Old Europe

My friend Bob's color photography...Europe in the early 1950's:

El Retiro is my favorite...it's as though one of the guys sitting on the top row just said something funny, and the others are looking back to laugh with him.

Almost looks like these guys are checking their phones.

Here's the car he drove all over Europe...when he wasn't flying Bob Hope and Danny Kaye and various ingénues around as head of entertainment for the US Army over there. 

Ghosts in the Old Poetical Machine

Hard to believe it has been almost six years since Billmon's old Whiskey Bar closed. Thought of it for some reason while reading sketches of old Pittsburgh men for clues to questions of the day.  The individual sketches appeared in The Pittsburg Leader on a regular basis, and were compiled into a book in 1892.                     (click to enlarge if need be)

Reading through them, I'm struck by how many of the men profiled (all men of course) were born elsewhere, back in the last era when Pittsburgh had positive net domestic migration!  

Which one to share first?  In honor of the Sharp Edge putting out a shingle downtown, how about an old bartender?

  

 

Pull up a stool, there are about 150 to share.  The Sharp Edge should line its walls with them for conversation starters.

Old Trolley Time

Old River Footage

Old Smokey Burgh

From a July 1949 National Geographic feature on Pittsburgh titled, Workshop of the Titans.  The accompanying text reads: 

"These city inspectors study heavy clouds billowing from a steel mill's chimneys.  Smoke is viewed with special glasses and through a hole in a Ringelmann Chart.  Density is graded by matching it with shades ranging from light gray to black on the card."

Here's a vision for the Point in the downtown Horne's display window:

"At Pittsburgh's Mellon Institute a researcher prepares to feed contaminated air to an assistant, Nancy Butler, in an iron lung.  Plastic bags collect the air mixtures.  Results are registered on an ingenious guage.  Careful control of the flow protects Miss Butler from danger." 

Old Allegheny Arborists

This is a great story about 15 volunteer crews helping to heal trees on the old Allegheny Commons. 

They're carrying on a tradition of public stewardship going back 140 odd years.

Old Spicey

Here are a few ads for newspapers in an 1887 illustrated guide to Pittsburgh and Allegheny cities:

Then there's this one from the Centennial History of Allegheny County (1888):

Arriba!

Are there any baseball monuments in Pittsburgh featuring a player fielding a ball? Where is our appreciation of the glove?

Could it be created so his lit form completes a sun dial on the street?

Old Pride in Pittsburgh

Olé @ PNC Park

Someone at Microsoft must think watching the Bucs at PNC Park is like watching a bloody bullfight -- either that or they're nostalgic for Three Rivers.  

Here's how the park appears from 250 feet up in Bing Maps:

Meals on Wheels in the Pittsburgh Snow

Back in the early 90s (the 1990's), my time volunteering as a runner for a Meals on Wheels program in Oregon helped inspire my passion for gerontology and what has come to be known as "aging in community."  

Today, six days into a prolonged snow event in Pittsburgh, I engaged the 21st century and volunteered to deliver Meals on Wheels in the East End...Lincoln-Larimer to be specific.   I partnered with a regular volunteer named Nick who knew the route.  His regular partner didn't have a 4-wheel drive vehicle.  I was able to borrow one from my sister and brother-in-law. 

I did the driving, and Nick did the work of running the meals through the slush ridges and up snow covered steps. 

 

Below is the old Lemington Center nursing home, closed since 2005 (we delivered to the Eva P. Mitchell residence for independent elders, next door). 

Available for $2 million 

When I was working at Brown and my colleagues and I published an article in Millbank Quarterly about the plight of nursing homes like the Lemington Center ("Driven to Tiers: Socioeconomic and Racial Disparities in the Quality of Nursing Home Care" - full article available for free at link), we received an e-mail from the Lemington administrator saying she was using it to describe their situation to all who would listen.

I found this interesting history of Lemington Elder Care Services and its founding on July 4, 1883 on the African American Registry.  

 

Parking chair at Eva P. Mitchell residence.

We delivered 17 meals to 14 different residences, took about an hour and a half.   East End Cooperative Ministries is a good place to volunteer. 

 

Tribute to 1902 and the Gunner

Old Snow

 

Pittsburgh Perrito Productions

That's the world's largest green wall off in the distance, and the oldest dog in the foreground.

What Constitutes Pittsburgh - 1857 Edition

 

  

From:

 

Read the whole thing here:

La Femme D'Argent

This film from 1905 was made to promote San Francisco (a year before the earthquake).   To give the streets some extra bustle, a car full of guys drove in and out of the shot.   Around 4:10 a car loops in and out for the next minute, kids tagging along behind.   

I'm glad half a million people have viewed that on YouTube.

From Here

For me personally, this is a little of what it means to be from Pittsburgh (okay, Bethel).  Lots of these businesses from 40 years ago are still around...

The Pittsburgh Market Place

 

In 1794 there were 13,000 emigrants who passed through the city of Pittsburgh.  The population in 1800 was 1,565.   Must have been an interesting mix of cultures and people on the go, borrowing a little from Pittsburgh along the way.   

If they just would have had a good source for Mission Tile Roofs back then, I bet they would have used them instead of wood.

Returning to Pittsburgh for 154 years now...

More from J.B. Corey, news of early return migration to Pittsburgh (from California, no less).

Angels & the Ancienne Frontière

 

Did you know Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi (1883) is said to be the first book submitted to a publisher as a typewritten manuscript? 

I traveled with it recently; made it fun to go back and read about J.B. Corey's world as a flat boat pilot on the river, circa 1849.

Next week is JB Corey Week here...