Tube City Almanac

July 01, 2009

No Negativity Zone

Category: Rants a.k.a. Commentary || By


Above: Linda Rowe, medical assistant, and Mary Markle, R.N., review patient files at the Ninth Street Clinic, Downtown. The two-year-old clinic in the former YWCA building treats about 30 people each week. All of the staff members are volunteers. (Jason Togyer/Tube City Almanac)

. . .

I've been working for two weeks on a story about the Ninth Street Clinic that will hopefully be published this Saturday. The folks at the clinic are doing God's work.

The story would have appeared sooner, but other events kept pushing it aside.

I'm only one man, and dammit, Jim, I'm a writer, not a moon-shuttle conductor.

Your patience is appreciated. I hope the story will be worth the wait.

. . .

Meanwhile, for the past 48 hours at work, I've been hearing over and over why various things can't be done.

Back here at the website, I'm becoming convinced we should just burn down the whole Mon Valley and collect the insurance.

I've got a relative in the hospital, my car's due for inspection and I just noticed that water is running down the outside of my house, not the drainpipes, which means the gutters are clogged.

. . .

I can't take any more. Any more of this crap and I'm moving to Yellowstone National Park to live in a tree and play the flute.

In other words, to quote a great philosopher, Eric Cartman: "I'm trying to make the best out of a bad situation ... screw you guys, I'm going home."

So, by the power invested in me by the bylaws of Tube City Community Media Inc. (which I wrote), I am declaring a temporary moratorium on negativity. If you want to post something negative, go somewhere else for a while.

. . .

And if you don't like that, hard cheese.

Here's a picture of my mom's dog. She's a cute dog.

You wouldn't say something negative to a cute dog, would you?






Your Comments are Welcome!

And ANOTHER thing…

I’ll bet that dog smells TERRIBLE when it gets wet. And she’s got all that free time to sit around outside? GET A JOB, DOG, AND QUIT SPONGING OFF YOUR OWNER.

I keed, I keed.
John - July 01, 2009



Our rebuttal:

http://www.tubecityonline.com/almanac/images/090701c.jpg
Webmaster - July 01, 2009



Jason: There are no magic bullets to solve the problems in the Mon Valley region. We have this great “hole in the doughnut,” where the mill towns burgeoned with cheap working-class housing within walking distance of the jobs. With the population growth came the retail and service commercial businesses to serve the residents, most of which were mom-and-pop or local chain stores.

A great deal of this construction was not designed or intended to be permanent. Fifty years was generally considered the service life, absent substantial investment in maintenance and/or remodeling. What I believe has happened is that at about the time all of these older buildings were coming due for up-grading, the jobs started going away. In the meantime, the new suburban housing boom beginning in the 1950s started attracting more and more middle-class folks who wanted to get away from the smoke, traffic, noise, etc. that went along with the older valley towns. So today we have reasonably healthy suburbs, where new housing is still being built, while the core has essentially collapsed. And yes, we have the Waterfront, but those $10 an hour jobs don’t begin to replace the thousands of $20-30 an hour jobs that were once there.

Maybe as a start, consider some form of urban homestead program. The City uses eminent domain to acquire entire areas (not just a few houses —- several blocks) that are blighted. Demolish those that are beyond help. Sell the remaining houses for $1, with the stipulation that the buyer has to agree to bring the house up to code and live there for a certain number of years (say, 5). In the same way, sell the vacant lots with the stipulation that a new house must be built and lived in by the buyer for x years. If there is redevelopment money, the City can “prime the pump” buy building new houses on the lots and sell them for cost.

What we really need, of course, are new jobs, LOTS of new jobs. Get into some tax increment financing, tax abatement programs, even more eminent domain, to make it financially attractive for businesses to consider the area beyond other depressed areas. There ought to be something that can be done to enhance the riverfronts. A lot of cities would kill for having that much river frontage. Can we reclaim some of it for public access? Or new housing — boat slip included in your purchase?

And try and get the locals to buy into preservation issues. I’m sure there are a fair number of houses, churches, etc. that are worthy of designation. The real trick is to get the residents interested and aware of what they’ve got, and what they stand to lose. Try and work with the local paper(s) on maybe having a regular feature on some historic structure or district. Get a decent preservation ordinance on the books with some teeth. Get the school kids involved —- maybe sponsor an essay contest wherein the kids document the history of the house they live in.
ebtnut - July 01, 2009



EBTnut, we heartily agree:

http://www.tubecityonline.com/almanac/images/090701d.jpg
Webmaster - July 01, 2009



A very cute dog, indeed. It is bringing me one step closer to getting one myself.
Thee Dude - July 01, 2009



She was a shelter dog from the Pet Adoption League in Westmoreland County.

But there are a lot of good animal shelters in the Mon-Yough area:

White Oak Safe Haven
2295 Lincoln Way
White Oak
(412) 672-8901

Fallen Timber Animal Shelter
www.wpahumane.com
1680 Fallen Timber Road
Blythedale, Elizabeth Township
(412) 751-2010

Pet Friends of Irwin
www.pet-friendsinc.com
contact_us@pet-friendsinc.com
(724) 863-7722

Pet Adoption League
www.thepetadoptionleague.com
152 Spring St.
Yukon, Sewickley Township
(724) 722-3670
Webmaster - July 01, 2009



Some unusual banners recently materialized on some of Our Fair City’s streets, suggesting something about a trail for bicycles.

What in the world is going on here?
Prof Windbag - July 02, 2009



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