As detailed in this article from the Altoona Mirror, my childhood home, 1521 Ninth Street in the Fairview neighborhood of Altoona, is slated to be razed and paved over to create some new parking spaces for Altoona Regional Hospital.
Consider this set of events:
- I was born at Bon Secours Hospital in Altoona. (Bon Secours Hospital used to be named Mercy Hospital.)
- I lived down the hill from Altoona Regional Hospital from 1962 to 1980 and then spent summers in that house from 1981 to 1983 after going away to college.
- I worked two years in the Housekeeping Department at Bon Secours Hospital while in college at the University of Pittsburgh.
- Altoona Regional Hospital acquired Bon Secours Hospital.
- Altoona Regional Hospital decided to close Bon Secours Hospital.
- Patients from Bon Secours Hospital now get routed to Altoona Regional.
- Altoona Regional Hospital now needs more parking spaces to handle the additional patients from Bon Secours Hospital
- Altoona Regional Hospital buys a block of houses on Ninth Street including my childhood home.
- So, my childhood home will be turned into a dozen or so parking spaces to handle the patient overflow from Bon Secours Hospital
There is something emotionally pleasing about that closure – some bizarre pseudo “circle of life” deal at play here, don’t you think? Paging Alanis Morissette anyone? (Yes, I understand that the lyrics to “Ironic” were not really examples of true irony.)
We were in Altoona recently for a very brief visit after going to Pittsburgh for a couple of Pirate games. I thought it would be nice to capture some photos of the current ‘hood for old times sakes. So much has changed since 1983. So many of the properties have already been destroyed and the surrounding area is in a bad way – crime-ridden and drug-infested.
Old days
Good times I remember
Fun days
Filled with simple pleasures
Drive-in movies
Comic books and blue jeans
Howdy Doody
Baseball cards and birthdays
Take me back
To a world gone away
Memories
Seem like yesterday
But I still found the visit moving and uplifting – not at all sad, melancholy, or depressing. As I walked around, so many memories came flooding back, so many details fleshed out in 1080 progressive.
Almost all of the memories are good ones too. Memories about friends I was fortunate enough to grow up with. Memories about the pace of life then in our little subset of the world – this little two block stretch of Ninth and Tenth Street and the interconnecting alleys. Memories, most of all, of course, about family.
Here is a Flickr slideshow of shots taken on July 7, 2012 of my old neighborhood in Altoona. I hope my family and Altoona friends enjoy these.
To view slideshow in full-screen, click rectangle in bottom right hand corner after starting the show. Also note that I have annotated each photo with some textual descriptions. You can see those descriptions by clicking on the “Show info” link once the show begins.
