Category: default || By jt3y

Has everybody recovered from International Village? Good! This is the first Village in recent memory that didn't get at least one day of rain, and the surging throng of humanity that jammed Stephen Barry Field seemed to be enjoying itself.

But don't start your diet just yet ... the rib cookoff runs tomorrow and Sunday from 12 noon to 11 p.m. at Renzie Park.

There's also a petting zoo and pony rides for kids, a craft show, and live country music most of the day on Saturday. Ray Ryan & The Riverside Band and Liz Calfo & Total Recall perform Sunday. (Download the flyer.)

Yep --- after three days of eating ethnic foods made of cabbage, garlic, pork and mysterious spices, it's time for barbecue!

And then on Monday, Rite Aid and Eckerd present the annual antacid festival. Don't miss it!

. . .

Homewreckers: The city will hold a hearing Tuesday morning on 40 buildings that are slated to be torn down, including a number of private residences, reports Ann Belser in the Post-Gazette.

I've attended some of these hearings, and occasionally someone shows up to protest the demolition of their properties. Some of the excuses are entertaining, if not particularly convincing.

In most cases, however, no one shows up to try and save their structure. Indeed, some of the owners of these properties died or moved to Florida 30 years ago (or is that redundant?). Others are, frankly, slumlords, who buy houses at sheriff's sales, rent them out for several years, and never invest a nickel in them or even bother paying the taxes. Then they abandon them and stick the city with the bill for tearing them down.

They ought to be locked up --- but the best local officials can hope for is that a judge will place a lien against the property to cover the cost of the demolition and the back taxes. That, of course, just makes it more difficult to sell the property later to someone who might actually do something with it --- and so it goes.

While it's sad to see so many pieces of the city's history destroyed forever, the needs of the present residents and business owners have to take precedence over saving old buildings just for the sake of saving old buildings.

Besides, it's not like we have a shortage of two-story 1920s frame houses in McKeesport.

. . .

Watch This Space: On the other hand, one building whose abandonment has really galled me for years is the Penn-McKee Hotel ... but it looks like there might actually be some movement in finding a useful future for the old girl. Check out the website for Penn-McKee Place.

The website is registered to Jim Armstrong, an evangelist from White Oak, and he proposes using the building as "incubator business space and a multi-tenant community center" for "art, faith and business."

I know from personal experience that "community centers" like this have a place for use by small businessmen and women, as well as studio space for artists, musicians and writers. I've seen them in Picksberg and other cities.

I don't whether it can work in Our Fair City, but I see no reason why it couldn't --- and I think we all have a vested interest in hoping that it does.

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To Do This Weekend: Digest all of the food you ate this week at International Village and the BBQ Festival, and try not to get whiplash from your burps.