Pittsburgh’s South Side Sally

Sam’s was located a half block from our home on the corner of Sarah and South 28 th Street. The building is still there.  I saw it on a street view on google maps.  In the front on Sarah Street was a neat soda fountain.  You could get real milkshakes, made right in front of your eyes with vanilla ice cream, milk and vanilla.  This has always been my favorite.  I guess even at 4 years old I was a purist as far as ice cream was concerned.  It is still my very favorite almost 60 years later.  Dad would take me and my bother, Ken there.  His favorite as I recall was a cherry coke.  In the back of the store was a billard room or as the locals called it the, “pool room”.  Sam’s was always a favorite of ours.  It was so close and neat to visit.

Another favorite was Bluestone’s Pharmacy .  They had neat coffee ice cream, which I acquired a taste for in my late teens.  They made homemade ice cream.  It was extremely good.  Their milk shakes could be malt.  They were good.  But I liked  the straight vanilla shake the best.  This building, I think,  is still there.  It’s located in the 2600 block of East Carson Street.  We would get many Rx there.   Little did I know when my mom sent me to buy her cigarettes that I was contributing to her lung cancer, but I was young and didn’t know any better.

Greb’s Bakery

Their apple pies were the best from a kid’s standpoint.  That’s the beginning of the story.   My best friend’s mom, Mrs. Mours worked at the bakery, a block away from my house.  It was located on the corner at Sarah Street.  Noreen, my friend and I would visit her sometimes in the back where the goodies were prepared.  I even got an occasional invitation to Greb’s  Apple Orchard.  There would be a big annual apple harvest out in the “country”.  Ladders, bushel baskets!  The ride out there was a big part of the fun.  At times we would load up in the back of her dad’s pick up truck and bounce around with the wind in our hair.  Back then, it seemed that the fewer cars moved slower.  Safety wasn’t the important issue it is today.  Eventually both my friends moved out near the orchard and the Grebs built a new home on that very same orchard.  Mrs. Greb sold the bakery to someone and stayed on as a consultant till things became stable for the new owners.  They had the best lady locks, apple turnovers, donuts were great.  On Saturday the place was packed.  One couldn’t get into the door.  Hungry patrons would come out of the bakery carrying bags and boxes of baked goods for the weekend.

I grew up a block away from the steel mill in the 1950’s.   The street was narrow; we called it, “the alleyway. “  This alleyway was Larkins Way. It started on 2800’s Larkins Way, and I think, stopped at 1700’s or 1800’s Larkins Way.  I lived one block away from the beginning in the 2700 block of Larkins Way.

Imagine if you will night during the summer.  People sat out on their front steps.  The row houses, old name for what is now called a townhouse, didn’t have any space for a porch in the front.  The street was filled with lots of activity and people.  No air conditioning!  We sat outside, talked, walked and played. Ten years old we played “Release the Den”, “Hide and Go Seek.”

Often, in the what one would consider, the dark of the night, there would be lots of bright light.  The bright lights illuminated the night sky.  Of course, these were from the blast furnaces–bellowing flames that flew up into the sky.   The flames and light were seen clearly at the very beginning of Larkins Way.   I could see shades of red, orange, white, sometimes even a purple orange, if I recall correctly, in this rainbow dance of flames.  Yes, I know we were very close to the action.  These times were both a blessing and a curse.  Men were working working working.  However, there was rust, sulfur, soot and pollution on a frequent basis.  Again, “whoa is me”  to the laundress who let her clothes stay out during a rain or when the mill let out its polluted orange smoke.

Trains  provided noise and rumble at night and hello’s during the day.  Late night trains rumbled atop the lane behind Jane Street and below Josephine Street.  The noise and rumble from the trains actually shook the house.  This I noticed very young, but apparently I got so familiar with it that as I grew older my brain blocked them out.  Around 5 pm every evening a train came by on the upper deck of the tracks.  I often walked or ran up to Jane Street and waved to the engineer on the red caboose…he always waved back.