Some of Infamous Red Light Districts around the Tristate

Yes what mystery blog would not be complete with out a discussion of the Worlds Oldest profession

Agree or not there will always be a need for shady lady's of the night as long as there are young men willing to pay for sex so its not surprising around the tri-state area were several Red Light districts.
one such was in Steubenville Ohio which also had a large illegal gambling district to go with it My dad would sometimes get hired to take young Jewish men from Squirrel hill  to have an evenings fun in Steubenville . It has been mostly torn down and was located close to the steel mill.

 

https://www.theintelligencer.net/life/features/2015/02/author-sheds-light-on-steubenivlle-s-past-infamous-red-light-district/

My Dad who is not Jewish but he  would get hired by young Jewish Men in early 50s to take them from Squirrel   Hill  to Steubenville and Club 30 upriver for a nights entertainment of gambling and drinking   in his old 43 Plymouth and make sure they got home safely

My grandfather spoke of  young men walking the line a red light district along 2nd ave in Pittsburgh before the J&L Mill was expanded during world wars .

 Now my Grandfather said back in the day the houses along 2nd ave a Dr. was always on call and made sure the lady's where safe from Sexual disease. I don't know how true this is  as even back then it was illegal but it would make sense to keep everyone safe.

One of the more Infamous Places to meet a shady lady was Brick Alley in Mckeesport Now all gone.

https://brewingwithleber.blogspot.com/2011/05/birth-of-brick-alley-ipa.html

 

Brick Alley was a street, covered with bricks, down by the Youghiogheny River. On the river side were businesses: warehouses, a scrap yard, an auto wrecking yard. On the other side were wooden houses, brothels. On the upriver end, just beyond the wrecking yard, was the black housing project, Harrison Village.

You also had gambling which seems to go hand in hand with Prostitution. But eventually the Brick alley was torn down late 70s and  partly redeveloped . When i worked as a guard I would walk up Walnut Street to Reliance Steel also now gone and you could see where all the foundations and bricks where still laying. including the former Tube city Brewery

 

 

 

Those Mysterious large green pipes running thru the Mon Valley along Pa 837 . What do they do ?

 If you have ever driven down Pa. 837 you would notice very large green  painted exposed industrial pipes from Munhall all the way down to  Jefferson Hills .

But what are they for ? lots of rumors and story's I have heard but their is a logical explanation 

and it makes perfect sense and saves United States Steel  and helps save environment in long run.  

The pipes run from the USS Clairiton Coke Works to Irvin works to Edgar Thompson Works. at one time it also served Homestead and Duquesne works when they existed. 

The pipes carry Combustible  Coking Gas which is produced when coal is heated in the process of making coke .

You can also see smaller  Nitrogen and Oxygen pipes in places as well  which run between the plants 

This coke  gas is a valuable Byproduct of Coke Making and is used at Irwin and ET to heat the blast furnaces .

Which cuts down the amount of natural gas to fire the furnaces. .

The pipes are not as expansive and prominent  as they once where  when they where still feeding Homestead but are still plainly visible as you ride down Pa.837

More Paranormal and Psychic Events and Fairs

 

Where did my Moms Sewing Pins can go? The strange phenomena of things disappearing and re-appearing . But this time with a twist

 

 Have you ever had an object disappear then reappear several days later  despite looking everywhere 

they say the spirits are at work  

https://www.liveabout.com/what-is-the-disappearing-object-phenomenon-2595929

 https://www.yourtango.com/self/disappearing-object-phenomenon

http://amasci.com/weird/unusual/objs.html

 

My Mom made many of the clothes we wore when I was young  in the 1960's she was quite the seamstress even making a wedding dress for a neighbors daughter. 

But one day a small round metal typewriter ribbon can  she kept her pins in  on the sewing machine side board disappeared into thin air 

 

We looked high and low could not find it.

Now I had toys like my Match Box Cars  disappear and found out neighborhood kids who we befriended had stolen them yea some friends they stole several items over the years  till we said no more coming over to our house to play.  . So it was likely they where swiped for what ever reason.

So a few days later my mom has this very weird dream , Grandfather Markowitz was standing in front of her and holding her can of pins . he kept saying to her why have you dishonored me?

She kept asking him what she did but there was no answer. She told my dad and us about the dream and we al thought nothing of it.  

 Mean while my Grandfather Markowitz had Passed that summer  previous and my dad paid a Memorial Maker in E. Liberty to put a  grave stone on my grandfathers grave , but the place never did my dad and others got ripped off.So my Dad went to Sears of all places and got him  a new one and they placed it as winter was coming in  . It was approx 2 months after my moms pins went  missing we decided to go to to the cemetery  with weather now making it possible and to my dads Horror they had placed the Tombstone on the wrong grave .

 

 The Grave stone makers where contacted and they quickly corrected the embarrassing  situation we went out a couple days later to find the stone was now on the right grave.  When we came home there on the sewing machine where my mom had left the pins was the can of pins. 

Was this divine intervention ? a message from the beyond ? A scientific phenomena ? who knows

An uprising and Riot by Draft Dodgers in Central Pa during the Civil War Now mostly forgotten

 As the Civil War dragged on more and more men decided to either dodge the draft or desert the Union Army such was the case of Thomas Adams of Knox Clearfield county in the center of Pa.  

https://www.visitclearfieldcounty.org/parks_cabins_bloody_knox

Who had a cabin in Knox Twp. 

He became  Martyr of shorts killed by union troops when they got wind that he and large group of resisters where at his cabin .having a party

 

The resisters where causing problems all over the county including looting and the union army had enough when 500 men where drafted in Clearfield and only 150 showed. 

When a sheriff was shot by resisters working as Loggers enough was enough 

on December 13 1864 Union troops went in search of the resisters and  it would be known as the Bloody Knox incident and  would see Thomas Adams and Union Solider Edgar L Reed  laying dead and 18 arrested and eventually 150 captured and incarcerated .

 

https://www.visitclearfieldcounty.org/parks_cabins_bloody_knox

Now Knox was not the only incident as their where riots in city's all over the northeast but Bloody Knox 

saw some of the worst of it .