Category: History, Mon Valley Miscellany || By

This lovely late summer weather that we're having seems like a perfect reason to bust out this 1958-vintage postcard of the corner of Fifth and Walnut, Downtown.

Today, the Peoples' Union Bank building is all but vacant. (I notice that a sign is now billing it as the "Lum Tech Center.") The store next door, which I still think of as "White Cross" or "Revco," is now a CVS Pharmacy. The old G.C. Murphy Co. store is now a plasma center.

Just above the awning of the J.C. Penney Co. store, you can see a yellow and red blur. That's the sign pointing the way to the restaurant above Murphy's.

To the right of Penney's is a Rexall Drug store, Hirshberg's Department Store, and R.E. Kaplan Furniture.

Across the street, you can just make out the signs reading "Richard's Shoes" (look just below the "Florsheim" logo) and "DeRoy's." DeRoy's was a Pittsburgh-area chain of jewelry shops, while Richard's Shoes became Rubenstein's.

The orange sign with the jagged edge marks the location of Cox's children's shop --- before 1972, the big store at the corner of Fifth and Walnut was a lot smaller, and mainly housed the ladies' departments. Cox's men's wear department was in the next block of Fifth Avenue, across the street from the present location of First Commonwealth Bank.

Next to Kaplan's, there's a Thrift Drug location, and on the other side of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad tracks is Balsamo's Food Market.

In the far distance, you can barely make out the top of the G.C. Murphy Co. home office and Goodman's Jewelry. Those buildings are still there.

But everything else in this photo --- Penney's, Kaplan's, Cox's, the train tracks --- is gone.

Would I like a time machine for just one afternoon to go back and stand on that corner?

Oh, hell yes.

Do I wish we still had a bustling Downtown shopping district? Hell yes, again. But name one town in Western Pennsylvania that has a bustling central business district. Most of them look pretty much like Downtown McKeesport: Dollar stores, a few bank branches, and government and social-service agencies.

Of course, with the exception of the Peoples' Bank Building and --- arguably --- Cox's, none of these buildings were anything special. They were the strip mall buildings of their era, they weren't particularly attractive or exciting, and their loss isn't anything to get that upset about.

What made the city vital was the people. The buildings are gone, but a lot of good people are still here.

So appreciate the people we have now, and try to make your own neighborhood a little better. If that means calling city hall or your borough building and raising hell about potholes, crime, or abandoned buildings, then do it.

Spend money at businesses in the Mon Valley. Find a church or social group and consider volunteering. If you find ones you like, recommend them to other people. If you've moved away, think about moving back.

Maybe I'm naive, but I think each of us can make a small difference. A bunch of small differences can have a big impact.

And no matter what, for the next couple of days, enjoy the nice weather. In a couple of months, we'll be begging for weather like this.

Because you know what the Mon Valley looks like under a foot of dirty slush, and it ain't a pretty picture.

I originally called it "Indian Summer" weather, but Indian Summer doesn't really start until October. Mea culpa.