Iconic Towns of the Mon Valley: Braddock, PA

 It's interesting how Duquesne and Braddock stare at each other across the Monongahela River, like the ancient foes that their namesakes were.  (Duquesne was the governor of New France, and Braddock was the British general who was sent to oust French forces from the region.)  For years I've dreamed of Braddock.  I always imagined that it's the ultimate in urban ghost-towning destinations.  The town's utter collapse and subsequent attempts at revival have attracted the attention of everyone from the editors of The New York Times to The Colbert Report.  This is the legendary city as seen from across the Mon.  

 Braddock did not disappoint me, but it did surprise me.  I expected bleak expanses of "urban prairie," utter desolation, warehouses, and thickets, and roving packs of feral dogs.  But, despite a great many abandoned buildings, the place is not lifeless.  Nor is it ugly.  It's situated pleasantly on the hillsides above the river.  The streets have a nice feng shui to them, too.  In its disrepair, you might describe  the place as "wabisabi."  

 It's definitely an old factory town, with lines of identical rowhouses, steep streets, and a weed-choked riverfront.  And yet, there's a kind of enduring character to the place.  The whole town is built to a human scale.  It's walkable, with sidewalks and good proximity.  Its public buildings display the lovely architecture that used to keep life rich and mysterious.  Not everyone was educated in the Braddock of old, but everyone had easy and equal access to beauty.  

 And it's not all working class neighborhoods.  A few graceful mansions still stand on the heights above the main street, Braddock Avenue.  You've actually got three separate municipalities all blurred together in this stretch of the valley: Braddock, North Braddock, and Braddock Hills.  I'm not really sure where one begins and the other ends, but they've all got a similar feel.  Maybe we should call this general area "The Braddocks" in the same way people refer to "The Hamptons."   

 Braddock's famous decline has been memorialized by a series of Levi's Jeans ads.  In fact, George Romero (of zombie fame) made his least grotesque movie here in Braddock in 1978, and even at that time, the town's decline was a major factor in the story's plot.   It's a vampire film called Martin, and in it, the old town is still very recognizable.  

 Unlike the other half-empty towns of the Monongahela Valley, Braddock is still home to a bustling steel factory.  In this town, all roads lead to US Steel's Edgar Thomson plant, the oldest and last surviving steel factory in the region.  Of course, the mill employs far fewer steelworkers than it did in former times.  And because the jobs pay well, few if any of the workers choose to live in Braddock.  All the same, there's a kind of movement here that Duquesne lacks.  Trucks go rumbling past.  Cars pass along the main drag.  

 It was probably pretty bad juju to name a city after the ill-fated General Edward Braddock, whose 1755 defeat took place on the town site, at the hands of a much smaller French and Indian army.  When the old factory was being built--in the late 1800s--it's said that the workmen discovered many English skeletons still strewn about in the forest.  Braddock died of wounds he sustained in battle and is buried south of here.  By all accounts, he was an arrogant, inflexible bastard.  Most histories report that his disgraceful defeat was the result of his poor treatment of Indian allies and his refusal to respect the opinions of colonials.  

 The public library in Braddock was the first "Carnegie Library" in America.  It's still one of the busiest, most appealing places in town.   

 Some few streets look relatively typical of urban Southwestern Pennsylvania: densely spaced houses, a little rundown, but nothing worthy of this town's sinister acclaim.  

To me, this is the most intriguing house in a most intriguing city.  It's an old wooden Victorian mansion on the heights above downtown.  The porches are all stacked with debris: old furniture, boxes, lawn tools, machinery, all detritus of bygone years.  The yard is enclosed with a fence, and there's a "No Trespassing" sign at one of the gates.  Check out the photo below for a glimpse of the trash-laden porches.

Braddock is more compact than Duquesne.  It might even feel less destitute than its neighbor across the river, and there's a clear sense of community pride here.  Its upper streets and alleys are rich with stories.  Old, old stories that will never again be told.  I really need to come back here for another, longer visit.  

Iconic Towns of the Mon Valley: Duquesne, PA

 Instead of a rural wilderness trek, today I opted for an urban adventure.  For a long time, I've been curious about the old mill towns of the Monongahela Valley. Many of them are semi-ghost towns, but their names loom large in local legend: Homestead, McKeesport, Braddock, Clairton.  These were never "suburbs" of Pittsburgh, but proud satellite cities with distinctive identities in the region.  First stop: Duquesne.  

This is Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Church, on South First Street.  It's scheduled for demolition in the summer of 2013.

 Duquesne was largely settled by Eastern Europeans who came to work in the steel mills.  You still see a few elderly white folks milling about in doorways, but now the town is mainly African American.  I saw a beautiful old yellow brick house for sale in this part of town: $12,000.  According to the real estate website, the place needs some "finishing touches" but it's entirely ready to move into.  (Maybe in Duquesne replacing shattered windows is considered a finishing touch.)  This town seems ripe for the kind of urban reclamation projects we've seen in Homestead and even Braddock.  All it takes is people who care and who are willing to commit...and who have some money to invest.  That's the rub.

 Duquesne is designated "a distressed municipality" by the state, and it recently lost its high school, which had some of the lowest test scores in Pennsylvania.  We're talking about a place where the schools were as bad as North Philadelphia.  Duquesne has one of the highest violent crime rates in the state: 89 murders per 100,000.  That's an unimaginable statistic.  Actually, I think "distressed" is an understatement.  And yet, I liked the place.  In all its wretchedness, it has an almost welcoming, livable feel to it.  

 Like all the great towns along the Monongahela River, Duquesne was dominated by a steel mill for about 100 years. The factory ceased operations in 1984, and Duquesne lost its reason for being.   

 I would guess that almost half the houses in town sit empty.  Most storefronts are derelict, too. And yet, there are stubborn signs of life even here.  A few tenacious businesses still hold out on the main drag, Grant Avenue: a hardware store, a tailor shop, a number of dubious-looking bars.  

 Many grand old churches and public buildings are now occupied by small, evangelical sects with name's like "Abundant Faith in Christ Assembly Church."  I felt a little nervous in some neighborhoods, just because I'm a paranoid outlander from up north.  But really, the people went about their business and let me go about mine, which was to poke around the wreckage of their town.  There's a sort of kindness in tolerating a stranger with a camera.  

 In many places, you can see what a pleasant town it was in its day.  Gentle hills give a contour to the cityscape, offering views of the river valley and the wooded hills on the opposite bank.  Tree-lined streets speak of happier times when children played and lawnmowers hummed.  

 This is the Lithuanian Club.  Like many buildings in town, you can't quite tell whether it's abandoned or just neglected.  I'm guessing the former, since the Lithuanians all moved out to Peters Township twenty years ago.  

 Looking off to the northeast, above the rooftops of empty houses, you can see the Edgar Thomson steelworks in Braddock.  Clairton is still home to an enormous "coke works" plant, but Braddock has the first and the last of the great steel factories in the valley...still plugging away.

 Down by the banks of the Monongahela River is a broad, flat area where Duquesne's steel mill used to sit.  At its height of productivity, 8,000 men were employed at this factory--more people than live in the city today.  Now the riverside flats are an industrial park.  The Steel Valley Trail segment of the "Great Allegheny Passage" follows an old railroad grade through here.  This shot looks from the riverbank toward the City of Duquesne in the distance.  

 An enormous railroad yard separates the grittiest parts of town--to the south--from the still-gritty-but-not-entirely-destitute-neighborhoods to the north.  This rundown mansion sits across the street from the Presbyterian church: evidence that even Duquesne has a handful of fading WASPs.  It's strange, in this northern segment of town, to see the rollercoasters of Kennywood poking their playful heads above such an otherwise grim landscape, under gray and wintry skies.  

Also north of the tracks, a block of homes almost reminiscent of the genteel Squirrel Hill neighborhood in  Pittsburgh.  

   Out along the edges of town are crowded little areas of tiny brick Cape Cods.  Many of them are decorated with Steelers paraphernalia: evidence of working class whites.   There's a forlorn beauty to this town, especially the older segments, despite--or perhaps because of--the post-apocalyptic abandon.  In less than forty years, this place has become a shell of itself.  It's a study in collapse, which is all very appealing to a melancholy trespasser like me.  

(Click on any photo to enlarge it.) 

Winter Beach

East Upland Trail, Raccoon Creek

           I know what you're thinking.  You're thinking, "But there is no 'East Upland Trail' at Raccoon."  And you're right.  But there SHOULD be one, and so today I went bushwhacking in the place where I thought the trail ought to be: in the very hilly easternmost tip of the park that stands west of US-30.  That's to say, there is parkland east of here, on the other side of US-30, but that is the "Wildflower Reserve."  This is the easternmost area in the main body of the park.  In addition to some nice, steep woodlands, I came across this old farm.

          This morning, my heart was torn between striking off to explore the old, half abandoned factory towns of the Monongahela Valley, or going back to wild Raccoon Creek, as I usually do on my days off.  But my wife requires total accountability, and I thought the hardscrabble ghost towns of the  Mon Valley might be a hard sell.  For that reason, I decided to hit the Old Stone Tavern (below) before coming for a short trek to this unfamiliar section of the park.  I'll do the Mon Valley another day when I'm feeling more adventurous and after some more intensive planning.  

           Followers of my shadowy career know that I stumbled across this old farmstead once before, but I never knew how big the compound was, or how many outbuildings it included.  I did suspect--however--that it would be a lot easier to approach from the woods behind it.

           All of this is on the grounds of the state park.  I worked up my nerve to approach the houses when I realized that no steam was rising from their chimney pipes on this 20-degree day.  The two barns--one wooden and one made of sheet metal--seemed badly neglected.

           Notice the old barn in the distance and the horse fences collapsing into the meadows.  It looked to me as if someone was keeping horses here as recently as the 1980s.  I don't know if this remained a private farm until that time, or if Raccoon Creek used to let people rent horses to ride.

          Earlier this winter, I got a nice frontal view of this cottage, but I didn't approach it for fear of dogs.  It's clearly still in use.  The pickup in the car port had the distinctive PA DCNR logo on the side, meaning that it belongs to the park service.  And--just as I suspected--when I walked past the house, I heard the deep bellowing of a large dog.  Fortunately, he couldn't get at me.  Not only is the place not abandoned, but my iPhone detected a wireless network as I shuffled past.  Unfortunately, I dismissed it before making note of the network's name.  If it was named something like "rac_guesthouse" or "rac.ranger" then some of the mystery of this place would be cleared up.

          I really do think there ought to be a nice loop trail through this trackless segment of the park.  It's a good, high location with some views.  I'd be willing to blaze the trail, too, but I don't have time in my life for that kind of activity just yet.  Maybe in a few years.  Of course, the park service might not want a trail in this area, since they seem to like to keep this old farm a secret.

China Street, West End Valley, Pittsburgh

           Click on these photos (as always) to enlarge them.  You can barely discern the old city steps as they pass through the thickets.  Notice the blue and white street sign in the middle of the photograph.  This is China Street, a public thoroughfare.

           You can run a MapQuest search for "China Street, Pittsburgh," and it will zoom you straight to this spot...just near the Old Stone Tavern (below).  Funny how MapQuest treats this overgrown staircase as if it were an actual roadway, something travel-worthy and capable of supporting your contemptible SUV.

          In Pittsburgh, "city steps" are still relatively common.  A public street can become a public staircase in places where the grade is too steep for regular traffic.  This place was given up on long ago, but the street sign doesn't actually look that old.

Old Stone Tavern, Pittsburgh

           In a gritty corner of the city known as the "West End Valley" sits an isolated urban village containing perhaps the oldest building west of the Allegheny Mountains.  The structure's cornerstone lays claim to a construction date of 1756, and the sign on the now-defunct bar also boasts "Established 1756."  Just a refresher in local history: General Edward Braddock tried and failed to capture Fort Duquesne (Pittsburgh) from the French in 1755.  General John Forbes succeeded in 1757 and founded the British outposts of Fort Pitt and Pittsburgh.  It seems almost inconceivable that a two-story stone inn was constructed just west of the French fort in the interim between the two military campaigns, at the very beginning of the French and Indian War.  And yet, if this old house is not lying about its age, then it is a full eight years older than the Fort Pitt Blockhouse, which carries the official designation of "oldest building in the city" and region.  The old inn stands derelict with broken windows and crumbling walls.

          In the upper photo, notice that the inn sits at the corners of two of the oldest roads in the region: Greentree Road and Woodville Road.  There was a prominent early inn whose name appears frequently in old histories of the city: "The Sign of the Green Tree."  I don't know if this building was the once-famous Green Tree Inn, but it wouldn't surprise me.  After all, it stands at the head of Greentree Road, on the edge of the Borough of Greentree.  As for Woodville Road, it is little more than a ghost of its former self.  Industrial development has obliterated Woodville Road, all except for the few scant meters shown here.  My guess is that Woodville Road ran from this spot--an inn on the westernmost reaches of the British Empire--down to Woodville Plantation, another of the oldest buildings in the region.  Even if the Old Stone Tavern was not constructed in 1756, it is certainly a product of the 18th century.  Firm records of it appear in the annals of the Whiskey Rebellion, which took place in the 1790s.  Tragically, here it sits on a busy, ugly corner, empty and forlorn, returning to the elements.  I've said it many a time: Pittsburgh is an unsentimental city.  Historic significance and beauty will do nothing to get a place protected and preserved.

          Some smart-ass painted the old stones red, probably in an effort to protect them from erosion.  Who owns this place?  Can nothing be done to save it?  It's true that the chimneys lean a little inward.  I wonder if structural problems make the place unusable.

Ashes, Ashes...

 A frozen lake beneath ashen skies, fitting enough on this Ash Wednesday.  

 An old roadway, once public, now sees only hikers and horses.

 This old spring, adjacent to the road, is barely visible in the gray landscape, beneath the gray skies.

 A mossy lane through the hills, once known as McKenzie Road.  In places the tarmac is still intact.  

The Lakeside Lodge seems to be occupied year round, and I can see why.  It would be the perfect place in late winter to meditate on the fleetingness of life.  Do you suppose that's why people book it?  

North Side Townhouses, Pittsburgh

For as hip as these North Side home refurbishers are, a surprising number of them still have their Christmas decorations up. 

  If you had to live in the city, this would be the way to do it.

 This little enclave of restored townhouses is just off Allegheny Avenue.

 I love a big porch, but would you really use it if you lived in town?  

 Some of these old structures are built for crowded conditions, but stand alone.  

 Oh, are we in America?  I hadn't noticed.  I think these flags really ruin the aesthetic of the block.

The photo is washed out, but this is one of my favorite houses in the city.  Get a load of those lion statues at the entrance.