More of Where I Grew Up
Unless we were at the ball field or visiting relatives, we played in this alley
with the other kids in the neighborhood.
We regularly played baseball -- I can easily imagine the stones for first,
second, third base and home. We must have been pretty good at hitting
it up the middle.
This is the back of our house, viewed from the alley. The two windows
were in the bedroom shared by me and my brother. My sisters had a
pink bedroom in the attic.
This would have been the view of downtown Pittsburgh from our attic window.
See why our neighborhood was named City View?
St. Boniface Church at the foot of the hill was our church and our elementary
school (the school is the red building on the right).
From this angle, the lower grades were on the right end of the building, and
the higher grades (up to 8th) were on the left end. The bingo hall was on
the top left, above the 8th grade.
It looks like the first grade room has been torn off the building. The church
is in the background.
Here is the view of the city from the top of our street -- see the dome of the
church in the middle foreground? I could run down to the school in 60 seconds.
We came home for lunch.
On the way to and from school, we passed places like Marty's butcher shop
and candy and ice cream store. It is now a house, but you can make out
where the big, glass window was on the bottom right.
Grandma and grandpap had a grocery (and candy) store with a German
butcher shop a few blocks away in the building with the street-level porch.
In the other direction we would ride our bikes across the East Street Bridge
to the drug store for cherry cokes and homemade french fries.
So many good memories. Such a good life-foundation for me.