At the end of Mary street was an old Glass factory which was long ago abandoned and was finally torn down from what remnants where left to be used as the power lines sub station and switching yard which looked down over the Conrail now Norfolk Southern Rail Road tracks and Monongahela Connecting Railroad Yard MCR as it was known was the private railroad which ran the cars back and forth between mill sites.. the NS tracks still run thru the area but the yard is gone replaced by a large beer distributor and parking for UPMC Hospital complex in Oakland after the mills went away . and Jane Street which was cut off by the building of the yard once again runs down to E.Carson Street .Hard to believe how much the south side has changed in 30+ years.
The site it self was sprawling built into the shelf of the south side slopes it had 2 levels and was about 30 arces all together. One day while patrolling I saw a very large amount of black smoke coming from the upper Arlington ave. area I knew something bad was going on had to be a house fire. I called the Pittsburgh Police dispatcher who argued with me over the phone he was not going to send trucks or even police to investigate what could have been a simple trash fire. Finally after arguing with him and a supervisor they a got a signal from one of the red call boxes on Arlington the problem not many people up there could afford home phones they relied on the street box. All that time firefighters could have been there from station21# but as is the usual case with city dispatchers and now 911 dispatchers in Allegheny county they seriously blow calls all the time and end up getting sued all the time what a disgrace Allegheny county 911 is I could write 5 long story's on my encounters with these fools they hire while other times I get expert response. The site was gravel so even thou it rained there was little mud if you stayed on the path ways.
Unfortunately above the plateau was the infamous Arlington Heights apartment complex which was built during WWII to house all the additional mill workers who came to Pittsburgh to help out during the war
My Aunt and uncle where one of the last white couples to move out as the place had become a ghetto.
it has since been closed and mostly torn down and family's dispersed into Mt Oliver and carrick which have now become the new areas for ghetto creep into the south hills
At first there where no problems but then over a weekend shift after I left for the evening and another guard took over unknown to him a goup came down from there and vandalized and destroyed construction equipment digging out and preparing the site they caused over $100,000.00 in damage the single biggest amount of damage was to a drilling rig which drilled all the holes to fill with concrete to set towers and poles .
After this incident city police where there every evening and all weekend till job was done and fence constructed around site. They would ride around in one of the contractors pickups checking all along the ridge and on several occasions chased or made arrest of people who where not to be up on the ridge .
While they patrolled the outer are I would patrol the 2 lower levels. We shared a construction trailer as an out post which had a phone and heat and not much more.
The general contractor from Uniontown Pa Marsulla Construction had taken a major hit the only contractor who was not effected was a man by the name of Ferguson who was a welder and fixed machines from his portable welding truck as he had taken it home for the weekend.
I have never seen any of the guys who worked on the site since then and I believe Marsulla is no longer in business.
Most of the city cops I worked with I knew from belonging to Explorers law Enforcement Post 777#
Because at one time I was interested in a career in law enforcement not to be a street cop but as Park ranger or go higher up in private security work etc. so I figured this would be a good experience but after having my knee operated on and not being able to pass a physical due to numerous health problems that was all dashed.
Having the cops on site was good because it was such a big site to deal with and I got to know many of them over that time unfortunately all of them are now retired and many have passed away from old age. Like Sargent Red a WWII Navy Vet who witnessed the kamikaze attack on the York Town and Hank Jenkins the Magical blue Knight who put crime prevention magic shows on . Many of the cops from that time where WWII vets Unfortunately 2 of the officers who worked the site died in a horrible traffic accident in the 80's a memorial stone sits outside the old 7# police station
Shame they where some very fine officers.except for a couple of them. But that seems to always be the way with Pittsburgh Police couple bad apples ruin it all.
One night K9 Officer Adam Mcnair was called the site with his dog Rocky the biggest German Shepard I have ever seen Adam gave him a Motorcycle tire to play with in the back of the K9 truck.
and they needed Adam and Rocky to scare out an intruder on the site as we all stood back he let Rocky loose and only took couple minutes till 2 black guys where screaming for there lives he had cornered them on top of a work trailer. I gave him a nice big biscuit for a job well done I always kept dog biscuits with me as a guard because we often had stray dogs running loose on propertys.They all knew to come see me for a treat
and some times they had a tag and I would call there owner.
One officer on the site Ray Lenig even taught me how to drive a stick shift one evening and I picked it up very fast compared to some of the officers who had trouble with driving the pickups.
Of course I had driven farm tractors and such so it was rather easy for me to learn.
One of the neat things about the site was it was an old glass plant and as you walked around you could find globs of waste glass some of which I collected and polished up I also found all kinds of minerals as well for my rock and mineral collection.even
tough they where small they where nice specimens. The one part of the job I did not enjoy was the couple of times I had to guard the employees cars down behind the old Giant Eagle Supper Market no longer there all it consisted of was a large empty lot no phone no toilet or outpost not even a port a john since I did not have a vehicle to even sit in this really was a bad situation I said enough of this shit and started looking for another job that's when I came across the add for CPP which was starting up.Little did I know what an ass wipe Maurice D and all his promises would turn out to be
Ironically they are rebuilding power lines in mine and surrounding community and there is very little in security needed vs being built in the city.
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