Iconic Towns of the Mon Valley: McKeesport, PA

  McKeesport is situated nicely at the confluence of the Youghiogheny and Monongahela rivers.  It's the largest of the old mill towns in the Mon Valley, and a grimmer urban landscape you will not find...unless you sneak into the abandoned cities around Chernobyl.  Even beneath sunny skies, in the warm temperatures of early spring, this place is ghostly.  Though, I did chuckle when I drove past a storefront church here called "The Armor of God Worship Center."  

 The famed Seneca Indian Queen Alliquippa held court somewhere in this area, and a young George Washington came here in the 1750s to pay her homage.  The town was settled in 1795 by a ferry operator named McKee.  

 At its height, in 1940, this bedraggled old city was home to 55,000 souls, and it truly was a prosperous, well-known city in its own right--entirely apart from Pittsburgh.  It was here in 1947 that Kennedy debated Nixon, though neither man knew that they would meet again in the presidential debates of 1960.  (But hell, every guy in D.C. has his eye on that eventual possibility.)  Here you'll find the shells of old department stores, glorious churches--many of them onion domes--ramshackle rowhouses, and festering mansions.  

 Today, there are only about 19,000 hangers-on left in McKeesport, a full quarter of them living below the poverty line.  Maybe I liked this city less than the other towns along the Mon because there's just so much of it.  It's not as easy to explore on foot as Braddock or, to a lesser degree, Duquesne.  The sign that greets you as you enter the central business district encourages you to "Discover McKeesport!"  

 Worst of all, the downtown and the residential areas seem entirely disconnected from the rivers that give the city its identity.  A broad, busy thoroughfare separates the town itself from the old industrial zone, where the factory used to stand on the banks of the Mon.  In most areas of town, you wouldn't even know that there are two rivers nearby.  The city's layout isn't in harmony with the topography, somehow.  

 And yet, some effort has been made to develop recreational areas adjacent to the Youghiogheny...known in Western Pennsylvania as "The Yawk."  Rivers are the lifeblood of civilizations.  Every river has its own identity.  The Mon was the river of production, manufacturing, and the blue collar attainment of the American Dream.  Now, it's the river of gritty mill towns.  But the Yawk remains the legendary river of wilderness adventure and whitewater rafting.  Even McKeesport's decay can't entirely diminish the Yawk's wild appeal.  

 The bottom three photos are large, abandoned homes in the once-affluent neighborhood of Shaw Avenue.   I first saw pictures of some of these houses on a site called "Discovering Historic Pittsburgh," and so I sought them out.   It's surely true that I didn't give McKeesport a fair hearing.  There's a large, scenic cemetery on the north edge of town, and the views from the bridges are apparently nice.  But all in all, I'd rather be in Braddock...or Duquesne...or maybe even Clairton.  For some reason, I'm most drawn to Duquesne.