mortal.
Yet she secured a piece of immortality for herself. No one would have much thought that the history of McKeesport and the surrounding communities was worth saving --- could even be saved --- if the Heritage Center hadn't become such a useful resource, and it's hard to say the Heritage Center would have become such a useful resource without Cynthia on the job for all of these years.
Her legacy will be felt for years to come, whenever families try to discover their roots, whenever students need to research local history for school projects, or whenever people try to make sense of the history of these valleys.
Just seeing her example made me a better person. And whenever I need some motivation, I'm going to pretend that Cynthia is behind me, watching me, waiting: "Well? Now what?"
God bless you, Cynthia, and thank you.
. . .
Funeral services and interment for Cynthia McLane Neish were private. In lieu of flowers, her family has suggested that people memorialize her by visiting a shut-in. With all due respect, I will go further: Please also consider a contribution in her name to McKeesport Heritage Center, 1832 Arboretum Drive, McKeesport, 15132, or to the Memorial Archives of the Western College for Women, her alma mater at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.
If you get today's headline, you're older than you look. Unlike me, who looks older than I am. Feh! It's just the receding hairline. And the plaid pants and horn-rimmed glasses, along with my propensity to get the "Early Bird Special" at Denny's, and to yell at the neighbor kids.
You want your ball back? Well, you're not getting it back! Ha!
Ahem. But it is a "potpourri" Almanac today, with a little bit of this, and a little bit of that.
. . .
Tell Us What You Really Think: One of my old bosses, Park Burroughs, the managing editor of the Washington Observer-Reporter, recently teed off on a local woman.
You may have heard, but a group called the Interfaith Hospitality Network is trying to open an office in Pleasant Hills. IHN has a similar center in "Little Worshington." Although it doesn't offer shelter to homeless families itself, it does connect families and individuals with resources for people who have lost their houses.
The woman, who Park identifies as Bonnie Veraldi of Pleasant Hills, emailed Park looking for information on the IHN home in Washington. I'll let Park pick up the story from there:
She was looking for information about the IHN here, the trouble it's caused, the declining property values, the hobos and derelicts urinating out the windows, I dunno.
I got angry. I wrote her back about the facts of Interfaith Hospitality Network: that is is NOT a homeless shelter rather an organization that assists families who are in economic trouble and have lost their homes. The IHN house on Beau Street is not a shelter but a resource center for these people, a place where they can get assistance in finding jobs and places to live, and where their kids can be looked after while they're at job interviews. Local churches host these families --- feed them and bed them down for the night, and when that's not possible, IHN puts them up in motels with donations from its supporters.
The writer was looking for some fuel for the group that she's forming to keep this organization out of her neighborhood. I told her that Washington --- and all the participating churches --- are proud to have such an organization here.
I hope this woman never finds herself in a situation where, after a couple of bad breaks, she finds herself and her family out on the street with no one to offer them help.
"Mr. Burroughs, while I appreciate your explanation for the GLOWING opinion of IHN, unfortunately, we can't use it, we need something more unbiased. But again, thank you for responding, Bonnie Veraldi
As originally reported by the Almanac back in May, officials at Penn State McKeesport Campus have proposed changing its name to "Penn State Allegheny." A Daily News story by David Whipkey (subscribers only) has more details.
The Penn State board of trustees will consider the name change at a meeting Sept. 15. The advisory board to the local campus has endorsed the move.
In the interest of full disclosure, I must say that Penn State McKeesport Chancellor Curtiss Porter recently did me an extraordinary kindness, and while I can't talk about what he did yet, I will, if and when the time is right.
Also, as an employee of another university, I have an obvious conflict of interest in talking what another local college is doing.
So: Suffice it to say that my opinions are not those of anyone but me.
Anyway, I'm walking a delicate line here, and if I sound like I'm pulling my punches --- well, I am.
Instead of shooting off my own mouth, I'll let a strongly worded editorial from Wednesday's News do most of the talking. It's not online, but I think it's worth quoting at length, because I think it probably captures the feelings of a lot of Penn State alumni in the McKeesport area:
Porter ... denied that a change is prompted by all the weird news generated recently in this area. We are skeptical about that.
However, if he and his advisors want to slap the faces of alumni who have supported PSM for decades, they will succeed.
He also noted how Carnegie Tech became Carnegie Mellon University --- however, that came as the result of a merger of Carnegie and Mellon institutes. So should we start asking questions about a merger with Community College of "Allegheny" County?
You are on an archived page of Tube City Almanac.
Click the banner to return to the front page; or click here to visit Tube City Online.
Published weekdays (usually), except holidays (and when we have something better to do) at McKeesport, Pa., by Tube City Online LLC, P.O. Box 94, McKeesport, Pa. 15134.
Opinions expressed here are those of the individual authors, and do not necessarily represent those of any organization. No warranty is given or implied for the information and opinions contained herein; the reader uses that information at his or her peril.
Except where noted, all contents are copyright © 2003-2008 Tube City Online LLC, a limited-liability company chartered in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. No content from Tube City Online may be reproduced in whole or part in any digital or print publication without express permission, except that short excerpts may be used with attribution in commentary or for critical purposes.
Tube City Online is edited by Jason Togyer, member National Writers Union, Society of Professional Journalists, American Radio Relay League and National Radio Club.
Also, objects in Tube City Online may be closer than they appear. If Tube City Online is swallowed, seek professional help immediately. Stop use of Tube City Online if condition persists or worsens. Tube City Online is produced in a facility that also includes Peanuts. Do not expose Tube City Online to open flames and keep it out of the reach of children. Do not back up, as severe tire damage may result. Not responsible for lost or stolen articles. Tube City Online is still not a significant source of saturated fats or Minnesota Fats.
