Ghosts of Industry: Braddock, Pa.

When I grew up in the Pittsburgh area in the 1960s and went to college there in the 70s, there were endless steel mills lining both sides of the Monongahela River. At night, the entire sky glowed from the furnaces. Then, starting in the late 70s, the steel industry went into a tailspin. Now, only a few mills are left. The greatest of them is the US Steel Edgar Thompson Plant in Braddock. This mill was established in 1875 and today accounts for about 1/4 of US Steel's domestic steel production. Today, I rambled around Braddock on foot with my friend Bill Reight. Here's the story of our journey.

Even though the mill is still running, Braddock itself has fallen on hard times. For the past decade, Mayor John Fetterman, who looks like a linebacker and has a masters degree in public policy from Harvard, has been leading a spirited effort to bring the city back. He has some successes to point to, including Superior Motors, a fancy restaurant across the street from the mill, and a handful of other restaurants and bars.

 Here's the Edgar Thompson Plant on the Mon shot from the Rankin Bridge.

Here's a statue of Joe Magarac, a mythical character who could bend steel bars with his bare hands.

 Here's the front of Superior Motors, and an artists' space in the background.

The Carnegie Library. The mill was originally part of Carnegie Steel. In an alley across the street from the library we saw a cadaverous young white man in a hoodie talking furtively with with a small group of black teenagers.

This old, beat-down mansion was undergoing some kind of renovation. The lumber piled against rusty scaffolding was weathered gray, as if it had been there for years. Lights were on inside, though.

We dropped in on Bill's friend, Jerry, who restores classic cars. Here, Jerry poses with a 670-horsepower all-aluminum Hemi engine, which he's about to install in a 1971 Barracuda.

 Here's a corner of Jerry's shop.

A few artists have taken up residence in Braddock, leaving their marks on some of the buildings.

Bill at Peppers N'At, a bar and restaurant that specializes in Pittsburgh delicacies. We shared a Hunkie Hand Granade, which is ground meat and rice wrapped in cabbage, roasted in the oven and doused with marinara sauce.

 I had a Freak Show sandwich, which is banana peppers stuffed with meat over fried eggplant. Absolutely delicious.

I was encouraged to see that there are some new houses and condos in Braddock, mostly on small streets uphill from the main drag. Tremendous creative efforts by the mayor and others are helping. Real progress is being made. But it's still a long way from Brooklynization.

If you're in the area and you're feeling rich, try out Superior Motors.

The Yellow Rose of Texas: Urban Pioneering in Amarillo

I'm fascinated with urban pioneering--and not just the buy-a-house-in-a-crumbly-neighborhood kind. I like the idea of people setting up scrappy, inventive, for-the-people businesses on downtown sites that in another era, not too long ago, would have been considered urban wastelands. So I jumped at the chance to visit my sister-in-law, Gina Mancuso, and her boyfriend, Ben King, to see what they're doing with a former lumber yard on the edge of downtown Amarillo, in the Texas panhandle.

Here's the front end of the property. Ben's mom owns what's essentially a square block parcel, and has handed it over to Ben to turn into something productive. BJ Coe, the lumber yard, shut down decades ago. Ben's grandfather bought the property and tried out a number of businesses, including one that resulted in about 40 ancient Volvos being parked there for a number of years. Ben has been hauling junk off the place since 2011. So far, he has filled one dozen 30-yard dumpsters. (He also caught 40 cats, many possums and one small dog in Have-a-Heart traps.) Now he's getting serious about developing businesses.

Here are Ben and Gina enjoying breakfast at their local Burrito Stop restaurant. This is one of the places where they hatch their big dreams. They want the property to become part of an overall renaissance for downtown Amarillo, which is already underway. A number of cool older buildings are being renovated and new structures are going up. (It's at the stage Oklahoma City was 20 years ago.) The keystone piece is on the way: The city is building a baseball stadium for a Triple A club on the site of a former Coca-Cola bottling plant. The stadium will be between Ben's parcel and city hall.

The stadium site.

Ben hopes that over time the stadium will become a magnet for people seeking fun, food and entertainment in downtown Amarillo. Right next door, will be his businesses. He and Gina have a couple of ideas for now: 1) a downtown farmers' market and 2) a food truck plaza. Food trucks have been legal in Amarillo for just a few years and the phenomenon has yet to take off.  Ben figures by aggregating trucks in a location like his, people will come. The tentative name for the business is "Goodnight Chuck Wagon Food Plaza." Charles "Chuck" Goodnight, an Amarillo-area rancher, invented the chuck wagon in the 19th century. "Hopefully, this will be on the list of things that people will want to visit when they come to Amarillo," Ben says.

I was impressed with downtown Amarillo. There are a bunch of classy old buildings, like the Santa Fe Railroad building. Also a lot of beautiful and classy neon signs. Ben envisions a neon sign for the food truck plaza that features a chuck wagon with spinning wheels and a clanking cook pot. Ben grew up in Amarillo, so he has the local culture in his veins (though he has an undergraduate degree from UT San Antonio and a JD from Quinnipiac U. in Connecticut.) He told this story about himself: When he was a baby and was riding in a car with his mom, the car started to overheat. She quickly pulled to the side of the road, and, because she through the car was about to explode, she threw him out the window--where he landed in a sticker bush. No permanent harm done, though.

The lumber yard property is a sprawling maze of buildings and open spaces. Notice the banner. Ben does not own a gun, but perhaps he will get a canon.

There is decades-worth of valuable stuff stored on premises. These are car windshields on the left, and mysterious (to me) objects on the right.

Gina yanking on an engine hoist. 

Future farmers' market

Future food truck plaza.

We drove to the Cadillac Ranch, perhaps 10 miles out of town. The wind was brisk, but the cars were magnificent. Visitors are apparently encouraged to decorate them with spray paint.

After spending an activity-packed 19 hours with Ben and Gina, I wished I could be 30 years old again so I could pursue a crazy youthful dream like theirs. Mainly, though, I wish them great success in their "new beginning ahead."

A Prairie Wind Blows Back to Kansas

My father, Bob Hamm, at age 97, asked his children to take him back to his home place in Kansas while he can still travel. The town is Humboldt, in southeastern Kansas, where his pioneer ancestors arrived in the mid-19th century. Here's a pictorial account of what we saw and did:

Here's the main east-west thoroughfare through town, Bridge Street. The town hit its peak in the early 20th century, but the automation of farming and arrival of Walmart in neighboring towns led to its decline. I have a childhood memory of a woman driving a tractor fast down this street--standing up. She was burned dark brown by the sun and had muscular shoulders. I later learned that she was Charlotte "Charlie"Townsend, a distant relative.

Here's the old water tower on the main square.

Here's my brother, Rob, in the bandstand. Our great-grandfather Hamm, in addition to being a farmer and state legislator (briefly), was the band director. He played the cornet.

Humboldt was a stop on the underground railroad, helping escaped slaves make their way to safety. For this offense, the town was attacked repeatedly by raiders from Missouri. These were the militias who took advantage of the 2nd Amendment to bear arms and hunt down people as if they were animals. My great-great-grandfather Works fought in the Civil War.

Here's the town museum. I spent a week in the midwest around this trip to Humboldt, and it seems like every town has a museum. They are very proud of their pioneer pasts.

In the museum, we saw a lard press donated by my grandfather Hamm.

Among the exhibits in the museum was a barbed wire display.

Cousin Margaret and her husband, Gary.

An old hay rake on the museum grounds.

John, Bob, Allison and Rob--in front of what had been our great-grandparents' house. It's for sale! We remember visiting with our great-aunt Helen for Easter, when she typically made a cake in the shape of a lamb, with coconut frosting.

Our grandparents' farm, where my father grew up. I have many great memories from this place, including catching catfish with my grandmother in the farm pond and gathering eggs in the hen house. I also have some shocking memories. Once when I was staying with my grandparents, probably 5-6 years old, we were driving home to the farm and came upon the aftermath of a head-on collision in front of the house. Two people had smashed into their windshield. The car was in the middle of the road. The driver, a man, was bawling like a distressed calf. The woman was dead. This was the first time I saw a dead person. Other negative experiences there were less traumatic. I helped my grandmother cut the head off a live chicken. It ran around the barnyard headless.

We had a great dinner with our cousins. My father remembered incredible details from the past, for instance, the date of the cousins' parents' wedding day.

In a neighboring town, Iola, where my father went to junior college and I ate my first tamale, the old theater remains. This was shot at dawn, when not a citizen was stirring.

Our cousin, Joe Works, is one of the leading citizens of Humboldt. He and his wife, Janey, own BW Inc., a trailer hitch manufacturing company, which employs 388 people. This was on land that my parents farmed when I was a little kid. Joe recently bulldozed our former house to make way for a company fitness center. Life goes on.

This trip was emotional for me, my siblings and my father. This is where we came from. I felt the spirits of my ancestors rustling about.