After failing to receive an important email this week, I'm wondering how many other messages aren't getting to the Tube City Almanac's Editorial Complex, located in the verdant hills above Our Fair City.
It's a fact that legitimate messages now constitute less than 6 percent of all email traffic. The remaining 94 percent is junk mail that promises to enlarge parts of your body, help you satisfy your lover, alert you to investment opportunities, enrich your bank account with Nigerian oil proceeds or refinance your mortgage.
That's according to an email I just received titled, "URGNT HELP SIR DI$C0NT C!@LIAS LA$T L0N6ER UP TO 3.5612 % B-LOW PR1M3 RE-FI!"
Actually, it's according to an article in Information Week, which reports that fighting off spam was a big reason that the costs of handling email at major corporations increased by 334 percent in 2006. Egad.
As those of you gentle readers who have tried to post comments at the Almanac know, we have some pretty aggressive spam blocking. Right now, there are 5,847 different filters (I am not making that up) on the comments at Tube City Almanac.
But sometimes the spam blockers get a little bit overenthusiastic. For instance, the comment filters recently decided that the word "green" was forbidden --- apparently because spammers were posting messages about "Green Card Lotteries" --- which unfortunately prevents you from posting any remarks about Greensburg, Green Acres and "Mean" Joe Greene.
Thanks to Dementia Unlimited World Wide Technical Support, I've also got a program called "Spam Assassin" running on my email, and it's cut my avalanche of junk mail down to a landslide. But just like the comment filters that shoot first and ask questions later, I suspect the email filters are a little bit too aggressive sometimes.
Now I'm worried that I may be blocking important emails, so I may have to turn the phasers down to "stun" instead of "extra crispy."
The long and short of it (as they say in the spam emails) is that if you email me and don't receive a response, I'm not ignoring you. If you really want to make sure your email gets through, send a copy of your email to my first initial plus my last name at gmail dot com.
And if I still don't reply, then I am ignoring you --- in which case, feel free to tell me to do some of those things that the spam emails keep promising.
Heck, it's not like I'm going to read them anyway.
. . .
Local News You May Have Missed:
heriff Pete "Laverne's Dad" DeFazio, Cyril "Mr. Modesty" Wecht, Tom Murphy, and the mayors of Erie and Philadelphia. Surely some Republicans had their thumbs on the scales. It seemed a little hinky to us. Well, I hate to say we told you so, but ... 
The city says it hasn't forgotten about Lincoln Place, and Phil Cynar, spokesman for Pennsylvania-American Water Company, wants you to know that they haven't, either.
On Wednesday, the Almanac reported on the continuing traffic tie-ups and street closures related to water line repairs near Interboro Avenue and Mifflin Road (indeed, Mifflin Road was restricted to one lane again Thursday morning) and we noted that we had been unable to reach a PAWC spokesperson.
Cynar says he emailed a response to the Almanac yesterday within 10 minutes of receiving our inquiry. It didn't make it here (maybe gnomes stole it?) but I believe him, and I apologize, because he deserves an opportunity to respond.
(He's emailed his statement again to a different email account, and it's reprinted below.)
In a telephone interview, Cynar says he understands the frustration that residents might feel, but says PAWC has tried to keep them informed at every step of the way --- through advertorials in local newspapers, through direct mailings to nearby homes, and through news releases.
Cynar also says that PAWC has tried to keep city officials involved in the process. "We have been very forthright in sharing information with the city, and all of the local officials have been privy to that information," he says.
About the crux of Wednesday's Almanac --- the broken pavement on Interboro Avenue --- Cynar says PAWC is committed to repairing the street at no expense to the city. "It's never left up to the city to resolve a situation that was created by work we had to do," he says.
But asphalt plants aren't open in the wintertime, so paving material couldn't be purchased even if the work was complete --- which it isn't. "We are not shirking our responsibility, but there are some things we can't do, because our hands are tied," Cynar says.
The repair work in Lincoln Place has been complicated by earth movement in the area and the need to avoid other buried utility lines, he says. "There's an awful lot of work going on in that area. ... People don't always realize the process is not going to be an overnight one."
While there have been service interruptions, they have been minor outages that were necessary because work could not be performed on a line that's under pressure, he says.
Happily, the work will soon be coming to an end, hopefully by the end of April, if the weather cooperates and no other problems are discovered, and that's "including the street restoration," Cynar says.
The people of Lincoln Place, Munhall and West Mifflin will need to be patient (I almost said "hold their water") just a little bit longer.
In the meantime, drink more water. It's good for you.
. . .
From Phil Cynar, spokesman, Pennsylvania-American Water Company:
Since we completed the significant repairs to the 30-inch transmission main at the start of the year, we have been working with diligence in the area. From the start, we noted that our crews would have a presence in the area for likely months to come. The stabilization and reinforcement work we are undertaking to help avoid another catastrophic main break in the area in the future has been large-scale. We have installed new a main, moved the main out of harm's way from the dangerous hillside on Interboro, done various tie-ins and other related work. (...)
We want the reinforcement and stabilization work to be effective, and we are doing what is necessary to achieve that effectiveness. We have had weather issues to battle, which have likely slowed work a bit, but that is beyond our control. And as to street restoration, that work cannot happen until our work requiring excavation is done. Similarly, it can't happen until asphalt plants open in April and the temperature is satisfactory for paving work.
We have completed Phase I of our work in the area and are about 50-percent done with Phase II work. Barring complications beyond our control--or weather issues--we should be done with the project, including street restoration work, by mid to late April.
As to communication with public officials, our team has been open and forthcoming with any and all information about the project--right from mid-December. We have made a concerted effort to reach out to local and elected officials in various ways to keep them updated on our work. We are always available, similarly, to respond to any questions they may have. In fact, several local mayors have contacted us with some regularity to get answers to questions they receive, and we have been able to address those quickly and to everyone's satisfaction.
Of course, we acknowledge the inconvenience our work may cause to customers in the area, and we appreciate their ongoing patience and cooperation while we make enhancements and stabilization to better serve them.
If Bill Peduto is making a tactical retreat, then it seems to me he should have just said so: "Look, I can't win the primary, so I'm going to work all summer at getting my message out and meeting voters, and I'm going to make a really strong, independent run in the fall."
But if he thinks he's going to pull a Ross Perot, "change his mind" and jump back into the race in a few months ... well, I don't want to call him any names, but if it walks around the barnyard, and it has white feathers, and it lays eggs, and it doesn't like Colonel Sanders ... buck-buck-buck-bwaacck!
As for "Everybody's Boy" Luke Ravenstahl, I'm sorry, but I have a really hard time disliking the guy. Would I vote for him? Probably not. But he doesn't seem so much like a liar as he does utterly hapless.
Ravenstahl, like certain presidents of the United States I could name, never had to work very hard to rise quickly in the world of politics. His family's political connections opened all sorts of doors. That doesn't make him a bad person, but it does mean that he never had to overcome serious adversity, so he never got a chance to make his mistakes quietly, behind closed doors.
It seems to me that he would have benefited from working behind the scenes for a few years as a legislative aide to some state representative or city councilman, learning how to play the game. Heck, from what I read in last night's Daily News (subscribers-only link), Ravenstahl could have gotten a master's course in political wheeling and dealing from attending some West Mifflin borough council meetings.
As for the man that John McIntire calls "Mr. Pedutohead," I'm inclined to agree with my friend and former cow-orker Jonathan Potts: "Assuming that Bill Peduto is being sincere in dropping out of the Democratic primary because he doesn't like the negative tone of the campaign, then I have three words for him: Boo-friggin-who."
You shouldn't bring a knife to a gunfight. But Mr. Peduto might be the first person who ever brought marshmallows and soft, fluffy pillows.
He might be a fine councilman for the City of Picksberg, but they'd eat him alive in West Mifflin.
(Update: This Almanac originally reported that a spokesman for the water company was not available for comment. Phil Cynar of Pennsylvania-American Water Company told the Almanac Thursday that he responded to our initial email within 10 minutes of receiving it Wednesday. We apologize for not receiving his email, and we're reproducing it in full. Make sure to read Thursday's Almanac, too.)
Spring is sprung.
But motorists face fewer inconveniences than people who live in Lincoln Place. One local business owner told me water interruptions frequently force him to close his store, and he's also frustratred with bulldozers and backhoes that have blocked access to his parking lot or parked on his sidewalk, cracking the slabs. 
Peter Leo once called Lincoln Place "a forgotten chunk of Pittsburgh forever resisting West Mifflin's embrace." Schmidt wants to reassure residents that the city has not forgotten about them, and says Shields (who held a town meeting with residents a few weeks ago to hear their complaints) is actively putting pressure on the water company to make things right.(*—"Thus passes the glory of North Versailles Township")
Let's not mince words: Eastland Mall was a dump.
It was built as an open-air shopping center, and constructed cheaply in 1963 and '64 of dun-colored bricks and plain cement blocks --- so cheaply that (as recounted elsewhere on Tube City Online) the walls of the Gimbels store fell over while it was being built.
The "architecture" was boring to the point of being non-existent. A sawtooth roof over the third floor of Gimbels was the sole attempt at visual "interest." The rest of the mall was as charming as a juvenile detention center --- plain brick walls, flat metal awnings, and single-pane windows with flimsy aluminum trim that quickly pitted and turned gray.
They put a roof over Eastland after it burned in 1973. And the architect who oversaw the renovations, Ira Rubin, tried like hell to give the interior some visual interest by lining the ceiling with corrugated steel and leaving the support trusses exposed. The steel was painted in bright, bold shades of green and orange and the signs were redone in industrial-style stencil lettering.
Instead of making the newly-enclosed shopping concourse more playful and colorful, it looked like a damned bus garage. The metal ceiling made everything echo, and as it aged, it leaked. When they put tar on the roof, it dripped inside, leaving long black streaks on the metal panels.
. . .
After the big anchor stores left, the decline accelerated. Yes, when Benderson Development stopped performing any substantial maintenance a decade ago, things got much worse --- a building that isn't good to begin with falls apart in a hurry when you stop heating it in the wintertime, and when you let the water pour through the ceiling.
But trust me: Even when Penney's, Gimbels, Gee Bee and Woolworth were open, and the mall was at 90 percent capacity, it was a dump. I was there.
The sad truth about malls is there's not much you can do with them after they outlive their usefulness. There's nothing to "restore" and there's little to which they can be adapted. In fact, the proposed reuses for Eastland ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous. At one point, I'm told some genius wanted to store old tires in the basement. Thank God the North Versailles fire marshal squelched that idea.
I get a little bit sick to my stomach every time some politician gets excited over a retail development, because no matter how nice it is, I can envision it looking like Eastland someday. Shopping centers: What a waste of money. What a waste of resources. Phooey.
. . .
Anyway, nobody should feel nostalgic for Eastland Mall.
So how come I felt so bad when I took that picture on Saturday afternoon?
Maybe I'm nostalgic for the shopping trips I took with my grandparents when I was a little kid. Grandma didn't walk very well, and even after Century III Mall opened, she preferred Eastland --- it was smaller and easier to get around.
Maybe I'm nostalgic for all of the movies I saw (practically the entire Walt Disney animated oeuvre, including Song of the South, up until 1984 or so) at the Eastland Theater, which actually was kind of a snazzy place. Eastland main auditorium was built at the tail-end of the 1960s vogue for super-wide screens, and the screen in Theater No. 1 was huge. (Theater No. 2, added later, wasn't quite as impressive, but the screen was still a darn sight larger than any modern multiplex's.)
Maybe I'm nostalgic for the Saturday and Sunday afternoons I whiled away as a teen-ager, when I'd hang out at the flea market with friends. We had a lot of fun picking through other people's junk and, frankly, making fun of the weirdos. (You know, I love the Mon Valley, but we are in no danger of running out of weirdos.)
. . .
Actually, I do kind of miss the theaters. The usher (a nice fellow who later worked up at Southland's multiplex) told us once that Eastland's were the largest operating movie screens in Western Pennsylvania, and I believe him --- outside of a drive-in, I've never seen movie screens as big as Eastland's.
Yeah, the seats were gross at the end, when they were holding the armrests together with duct tape, and the carpets smelled like old dogs and cigarette smoke, but the big screen in Theater No. 1 was still beautiful.
And the Eastland Theater set up one my best jokes (he said, humbly). Long after the theater closed, vandals got in and trashed the place, and one weekend when we walked around the parking lot we found the plastic letters from the marquee strewn everywhere. I slipped one of them into my jacket and took it home, the prank already germinating in my mind.
On Monday morning, I reported to work at the Daily News and was just waiting for my opening. Finally, Marie Havrilla, the wire editor, spoke up. "What did you do this weekend?" she asked me.
"I took a pee behind Eastland Mall," I said.
. . .
Marie didn't shock easily, but her mouth fell open. "Why the hell would you tell me that?" she said.
"Because you asked," I said. "In fact, I brought the pee with me to work. I want to show it to someone, because it's red." I thought she'd fall over.
And then I pulled the red plastic letter "P" from the Eastland marquee out of my briefcase, and I really thought she'd fall over.
Marie will be dead eight years next month, and I still miss her. My granddad has been dead more than a decade, and I miss him, too. I miss a lot of people, but I guess I'm lucky to have the memories, and I have a few tangible things, too. Like my red "P."
. . .
But I'm not going to get nostalgic for Eastland Mall. Good riddance, you festering pile of crud.
I only regret that your landlord waited so long to knock your vermin-infested, water-logged, rotten old walls down. Thanks, Benderson, for leaving your garbage pile on our community doorstep for so long. Property values in Crestas Terrace and Green Valley instantly tripled when the bulldozers tore apart the mall's last facade.
More pictures after the jump.
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.
