A little tidbit of information about Indiana, Pa., birthplace of Jimmy Stewart (in case you haven't heard that in the last 20 minutes): The Indiana County Transit Authority is called "IndiGO" (get it?) but the buses are painted red and white. Shouldn't they be --- I don't know, indigo?
Anyway, I've been in Indiana a few times recently for the first time in my life. Indiana County is a pleasant piece of Pennsylvania, and Indiana Borough is a charming little town.
I do find one thing curious about the downtown area, which is home to the headquarters of two large, publicly-traded banks --- First Commonweath and S&T --- as well as the Indiana County Courthouse and (of course) Indiana University of Pennsylvania. The main street in Indiana is a wide state highway with parking and turning lanes. And yet the only retailer in Indiana that seems to be successful is whomever is selling the "Going Out of Business" signs.
It seems like practically every other storefront along Philadelphia Avenue in Indiana is vacant, or is getting ready to close. A few restaurants and coffee shops are hanging on --- I suspect mainly to serve the local office workers --- but the rest of the business district is on a slow slide to oblivion.
If Indiana Borough can't keep a business district going with a captive audience of college students and white-collar office workers, what hope is there for McKeesport or Homestead? And what's killing the downtown businesses in Indiana? Indiana Mall is not exactly a new phenomenon.
Any of you Almanac readers who're graduates of IUP (home of the Indians ... er, I mean the "Crimson Hawks"), feel free to chime in with your theories. I'm not sure I understand it.
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Anyway, while in Indiana last week, I had a very pleasant visit with local attorney Joseph Mack, who introduced me to the Rev. George Hnatko, founder and executive director of the Eastern Orthodox Foundation.
An independent, non-profit foundation affiliated with the Eastern Orthodox Church ,it recently celebrated its 40th anniversary and operates a nursing home and camp for indigents, the elderly and homeless of Western Pennsylvania.
In addition to its 200-acre property in Penn Run, Indiana County, which includes a dormitory and an assisted living facility, the foundation also runs a personal care home in the former Homestead Hospital on West Street in Homestead.
Father Hnatko says that the EOF is also partnering with Turtle Creek Valley MH/MR to offer services to Steel Valley residents at that site. You don't have to be a member of the Eastern Orthodox Church to use their services, either, and they don't seem to proslytise, though the foundation is run along Eastern Catholic principles and there are on-site chapels.
The EOF depends largely on contributions and donations to provide services, and Mack jokes that it loses "about a quarter of a million dollars a year," meaning that's about what staff members need to raise every year. Donations of cash or property to EOF are tax-deductible, so visit their website and learn how you can help.
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Also in my travels, I caught up with an old friend and Serra High classmate, Karl Puskaric, who's running the antique store at the Elizabeth Township end of the Boston Bridge. (It's the red-brick building with all of the signs on it, next to the bike trail.)
The antique store is only one of many enterprises run by Karl, who must be the hardest-working man in show business. Most of the items are from estates that he's purchased over the years, so there's plenty of Mon-Yough area items, along with glassware, tools, photos, books, kitchen utensils, furniture --- just about everything you can imagine.
And as someone who's visited more than a few "junque" shops in my time, I'd have to say Karl's is about the best-organized I've ever seen (it's very easy to browse, because he's actually got things labeled and sorted), and his prices seem very reasonable. Check it out Fridays, Saturdays or Sundays if you're in the Elizabeth Township or Versailles area.
Tell him I sent you and maybe he'll give you something ... a punch in the nose, I don't know.
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“McKeesport Appreciation Day”: Everyday is "McKeesport Appreciation Day" at Tube City Online, but this Sunday is "McKeesport Appreciation Day" in the Municipality of Monroeville. To coin another phrase, I am not making this up.
According to the Post-Gazette, the mayor of Monroeville wants to honor the city for hosting the first Kennedy-Nixon debate back in 1947 at the Penn-McKee Hotel. Thanks for the nice thoughts, Mr. Mayor, but don't throw flowers—send cash.
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Trivia Question: What was the name of the drugstore that used to be in the building at the corner of Smithfield Street and the Boston Bridge before Karl and his family bought it? And what was the name of the physician who long had his office in that same building? Put your answers in the comments if you remember. If no one gets it, I'll answer the question next week.
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To Do This Weekend: Whistle a happy tune, young lovers, where ever you are, 'cause Serra Catholic High School, 200 Hershey Drive, presents "The King and I" tonight and tomorrow at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. Tickets are $7 for adults and $5 for students and seniors. Call (412) 751-2020 ... Pure Gold plays the Palisades, Fifth Avenue at Water Street, at 8 p.m. Saturday. Call (412) 678-6979.
The Tribune-Review's connection to McKeesport pre-dates its planned purchase of the Daily News and even the launch of its Pittsburgh edition in 1993. In fact, the present-day Trib got its start in McKeesport.
Howzat, you say?
In 1877, a man named Lewis F. Armbrust started a paper in Turtle Creek called the People's Independent. Armbrust was born and raised in Adamsburg (just east of Irwin) and was a descendant of German immigrants and a prominent Westmoreland County family, the Gongawares.
In 1878, Armbrust moved his family and the newspaper to Greensburg, then sold the paper a few years later and moved to McKeesport.
In 1882, Armbrust opened two papers, the McKeesport Tribune and the McKeesport Herald, which he operated until 1890, at which time he moved back to Greensburg and merged his Tribune and Herald with the Independent to form the paper that eventually became the Greensburg Daily Tribune.
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The historical record is a little fuzzy in places. One 1906 history of Westmoreland County indicates that the Greensburg Tribune and Herald were founded before 1870.
But a list of Greensburg newspapers compiled from records at the State Library in Harrisburg implies that the original Tribune and Herald were merged into the Greensburg Press and discontinued circa 1882. And the Library of Congress also records the date of origin of the present Tribune-Review as 1890, when Armbrust moved back to Greensburg. So it seems that the McKeesport Tribune is the direct ancestor of the present Tribune-Review.
The Tribune eventually merged with the Greensburg Morning Review in 1955.
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Another McKeesport connection: The Tribune-Review eventually was purchased by descendants of Indiana County's prominent Mack family, whose most famous members (at least in the Mon-Yough area) might have been John Sephus Mack --- chairman and president of the G.C. Murphy Company until his death in 1940 --- and J. Gordon Mack, a well-known McKeesport attorney.
The editor and publisher of the Tribune-Review in the 1950s was David W. Mack, who was a member of the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II, earning the Air Medal for heroism in combat. His plane (a B-17 named Witches Tit, and I'm not making that up) was shot down over Germany in 1943, and he survived in a POW camp until being liberated in 1945.
Appointed publisher of the Trib in 1951, Mack became involved in a number of charitable and civic activities. Tragically, he died of a massive heart attack on Feb. 23, 1962, in the lobby of Greensburg City Hall (the old West Penn Railways trolley station) after attending a meeting there. Mack was only 46.
The Trib was sold by the Mack family in December 1969 to present publisher Richard Mellon Scaife. You could say, then, that by purchasing the Daily News, the Tribune-Review is returning to its historical roots.
And now (to coin a phrase) you know the rest of the story.
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More Useless Information: Incidentally, other English-language McKeesport newspapers, according to the history book published in 1976 by the city's Bicentennial Committee, have included:
I believe there was also a shortlived Sunday-only McKeesport paper in the 1950s called the Sunday Record, but I've only seen one issue of it, and I have no information about its founding or how long it lasted. (Its slogan was "Let's Get It On The Record.")
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