April 25, 2008
75 Years on the 'Baum Squad'
If you grew up in Penn's Woods, Highland Meadows, Manns-Conroy, Golfview or any of the other suburban housing plans that sprung up around McKeesport in the 1950s and '60s --- or if you live in one of those houses now --- tomorrow is your chance to say "thank you."
All of those neighborhoods were developed with help from the city's
Wilson Baum Agency, which on Saturday will celebrate its 75th anniversary with a barbecue, open house and live remote broadcast of
Jack Etzel's handyman show.
Even if you didn't grow up in a house from Wilson Baum, you're invited, too, to celebrate with what used to be called "The Baum Squad" in advertisements.
A former Wilson Baum Agency employee came up with that slogan decades ago, says Robert W. Baum, who now runs the agency his father founded in 1933. "She said I should have paid her royalties," he says with a laugh.
. . .
Wilson Baum wasn't just involved in housing development, of course. Bob Baum estimates that the elder Baum also approved more than $105 million in mortgages for McKeesporters over the years.
Since many of the mortgages were tiny by today's standards --- houses valued at less than $5,000, with monthly payments of $15 or $20 --- an awful lot of Mon Valley families must have purchased their first home with the help of a loan arranged by Wilson Baum.
"I can remember a big mortgage payment being $130 --- wow!" jokes Bob Baum, who is celebrating his own 50th anniversary in real estate this year. "You wondered how they could afford it."
These days, about two dozen employees, based in the agency's offices at the corner of Walnut Street and Long Run Road, handle more than 300 home sales per year and millions of dollars in residential, personal and commercial insurance for people throughout the Mon Valley.
And they still broker home financing, too, through a division called Abby Mortgage Inc. (It's named for Bob Baum's seven-year-old long-haired dachshund, who accompanies him to the office.)
. . .
Wilson Baum is also a franchise (they prefer the term "
branch-ise") of Pittsburgh's Howard Hanna Real Estate Services, which is now the
seventh-largest real estate brokerage in the United States. That gives the McKeesport agency national reach.
"There was a time that I didn't want to sell a house more than three miles away," Baum says. "Now, I'll list a house in Erie."
That's pretty tall cotton for an agency that was started almost by accident in 1933, when Wilson W. Baum was working for Montgomery Ward & Co. in Butler, and living with his father, a Methodist minister, in a church parsonage.
Wilson Baum's brother Herb was the McKeesport representative of a Harrisburg-based savings and loan. When he was transferred to the Pittsburgh office, Herb Baum was asked to recommend a replacement. He suggested his brother.
So Wilson Baum rented a tiny office on the second floor of 520 Locust St., Downtown, to collect deposits and arrange mortgages for the State Capital Savings & Loan Association.
. . .
Bob Baum doesn't know why his father branched into selling houses. But it was the Depression, and the state didn't require real estate agents to have a license then. One suspects that Wilson Baum first got into real estate to help sell the houses of mortgage customers who couldn't meet their payments.
In fact, during the dark days of the 1930s, Wilson Baum sometimes made payments on his customers' houses to keep them out of foreclosure. Bob Baum has found a ledger several inches thick recording payments that his father made on behalf of struggling homeowners --- including some prominent local families.
"He and my mother used to save 35 cents so that they could afford to go to the movies every two weeks," Bob Baum says. "That was their entertainment."
State Capital required Baum's mortgage customers to obtain fire insurance, so he started offering that, too. From there, Wilson Baum Agency kept growing, acquiring four other McKeesport real estate companies and opening branch offices in Greensburg, New Kensington and North Huntingdon. (The last of the branch offices was sold a few years ago.)
Despite that, Wilson W. Baum never wanted to own any real estate or stocks of his own. "Everything he saved, he saved in a passbook savings account," Bob Baum says, and when State Capital Savings was swallowed by several larger savings and loans, his father was distressed.
The elder Baum died at age 74 in 1985, so he didn't live to see the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s, which pushed the company that had bought State Capital Savings into
federal receivership.
"He lived and breathed State Capital," Bob Baum says. "He often said he didn't like the mergers, and if knew what happened, he'd be flipping over in his grave."
. . .
These days, Wilson Baum Agency remains successful despite operating in a real estate market that's more challenging than the one Baum's father faced during the Depression.
Many Mon Valley neighborhoods are filled with pre-World War II houses that have deteriorated or been abandoned, driving down property values. (Baum Agency pays its agents an above-average commission on sales to compensate for the lower housing prices.)
And Bob Baum says the most difficult thing about selling houses in the Mon Valley remains the perception that the communities aren't desirable.
"Our town is not as unsafe as people think it is," he says. "Do we have some problems? Yes. I'm not going to whitewash them."
But Baum, who sits on the board of the McKeesport Trail Commission and the McKeesport YMCA, says the city and the McKeesport Area School District are much better than many people assume.
The school district is "ranked third in the state for the range of programs that they offer, from college prep to vocational training," Baum says. "If the perception of the schools was better, that would make my job easier."
Some more cosmetic improvements would help, he says. The city needs to continue to clean up blighted properties --- the Jenny Lind, Soles, and Bailie street corridors are particularly tough to sell, Baum says --- and especially improve the main entrances to McKeesport.
. . .
Otherwise, Wilson Baum Agency has the same focus that its founder had 75 years ago: Face to face, personal attention.
Bob Baum says roughly 30 to 40 percent of the company's insurance business is done by walk-in clients, many of them older residents. "They want to see you eye to eye," he says. "People can find my products anywhere. If people come here based on my price, they'll leave us based on price. I'm selling service."
Howard Hanna's trademark green now graces Wilson Baum Agency, both inside and out. But Wilson Baum Agency's office also displays the picture of an old-fashioned gaslight that has been the smaller company's trademark for decades.
The gaslight was Bob Baum's idea.
"I thought the lamp represented warmth, or a homey touch," he says. "To me, what that lamp means is the lamp of service."
And they've kept it glowing in McKeesport for 75 years and counting.
. . .
If You Go: Wilson Baum Agency will hold a barbecue and open house from 12 noon to 4 p.m. Saturday. A 32-inch color TV and other door prizes will be given away.
Jack Etzel, host of a handyman show on McKeesport-licensed WPTT (1360), will broadcast live between 12:30 and 1:30 p.m. (Incidentally, the Wilson Baum Agency building also housed
radio station 1360 from 1969 to 1974, when it was known as "WIXZ." If you ask nice, Bob Baum will show you the control room where Rush Limbaugh worked. Though it's now a conference room, it still looks like a radio studio.)
The agency is located at 314 Long Run Road, at the intersection of Walnut Street and Route 48. RSVPs are suggested; call (412) 751-2200, extension 130.
April 24, 2008
Waiting for God
You probably know Ronald Reagan's pony joke.
I'm going to screw it up, but it goes something like this. A little boy comes downstairs on Christmas morning to find a giant pile of horse manure next to the tree.
When his parents come down a few minutes later, they find him happily digging through the manure.
"Jimmy, why are you digging in that horse manure?" his mom says, horrified.
"Because, with all of this horse manure, there must be a pony nearby," Jimmy says.
Why am I telling this story? Because I'm going to try and dig through the pile of racism in the Mon Valley and find the pony.
Go back and read the comments earlier this week from Aynthem and Lauren, who were rightfully horrified by the article that appeared in the Washington Post this week about Our Fair City.
I was more embarrassed than horrified. Maybe I've become used to hearing stupid racist stuff for years. And you probably are used to it, too. (Which is really depressing, when I think about it.)
After reading what Aynthem and Lauren wrote, I tried coming up with a nice, polite, reasonable response.
Well, screw that. Let's cut to the chase: Statistically speaking, the Mon Valley is very old. It has an disproportionate number of old white people whose racial attitudes are Neanderthal, and slightly younger people who grew up listening to the old bigots spout a lot of crap.
Some of the people in the older generation grew up when the mills were using African-American labor, imported from the South, to bust the unions. That's no excuse. I'm not forgiving them. But it's the root of some of the attitudes that persist to this day.
In a normal area, people with outdated racist attitudes would be one small part of a larger population. This is not a normal area. We lost an entire generation of people in the 1980s, and we haven't recovered yet.
So, the bad news is that people with antique racial attitudes often seem to drown out the voices of good intentioned people. The worse news is that the old racists are not going to change.
Here's the good news: They don't need to change. Time is catching up with them. As Dick Morris and Eileen McGann wrote in the New York Post this week:
Of the 50 states, only Florida has a higher over-65 proportion of its population. But there's a key difference: Florida's elderly moved there --- Pennsylvania's are the folks that are left after the young people moved away.
I don't know how else to say this, so I'll blurt it out.
The old farts are dying at a rapid pace. The median age of the residents of the Mon Valley --- and all of Pennsylvania --- is going to inevitably move back toward the national average within a generation or so, and their grandchildren have more enlightened attitudes.
Racism isn't genetic. While there are plenty of under-30 bigots in the Pittsburgh area, there are too many black and white kids going to school together, hanging out together, working together and dating for me to think that racism is endemic in the younger generation. (You didn't see interracial couples in the Mon Valley 20 years ago. No one bats an eye now.)
People who aren't small-minded have to keep speaking out against prejudice of all kinds. And includes arguing with dad, grandma or our friends whenever they say something incredibly bigoted about any group.
We need to make it clear that these attitudes aren't acceptable.
Not because we have a chance of changing their minds. But because we have to make sure that their outdated attitudes don't infect the next generation.
Although bigotry isn't genetic, it is a communicable disease.
Rest assured, time is
always on the side of justice. God is going to judge the bigots, and in some cases, soon.
Until then, unfortunately, we're going to have to keep plowing through the racist horse crap.
The pile gets a little smaller every year, but it can't go away soon enough.
April 23, 2008
Those Oldies But Goodies
After all of the heavy discussions of the past few days, I think it's worth bringing back this bit for an encore.
And now, from approximately coast-to-coast,
Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding wrap up the election returns for you, in a segment from the original recording of their 1970 Broadway show,
Bob and Ray: The Two and Only:
The Concession Speech (MP3, 3.1 MB)
. . .
New Duquesne Blog: An anonymous tipster sends us a link to a new blog that promises to expose all of Duquesne's "dirty secrets."
I didn't think the dirt in the Mon Valley was a secret. In fact, the problem is that all of our dirt is out in the open where everyone can look at it. We could
use some secrets.
Anyway,
here's the link. Judge the accuracy for yourself; there are some pretty serious allegations on there, but our tipster claims that "all of the info contained on it is true, accurate and easily verified."
Well, maybe. If it isn't, then it sure looks like some Grade-A, top-quality, gold-plated libel.
. . .
In the Mood for Food?: Tube City Brewhouse on Walnut Street in Christy Park is back in business under new management. Several of our spies have sampled the place during its "soft opening," and frankly, we're very pleasantly surprised. The service and the food are better; they weren't anything to write home about before the place closed.
It's one of several
new restaurant reviews added to the "Tourism/Visitors" section of
Tube City Online.
Also reviewed: Di's Kornerstone Diner, Mellon's Pub and Hot Metal Diner. Jason says check 'em out this weekend.
April 22, 2008
Perhaps the Last Hardscrabble Watch
Finally, the presidential candidates found their way into the Mon Valley.
And finally, the national media have obliged us with the kind of stories we've been waiting for --- we're a bunch of beer-swilling, redneck rubes who live for the past in "crumbling ghost towns."
Yeah, there's an element of truth in these stories. I'm not blind. I know what our towns look like. But these reports don't do us any favors.
Then again, we don't do ourselves any favors, either.
This story from Dana Milbank of the Washington Post kind of sums up how the world sees Our Fair City, rightly or wrongly.
It's headlined, "In This Forgotten Town, Obama Can Forget About It":
This town was bitter before bitter was fashionable.
The Monongahela River Valley lost its steel mills in the '80s and, a quarter-century later, this sad town in the heart of the Mon Valley still hasn't recovered. Its downtown is a collage of crumbling buildings, and its once-proud landmark, the 102-year-old People's Union Bank Building, has signs in the window: Bank Repo Sale. Excellent Deal. Eight stories. Priced to sell!
It is, in short, just the sort of place Barack Obama was talking about when he said he wasn't getting the support of blue-collar workers of the industrial heartland because they "cling" to guns and religion out of economic bitterness. It is also the place Obama chose to visit on Monday night, on the eve of Tuesday's primary -- and the reception here explains why Obama, the national front-runner, is expected to lose Pennsylvania.
And it goes on like that, getting worse and worse and worse.
Make sure to read the comment that Obama just wants to be president "because he's black," and about the guy who plans to vote for McCain if Obama gets the nomination.
Like I said, we don't do ourselves any favors.
. . .
I noted last week that a reporter for the U.K.'s
Telegraph was in Clairton. His story has
finally appeared:
In Clairton, a once-thriving community, where The Deer Hunter was filmed in the mid-1970s, the population has shrunk by two thirds in the past 30 years.
Jobs at the huge steel mill beside the Monongahela River have steadily disappeared.
And
blah, blah, blah.
Actually,
The Deer Hunter wasn't filmed in Clairton. It was filmed in
Cleveland and
Mingo Junction, Ohio. But --- whatever.
. . .
After the Pennsylvania Primary, will the national media stick around to tell any
good stories about the Mon Valley?
Will they look for any positive signs of life?
Will they interview the people who have turned the old YWCA on Ninth Avenue into The Common Ground?
Will they talk to the volunteers at the Carnegie Library of McKeesport or the McKeesport Symphony Orchestra or the McKeesport Heritage Center or the Bethlehem Baptist Church or any of the other organizations who are invested in our community?
Will they talk to any of the bright students at McKeesport or Serra or South Allegheny or East Allegheny or Steel Center Vo-Tech or West Mifflin?
Of course not. The
Washington Post, the
New York Times and all the rest don't care.
It's easier to make us a punchline. And we in the "forgotten towns" will be forgotten again by the national media.
At least until the fall.
Hey, what do you know? I guess I am bitter!
(more)
April 22, 2008
Color Me Cynical
Listen to this old radio public service announcement from my (half) vast archives, and see if the song doesn't get stuck in your head for the rest of the day:
Get Out and Vote! (1962)
(44 seconds, MP3, 700KB)
If you're an independent voter or a party-ticket backer, exercise your privilege --- and never be a slacker!
If you want to keep on living the American way, be sure to do your duty on Election Day!
Vote the way you want to vote, but voter get out and, voter, get out and, voter, get out and vote!
. . .
Predictions: I spoke last night with Dr. Pica Pole, director of research for Tube City Online Laboratories, who has spent the last 24 hours crunching survey data, demographics, voter registration numbers and Doritos.
Based on his reports and the chicken entrails I had for dinner, I've decided to make some predictions.
Keep in mind I had gotten into the Dewar's before I wrote them.
. . .
Clinton by 11 over Obama: I know Obama supporters are hoping for some sort of a miracle. I keep hoping that Roberto Clemente's plane didn't
crash, but was actually sucked into the Bermuda Triangle, and that he might emerge and start playing the outfield again.
It ain't gonna happen, and Barack Obama ain't going to win Pennsylvania.
Monday night, the "CBS Evening News with Katie Couric" (motto: "Yes, we're still on") was reporting that Obama was likely to carry Allegheny County.
CBS' crystal ball is cloudy. I doubt that Obama will even carry the City of Pittsburgh, though he will likely win the East End, including Squirrel Hill, Point Breeze, Oakland, Homewood, the Hill and the surrounding neighborhoods.
As for McKeesport, I think he'll win the city --- thanks in part to an aggressive group of volunteers --- but suburbs like Port Vue, White Oak, Liberty, etc., are going to be solidly behind Hillary Clinton.
Obama is expected to easily win Philadelphia and its suburbs, and I think he might pick up support in places like Erie, the Lehigh Valley, and even around State College.
But the rest of the state? Forget it.
This goes to prove an old adage about Pennsylvania politics that my grandpappy taught me:
"An African-American cannot win a statewide race in Pennsylvania ... if the entire state Democratic Party, a former president, the governor, the mayors of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, and the Allegheny County Chief Executive are all working against him."
(Yeah, my grandpa was psychic.)
It's a shame, because if Obama gets the nomination, and ultimately the presidency, then our top elected officials will have truly screwed the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in the eyes of the new administration.
But hey, we get the government we deserve.
. . .
By the Way: It turns out that Hillary Clinton could still win the Democratic nomination.
This video explains how.
. . .
McCain by 70 over Paul: Someone erected a whole bunch of "Ron Paul for President" signs around McKeesport and West Mifflin over the weekend, including a big one at the end of the Mansfield Bridge.
C'mon.
Ron Paul?
Seriously?
Yeah, he'll probably pull 10 percent of the vote, but 10 percent of the public will vote for anyone. Hell, more than 30 percent of Americans believe in
witchcraft and alien abductions.
Some of the votes for Ron Paul will come from true, die-hard supporters, but the others will just be protest votes against John McCain.
. . .
Kortz by 15 over Jabbour: People who have worked with Jay Jabbour tell me he's a good man. I've never met him, but I believe them.
It's too bad that 60-plus years of public service and goodwill have been swept aside over the past 10 years, as Jabbour has engaged in campaigns that seem mainly to have been waged to settle old grudges and vendettas.
State Rep. Bill Kortz hasn't done anything, so far as I can tell, to have wound up on the wrong end of Jabbour's poison pens. He should easily win the Democratic nomination for re-election to his 38th District seat.
. . .
Costa by 100 over apathy: State Sen. Jay Costa Jr. is running unopposed for the Democratic nomination in the 43rd District. No one is running against him. And no Republicans filed.
Costa was one of the backers of the late-night state legislative pay raise. Anyone remember? That's what I thought.
Like I said, we get the government we deserve.
. . .
Marlins by 10 over Pirates: Dr. Pica Pole recommends that Pittsburgh trade Mayor Ravenstahl and the Pirates to Altoona for the
Curve and
Mayor Wayne Hippo.
Buccos of Suckitude, indeed. Let's just shorten that to "Succos."
Posted at 12:22 am by Jason Togyer
Filed Under: General Nonsense, Politics, Sarcastic? Moi? | one comment | Link To This Entry
April 21, 2008
Listen to This
Did you know that one of the first 100 radio broadcasting stations in the United States was in
Our Fair City?
It's true. Radio station WIK, operated by the K&L Electric Co., was located on Shaw Avenue near Jenny Lind Street. The "L" in "K&L" was Hunter Lohman, whose ham radio callsign of W3OC is still in use by McKeesport's
Two Rivers Amateur Radio Club.
WIK operated from March 1922 until early 1925.
Broadcasting hours were daily from 6:30 to 7 p.m., Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9:30 to 10:30 p.m., and Sundays from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m.
Programs included live music (mostly ethnic and light classical selections) and speeches by local dignitaries and ministers.
Like many early radio stations, WIK wasn't a success. Radio receivers were extremely expensive. The cheapest, crudest sets cost nearly a third of the average worker's weekly take home pay, while better sets were priced (relatively speaking) to what we would expect to pay today for a high-definition, large-screen TV.
Worse yet, until May 1923, all U.S. radio stations operated on the same two frequencies, 750 kHz and 833 kHz. Trying to receive any signal was a challenge for even a dedicated radio buff.
Two or three weak signals in the same town just created noise and interference, while stronger stations could push weaker stations off the air. Little WIK was no match for KDKA, KQV and WJAS, which were owned by wealthier companies, and which
all used the same frequency.
Some day, I'll write up a history of WIK. For now, you can get a taste of what radio was like 85 years ago by reading today's installment of "
Monday Morning Nostalgia Fix" over at
Pittsburgh Radio & TV Online.
. . .
Meanwhile, Alert Reader Mike wants to remind me that there's another candidate ---
Dan Davis --- running for state legislature in the 38th District:
Hey, Tiger! There's a third choice in the wonderful fracas that festers in the tumultuous region of the 38th District wherein which you reside.
Granted, under the illustrious Commonwealth's closed primary system you'll be unable to cast a ballot for him this Tuesday, you might consider him for the general election.
Wait, there's something besides the Democratic Primary? Now I'm really confused.
Next Mike will try to tell me that I can vote for
third-party candidates.
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.