Lest we forget...

 

Hotel Radio - Health Care Edition

More from Mayor Lawrence circa 1950:

A population of 1.5 million in the county supported:

There were 70 hospitals in the county back then, but just 1,800 physicians and 1,000 nurses.  That's amazing.


A quick check of the government's Hospital Compare site shows 17 hospitals in Allegheny County now (UPMC Braddock included) for our population of 1.2 million. How many physicians are there in the county now?  Nurses? 


The change since 1950 in terms of how our health care needs are met (or not) is pretty incredible.   So many tertiary care centers and ancillary services now, it's like comparing apples and oranges.
 

I love how radio stations were based in hotels back then.   Now we have retirement communities with their own TV stations.

Pittsburgh Veterans on Election Day

I am not a city resident, so I have no say in the Mayoral race.  

But I did like this video that Franco "Dok" Harris put up featuring his visit to a senior center in Brookline.  He talks about the potential to harness for good the experiences of "Pittsburgh Veterans" to develop "senior living technology."   Cool vision, but I hope for a low tech approach too -- promoting new ways to organize care and support for elders and persons with disabilities.

Here's a few from the personal vault of me wearing my Franco shirt (and football pants!) raking leaves in Bethel Park, circa 1979.

 

A Few General Facts

Old Health Care

More handy numbers from Mayor Lawrence.  Pittsburgh hospitals circa 1948:

Why I love this town reason #1492

Because there's an 81 yr old in Plum named Dominic who does Zumba with his wife:

The next patient is Dominic, 81, of Plum, who has been accompanied by his wife to the appointment, a four-month checkup.

"He said I'm doing good, I'm doing great," Dominic said afterward.

No wonder: Dominic is a model senior patient. Slim but fit, he goes with his wife to a gym for a senior citizens' workout program three times a week. They lift weights and do exercises for balance. They even do Zumba -- dance aerobics with a Latin beat.

That gem is midway through a great article on electronic medical records and one physician's experience with paperwork in the health care system by Pohla Smith at the Post-Gazette.

I first read it as Dominic doing Zumba at one of the county's 60 senior centers or 31 adult day service centers, and had visions of all these senior centers with Zumba dancing classes going on as the mid-morning coffee break starts for the rest of us in Pittsburgh. 

Blue are senior centers, yellow adult day service centers.

Then I thought, for Marquesa Ginny to atone for her semi-sorta-ageist Depends Edition earlier in the week (and the elders say she must atone), she must help organize a flash mob of them doing the Zumba in Market Square once it opens up next spring. 

Bring the latin groove to the new square, and let the old folks lead the way.

¿Estás ahí Ginny

Miss not the discourse of the elders

I have had the 1987 book "The Grand Generation" for a few years.  It's a treasure.  I didn't realize that a companion video was created in 1993 out of the same project.   Below is an excerpt on YouTube.  

The entire video is available at FolksStreams.net

City of Miracles

 

They were on the ball -- even including a quick survey for visitors to fill out and mail back.  Has anyone done a post G-20 survey of visitors?

 

Next Founder's Day

Do we still honor Founder's Day here in Pittsburgh?  A quick search yielded not much, but it did bring up an event held in 1907 to celebrate Founder's Day at the Carnegie Institute, which produced the following document (yes, that is the actual title):

I propose we celebrate Founder's Day in Pittsburgh again next May, and invite President Obama to attend to share some mojo with the Bucs down on the river.   Then we can plaster the walls of the city with billboards of him watching the Bucs in 2010 - as they make a run at the NL Pennant in 2011. That's the plan, right?

 

Here's a photo taken at the Carnegie Institute Founder's Day Parade (cropped from a panoramic):

Who's with me?

Old Burgh Album

I got a copy of "A Pittsburgh Album" for nine bucks on Ebay.  What a deal.  It was published in April 1959 (and sold for $1.50) by the Post-Gazette, Radio Station WWSW, Television Station WIIC, and Herbick & Held Printing Company.  It was compiled, written and edited by Roy Stryker and Mel Seidenberg, with Art Director George Plataz.

 

In the spirit of looking into the future of our city, here is what they were considering in 1958:

Honoring Honus

I am reading Ted Kennedy's great True Compass now.   He writes of his grandfather Honey Fitz in Boston rooting on the Red Sox with a song, Tessie:

"Tessie"  may sound a little quaint to today's ears, but Grandpa's rendition of it was good enough to cause the great Pittsburgh third baseman Honus Wagner to commit three errors in one inning during a World Series game.

Third baseman?   I checked and sure enough, before 1904 he played multiple positions.  But I would still call him a shortstop (maybe he made the 3 errors when he was a third basemen -- must have been 1903).  

I have often wondered why we don't have a sculpture of him throwing the ball around somewhere on the North Shore - maybe in the parking lot in the Exposition Park space where he roamed.

  
From Wikipedia: His biography on BaseballLibrary.com describes his gritty style:

Bowlegged, barrel-chested, long-limbed... he was often likened to an octopus. When he fielded grounders, his huge hands also collected large scoops of infield dirt, which accompanied his throws to first like the tail of a comet.

From a whole page of quotes by Honus:

He was a gentle, kind man, a storyteller, supportive of rookies, patient with the fans, cheerful in hard times, careful of the example he set for youth, a hard worker, a man who had no enemies and who never forgot his friends. He was the most beloved man in baseball before Ruth

                   - Historian / Author Bill James

Check him out being interviewed live on some Denver program. Did this play ever get staged in Pittsburgh? It's adapted from a kids' book.

Old Burgh Mayoral Matters - circa 1850

And I thought Providence had a lock on odd mayors of old; the "elevation" of Joe Barker to Mayor of Pittsburgh in 1850-1851 was pretty crazy.   Here is Jimmie Owens' take on it, looking back from 1903:

 

Old 'Burgh Balls

I didn't realize Pittsburgh supplied the balls for the War of 1812....from Volume 4 of the Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine (1920), Reminiscences of Early Pittsburgh:

 

Grab a Broom & Get Back to Work

Pittsburgh's original G-20

RSC in the lead cleaning up...

Do you think they threw all that litter on Fifth Avenue for the photo op, or was it really that bad?

G-Pittsburgh...1908

From 150 years of unparalleled thrift : Pittsburgh Sesqui-centennial chronicling a development from a frontier camp to a mighty city; official history and programme (1908)"

The capital and surplus in Pittsburgh banks was greater than the combined capital in the Bank of England, Imperial Bank of Germany, and the Imperial Bank of Russia.  Doesn't seem possible...

And the city got an arch for its 150th birthday.  All we got for our 250th was this lousy t-shirt.    I can't figure out where the Arch was located...Liberty and Fifth (with the Arch on Liberty?)

 

Then again, this was the view looking down the Ohio from the Point in 1908...is that a casino taking shape on the North Shore?

Old German

I'm looking for the first instance in recorded history of visits to Pittsburgh from G-20 nation reps...Here is maybe the first visitor from Germany:

 

I found no trace of "Diamond, East" on the North Side...

Old Writer's Block

From the long view of history department, a different perspective on Pittsburgh's current moment in the creative sun:  Clearing the skies (sort of) helped to clear our heads (sort of)?

From "Psychological Aspects of the Problem of Atmospheric Smoke Pollution" (1913)

Old Soho

Who knew Pittsburgh once had our own Soho?   If we ever get around to creating a new transit line between Downtown and Oakland it should be called the Soho Line...

From Early Land Marks and Names of Old Pittsburgh (1923)

Photo of the "Soho Curve" in 1893 from Flem's Views of Old Pittsburgh (1905) (click to enlarge)

Old Runaway Finds a Home in Pittsburgh

I came across another remarkable old Pittsburgh memoir on archive.org, this one written in 1903 by then 76 yr old James Owens.  He ran away from home in Ireland at age 6 (!) and at the age of 18 ended up in Pittsburgh (by way of Jamaica and Cuba).   Lots of incredible stories about Pittsburgh in the 1850s and during the Civil War (check out page 101 for the story of how Mayor Joe Barker got elected).

  

 

 James Owens, circa 1903

This story about a delegation's trip to Harrisburg to raise funds for the city during the Civil War may be instructive to some local folks concerning the current pension predicament: