The first free medical clinic outside of Pittsburgh will open next week in the YWCA of McKeesport, Downtown. The Ninth Street Clinic will be staffed by volunteer doctors and nurses on Thursday nights, Laurie MacDonald, interim executive director of the Y, told the Almanac this week.
The clinic will be headed by Dr. Bill Markle, a family practice physician at UPMC McKeesport, MacDonald says, and will be modeled after Pittsburgh's Birmingham Free Clinic.
The clinic is intended to answer a need for medical care among the Mon-Yough area's working poor, she says. "A lot of people don't have insurance but do have jobs, and they don't qualify for (free) medical assistance," MacDonald says. People without health insurance wind up using emergency rooms for illnesses that would otherwise be treated by a family practice doctor. Perhaps more seriously, chronic conditions that could be treated through regular visits to a doctor wind up as debilitating illnesses before the patient finally visits an ER.
In addition to providing preventative and pallative care, the McKeesport clinic will also be referring patients to mental health and mental retardation services, MacDonald says. The clinic will be 100 percent staffed by volunteers, and if you or someone you know can help, call (412) 664-4304.
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Y? Because We Need It: It's no secret around town that the YWCA has been struggling for some time with declining membership, though it continues to offer community services like Y-Teens for local girls, and to function as a community center for activities like the clinic.
But a little birdie recently told the Almanac that the YMCA is entering serious financial difficulty, brought on in part by the cost of maintaining its beautiful but expensive landmark building at the corner of Sinclair and Ringgold streets.
Besides offering a very good collection of fitness equipment, a nice swimming pool, an indoor running track and exercise classes for all ages, the Y also offers "residence rooms" for transients and the poor, and the upkeep on those is steep while the "profit" is slim to non-existent.
I learned to swim at the McKeesport Y and took my driving test there, and generations of other local kids have taken advantage of health and fitness classes, personal development coaching and other community services. If you're paying for an expensive membership at some commercially-run gym in Monroeville or West Mifflin, consider joining the YMCA instead. It's cheaper and every bit as good, plus your membership helps support an important resource to the community.
And if you can contribute time or treasure (the McKeesport YMCA is a United Way qualified agency --- make sure to designate Code 112 on your form), consider doing so. We need agencies like the YMCA now more than ever. To volunteer, call (412) 664-9168.
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I Want to Ride My Bicycle: U.S. Steel Corp. and Allegheny County announced yesterday that 1.5 miles of property near the former Duquesne Works has been transferred to the Regional Trail Corporation. Once grading and other improvements are complete, the new land will close a major gap in the planned hiking and biking trail between Point State Park and Washington, D.C. ... and incidentally, will provide easy bike trail access to Kennywood.
U.S. Steel cleared the land by removing parts of the old pipeline that carried coke oven gas from Clairton to the former blast furnaces in Duquesne and also began the process of grading the land for the trail. (Map)
A significant gap still exists Downtown between Christy Park and Duquesne. In a prepared statement, Allegheny Trail Alliance President Linda McKenna Boxx said that local agencies and volunteers are “we’re working hard to make the connection to Point State Park by next fall.” She hopes to have the entire 335-mile-long "Great Allegheny Passage" complete in time for Pittsburgh's 250th anniversary celebration next year. (Tube City hard-hat tip: Alert Reader Kris.)
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To Do This Weekend: Norwin Senior High School, Mockingbird Drive, North Huntingdon, presents The Taffetas, at 8 p.m. today and tomororow in the auditorium. Admission is $5. Call (724) 861-3005 ... Deaconess Ministry of Mount Carmel Baptist Church, 90 Port Perry Road, Crestas Terrace, North Versailles, holds its spring tea from 12 to 3 p.m. Saturday. Featured speaker is Rev. Avis Williams of First Baptist Church, West Mifflin. Call (412) 823-2841 ... Pleasant Hills Rotary Club will hold an all-you-can-eat spaghetti dinner and a bake sale from 1 to 7 p.m. tomorrow at the Pleasant Hills Community Church, 199 Old Clairton Road. Tickets are $7 for adults, $4 for children under 12. Call (412) 551-6015.
Whenever he's too busy to write, Mark Evanier posts a picture of a can of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup. Since I'm Hungarian, I'm posting a picture of canned goulash instead. I don't know if you can buy canned goulash in any of the stores around here or not, and frankly, I don't want to know.
Besides, I'd rather have instant chicken paprikas, which you also can't buy in McKeesport. And yet if there ever was a market for instant Hungarian food (and there isn't) you'd think the Mon-Yough area would be that market.
Oh, well. We don't have a bookstore or a fancy coffee shop either.
In addition to work deadlines, which are looming over me like a giant can of goulash, my free time has been spent redesigning the Pittsburgh Radio & TV Online website, to which I have contributed over the past seven years.
Founded in 1998, PBRTV predates blogging by a few years, but that's what it's really been. Now, editor/founder Eric O'Brien has made it official. With the help of my former Serra classmate Tom Schroll, PBRTV has migrated to a Dutch (!) content management system called "Pivotlog."
While I'm more familiar with blog software like Movable Type and WordPress, Tom says Pivotlog has more features and tighter security.
It definitely does have some real flexible publishing options, though trying to interpret the instructions (some of which were obviously written by non-native English speakers) hasn't been fun. (Actually, I'd love to be Dutch, "wooden shoe"? Ha! I slay me.)
So, go check out PBRTV if you haven't looked at it for a while. It's not often that two Serra grads get to help out a Vincentian grad like Eric, but we products of the Diocese of Pittsburgh's rapidly diminishing educational system have to stick together.
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In other business, last week I asked if you remembered the physician who had his office in the little red brick building at the Elizabeth Township end of the Boston Bridge, and which pharmacy was located next door.
The correct answers are "John's Pharmacy" and "Dr. Raymond Wargovich," and the trivia questions were correctly answered by none other than Alert Reader Jim Wargovich of Massachusetts. I think he liked Boston, Pa., so much that he wanted to see what the other town with that name looked like:
Raymond Wargovich was my father. He originally had his practice at 911 Huey St. in McKeesport (the corner of Huey and Versailles). His office was part of our house. We moved to Elizabeth Township in 1969.
I went to Holy Trinity School (now closed almost 37 years ago) until 1969. One of my classmates at Holy Trinity was Thomas Hose (now infamous!).
It is fun to go to your website to see what's going on in McKeesport. I visited McKeesport in 2005 with my wife and kids to show them where I grew up. I warned them that it wasn't going to be pretty. I expected deterioration but was shocked by how much deterioration there was.
Too bad things don't turn around. Crime seems to be the biggest factor. Yet I was amazed how much nicer the area was without all the steel mill pollution that I remember as a kid. Can McKeesport be salvaged?
Your website is very useful to us "ex-McKeesporters" who like to see what's happening at their old hometown from time to time.
Unlike our furry friend there, I don't actually harbor any ill will toward Picksberg Mayor Opie "Luke" Ravenstahl. Whatever missteps he and his retainers have made --- the Dennis Regan hiring, the Catherine McNeilly demotion, the attempts at "secrecy" surrounding the ethics board --- they've been so ham-handed and transparent that I have a hard time getting angry at him.
Politically, "Everybody's Boy" just seems feckless ... or maybe "feck-challenged."
Now, if he were devious and competent, my opinion might change, because it's a dangerous combination for someone in power. (See also Haldeman, H.R.) But "clumsy and trying to be devious" is almost charming in a way. At the very least, it's amusing. I suppose I would feel differently if he were my mayor.
One thing that I do find irritating about "Everybody's Boy" is his proclivity to put his name on everything. There may have been politicians who were more obvious about using public money to campaign, but none since Boss Tweed come to mind. It started when Ravenstahl stuck his name on Bob O'Connor's "Let's Redd Up Pittsburgh" campaign, and it shows no sign of abating.
Over at The Burgh Blog, Pittgirl teed this one up last week: "My own personal email address seems to have been added to the mailing list to receive 'Mayor Luke Ravenstahl’s Neighborhood Message.' That is what it is called. Not 'The Neighborhood Message' or 'Won’t You Be My Neighbor,' but 'MAYOR LUKE RAVENSTAHL’S Neighborhood Message.' ... And boy, is it all about him."
Then, over the weekend, One of America's Great Newspapers had some fun at Opie's expense, pointing out that "Everybody's Boy" pushed aside a bunch of potential slogans for the marquee of the Garden Theatre and instead put his own name up in lights:
Speaking of other McKeesporters who have achievements of which they can be proud, McKeesport native, WNBA star and Olympic gold medal winner Swin Cash was honored at the annual Dapper Dan awards as "Sportswoman of the Year." She joined the Penguins' Sidney Crosby and Steelers owner Dan Rooney on the dais at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center.You are on an archived page of Tube City Almanac.
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