Friday, September 9, 2011

The town I live in is . . . interesting. Anytime someone asks me where I live, I hesitate to answer. It's not really the nicest place in our city. It's not like its dangerous or there's a lot of crime, it's just pretty rundown and almost a ghost town. It is one of the last remaining steel towns around Pittsburgh, with one steel mill that's actually still in operation. (If you don't know much about Pittsburgh, you might picture it as a smoky dirty town as it was when it produced a ton of steel, but it's not like that anymore.) 

A while back, there was some pretty devastating flooding, which destroyed most of the businesses on Main Street. Most of them cut their losses and closed their stores and restaurants, leaving abandoned storefronts. A few bars, restaurants, and random shops still exist, but a lot of them still have a lot of flood damage. We ordered take out from one of the restaurants one time but never ordered again, because the smell of mildew in the restaurant was so intense that we were turned off by it.

It's kind of sad, and these ridiculous ordinances in the town prevent ANY chain restaurants from opening. I can understand not wanting chains in a really nice main street town, but this place is struggling and any kind of business that would create jobs and bring in tax money would help. 

The fact that we landed in this small town is kind of funny, because Frank actually went to Catholic grade school here and has all kind of memories of it. Our house isn't in this downtown area, we live on the outskirts on top of a huge hill, where they built our townhome community. The town fought the construction of our houses for years, the didn't want anything new there. Our house isn't expensive by any means but it's new and nice. When you drive outside of our little neighborhood, the houses are older and somewhat dilapidated. This place is fine for us now, but once we have kids, we know we'll have to go somewhere with a better school district.

I really don't like this place. It pisses me off how backward it is. It could be a really nice place but all the politics are led by the business owners, and they don't want any new business to compete with theirs. Tonight we went to the town's Arts and Heritage Festival. It was a very cultural experience . . .  




The main commercial attraction . . . Family Dollar.






The festivities on Main Street. I really think this place could be nice if more businesses opened up.



The flyer advertised arts, crafts, food, and clothing vendors. The Pittsburgh fashion scene wouldn't be complete with out a "Drink Up Yinz Bitches" t-shirt . 



This guy was selling bones, skulls, and various taxidermied animal parts. I begged frank for a deer skull to no avail.


Being cultural. 

I hate this place, but someday we will move somewhere nicer and will appreciate it so much more. Peace out, from the hood.

No comments:

Post a Comment