PITTSBURGH TO ALIQUIPPA

I remember, when I sit down to blog, how I keep reminding myself to write while the subject matter is fresh.  I have yet to do so, but I'm optimistic that someday I will.  I think I could actually get to like this if I did, keeping the details fresh in my mind as I type. 
Today I'm remembering my week at Gary and Linda's, in Raccoon Township, a part of Beaver County, and an interesting but heroically unimaginative use of the privilege of naming.  In terms of population, Beaver County is relatively small at 170,000 or so people (Marin County, by way of comparison, has about 252,000 people), but it has an amazingly large number of incorporated entities: two cities, thirty boroughs, twenty-two townships, and eight unincorporated areas.  We could stand on a hill and see five different boroughs or towns.

Aliquippa is the main city in Beaver County, a run down shell of the former industrial powerhouse it was in the 1950's.  Oddly, the rest of Beaver County is humming.  There are power plants, including the famous Shippingport nuclear power plant, the first in the United States (1957). 



Shippingport, PA.

There are steel mills, chemical plants, gypsum factories, mines, cracker plants, and small businesses galore.  

One of hundreds of factories along the Ohio River.

One of many mountains of coal waiting to be fed into the maws of the factories.

The Ohio River and the Beaver River, among others, allow plenty of shipping and recreation; they are significantly cleaner today than they were when I lived in Pittsburgh.  Trains still run through the area around the clock, and although they seem to run surprisingly frequently, a plaque in the town of Robinson notes that 120 trains per day ran through town back in the heyday.  That's one every twelve minutes, 24/7.

Passing trains, Robinson PA.

 The iron railroad bridges still span the rivers and are still heavily used, although they are rusting visibly.

A train crossing the Ohio on an iron bridge from the 1800's.

  There are more bridges in the city of Pittsburgh than any city in the world, and in Beaver County alone there are more than 460.  As in Pittsburgh proper, the terrain is hilly and green, much of it covered with trees as it was in the 1700's when whites first settled, but much of it open and grassy.  This time of year, the grass is as green as it might be in Ireland, and the lawns, some of which are more than an acre, are well kept.  Not much farming or ranching, although the area seems to be brilliantly suitable, but lots of what might be considered mini-estates in size.  The housing stock is divided between new and old, with plenty of relatively new subdivisions of relatively expensive houses and very expensive houses.  The commute to Pittsburgh is less than an hour, and along with the bucolic scenery and expansive river access, there is clean air and no City payroll tax. 

The weather, as usual on this trip, was fantastic.  We spent hours driving around the different communities, and Gary filled me in on every plant and factory, what they were used for, what they used to be, and so on.  I'm a fanatic for that kind of thing, especially in western Pennsylvania where I'm from.  Gary and I drove into Pittsburgh and down to the South Side, a reviving neighborhood across the Monongahela from downtown Pittsburgh, and it was even more classically American Industrial Revolution housing stock.  The brick buildings stand side by side, touching one another, for block after block, with bars and restaurants from many years ago hanging on against the relentless onslaught of gentrification. 

I can almost see and hear the men in their sleeveless T-shirts, smoking and drinking beer on the front stoops, while crowds of dirty, shirtless kids speaking countless languages run wild in the streets.  Laundry hangs on the line, desperately trying to dry before the soot in the air settles on anything wet, and the smell of food from around the world wafts through the air.  The bars--more than anywhere in the country, by some accounts--are packed with tough, mean steelworkers and coal miners on Saturday night, and the hundreds of churches fill every Sunday morning.  Only the schools are never full.

Some parts of the South Side are brand new, with loft apartments in place of steel mills, and the Steelers practice facility surrounded by restaurants and apartments.  As you head down river the gentrification slows, but that's my part of town. 

A lot of the communities in Beaver County have been here for more than a hundred years, and they have those houses, warehouses, and factories that exert such a strange fascination on me.  Gary and Linda live in one of the subdivisions, though, in a house they bought because it was exactly what they wanted and then proceeded to completely change.  I liked it because I had my own bedroom and bath and a fine place to park the RV. The food was good, the company better, and I won a dollar from Gary by coming from
w-a-a-a-y behind in a card game that he taught me.

Jeane and I joined Gary and Linda in a trip to the only winery in the area, a surprisingly nicely done place in Gibsonia, where my dad's half brothers died of muscular dystrophy in the early 70's (another story, another time).  The grapes come from Erie and are crushed on site, and sold by the glass, bottle, or case.  Jeane, who knows wine, said they were pretty good, but sweeter in general than California wines.


At the winery in Gibsonia.

NEXT:  MT. WASHINGTON, NOW AND BEFORE