Category: default || By jt3y

Eat my dust, Chris Potter! We have our own Mon-Yough version of "You Had To Ask" here at Tube City Almanac.

Of course, we don't give away any prizes to people who submit questions. Maybe we should: First prize could be a Tube City Online T-shirt, second prize would be two T-shirts, third prize would be three T-shirts, etc.

Anyway, Jayme S. writes:

Looking for any info you may have on Immel's in McKeesport. I saw it mentioned a few times on your site (which is great, by the way!). When was it around? What kind of merchandise? Any info would be appreciated!

We put the crack Tube City Online Research Department to work on this important question. They pored over countless old business records and microfilmed newspapers, and performed dozens of interviews to track down this vital information.

Oh, you don't believe me?

Well, so, actually, I called my mom.

Mom says Immel's was a upscale women's clothing store (also some children's clothes) that would be something like an Ann Taylor today; or perhaps, more accurately, like Adele's at the Waterfront.

A word of explanation is in order before I go further: This will shock anyone under the age of 25 who's from McKeesport, but Our Fair City had a whole bunch of women's clothing retailers as recently as the late 1970s.

To recall three of the best-remembered in the city, Cox's Department Store was a middle-to-upscale retailer, something along the lines of Kaufmann's or Lazarus-Macy's. Jaison's was more "homey" (think "Fashion Bug," which bought out Jaison's, if I recall correctly). At the low end of the scale was The Darling Shop (mom recalls it as "just above Murphy's or Green's" --- a dime store, in other words --- in fashion and quality). No self-respecting teenager, she says, wanted to be spotted going into the Darling Shop, just as I imagine today's teenagers don't brag about buying clothes at Wal-Mart.

Cox's is gone now, but was located at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Walnut Street ("Cox's Corner," where the city recently erected a town clock). Jaison's was on Fifth about a block away; the building is now used as a bingo hall, and the Jaison's neon signs are still visible (and still worked as of a few years ago). The Darling Shop was where Great American Federal is, between Jaison's and Cox's, and next door to Green's.

Now, according to mom, where Cox's and Jaisons catered to young women, Immel's catered to McKeesport's "carriage trade." She remembers Immel's being staffed by matronly professional women who could often guess a customer's sizes just by looking at them. Regular customers would have their sizes and purchases on file, mom recalls. Fashions weren't "cutting edge," but were very high-quality (and commensurate in price).

Mom, who was a salesgirl at Cox's, recalls Immel's being the kind of place where she liked to browse on her lunch hour, but not a place where she could afford to regularly shop!

My own research indicates that Immel's opened a branch store at Eastland Mall in North Versailles in 1963 or 1964. I don't know if Immel's ever expanded further. As best I can tell, the store closed in the late 1970s or early '80s; I don't recall Immel's being open during my childhood, though I can remember Cox's and Jaison's.

The Immel's building is still a landmark on Fifth Avenue, and despite Immel's store being closed, the building has been very much active over the years.

Kadar's Men's Wear moved to the Immel's building after the 1976 fire burned its store at the corner of Fifth and Market, and stayed there until Al Kadar's retirement in 2001. I seem to recall that several politicians have used the Immel's storefront as their offices, and at least one women's clothing store used the building recently (it failed fairly quickly, unfortunately).

If you have a question that I can answer without doing any real work, please feel free to email me. If your question is selected, I'll gladly pull a half-baked answer out of my ear, and if I don't know the answer, I'll make it up! That's our guarantee of quality here at Tube City Online!

Remember, if you're not completely satisfied, who is these days?

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In other news, it looks like candidates for the Darwin Awards are lining up early this year:

A man who shot himself in the groin after drinking 15 pints of beer and stuffing a sawed-off shotgun down his trousers was jailed for five years Tuesday for illegal possession of a firearm.


David Walker, 28, underwent emergency surgery after the March 6 incident in Dinnington, northern England. Tests were continuing to learn if Walker would be left infertile, his lawyer Gulzar Syed said.

That's why whenever I stick shotguns down my pants, I make sure I'm sober.

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Did you know that Pennsylvania's 14 slot machine parlors will be exempt from local zoning and planning regulations? I didn't know it until I read Fester's Place and Jonathan Potts' The Conversation.

It's kind of disappointing that I had to find that tiny bit of important information out from reading blogs. Good on Fester and Jon, of course, for ferreting out the story, and shame on the Post-Gazette and the Tribune-Review for not making a bigger deal out of it.

As far as I can tell, the only mainstream news source to point this out has been the Philadelphia Inquirer; if the Trib, P-G, one of the suburban papers or one of the TV stations has done something about this, I'd be happy to link to their coverage. I couldn't find anything using Google or Lexis-Nexis.

(A side note: Pompous prognosticators like this guy, who argued in the L.A. Times the other day that "bloggers" aren't journalists and don't deserve the same respect as newspaper or broadcast reporters, need to wake up. I'll agree that bloggers are hardly a force in newsgathering right now, but neither was television news in 1950.)

Back to the issue at hand: There are very few other buildings --- besides military installations --- exempt from local planning and zoning in Pennsylvania. But the state General Assembly, in ramming slot machine legislation through in one of that body's typical late-night marathon sessions (and out of view of the public and the press) have given casino operators a free pass. All zoning and planning authority over slot parlors will be vested in a state gaming commission.

Now, pardon me if I have the tiniest bit of suspicion that the members of the gaming commission will be beholden to the casino operators. I mean, the legislators already are --- and I'm looking in your direction, Senator Fumo --- and the legislators are the ones who will be controlling the commission.

We've seen before that public regulatory agencies are revolving doors. Officials are appointed to regulate industries, and then as soon as their terms expire, they take jobs in those very same industries (the Friendly Cookie Corporation is among the worst offenders, but the others are pretty bad, too).

Ah, why am I worrying? Every knows that the gambling industry has nothing but our best interests at heart, and their behavior is as pure as the driven snow. Ask the fine, fine people of Washington, D.C., where grass-roots organizers have swung into action to collect signatures on petitions to get slot machines!

It's funny how, according to The Washington Post, thousands of the signatures on those petitions turned out to be phony, and many of the people certifying the signatures were homeless people who were given cash bribes.

Surely, there must be some kind of mistake.

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Let's end on a funny note: Sunday's "Fox Trot" captured my feelings about the impact of the Atkins Diet to a crispy, fried T.