Source:Changes-down-town/content
Not long ago a man who was born in Pittsburg, who had grown to manhood there, and then had gone elsewhere to live, returned to the old home for a visit. The war was still going on when he went away, and only once or twice had he been back since. Those returns had both been before the present phenomenal "boom" bean, and the visits had both been brief, admitting of no close study of recent changes.
On this last occasion, however, he determined to see all that was to be seen. It took him a little time to get his bearings, but at last he felt that he had mastered the difficulties of the situation, and he went abroad without a guide to take a stroll among some of the old haunts. I think there is nothing more pathetic in its way than such a journey as that. To look for the familiar landmark that used to stand just here, and find that it has been swept away, and that its place is occupied by something altogether strange; to seek the wide plot of vacant ground where the boys used to play cricket in the days before baseball was known, and to find it closely built up and wholly occupied by structures that reach well up toward the sky—that is very saddening. And it makes a man feel so old! Such tremendous changes, he thinks, could only come through the slow process of time; and the century must be much farther along than he had supposed.
Associations of Diamond street.
It was so with this man. He was perplexed and bewildered at every stop. The old places he had known he knew no longer, and he wished he had stayed away. Except for the few old friends he met—and some of them didn't recognize him—he might almost as well have been in a city never before seen by him. But there was one locality in which he still felt confidence. It was not likely that very much change would have crowded in there. He stopped at the corner of Smithfield street and Diamond, and looked in dismay up and down the narrow thoroughfare that crossed Smithfield.
"See here! Will you tell me what street this is?" he demanded of a policeman.
"Diamond street."
"Oh, I'm looking for Diamond alley, and I can't find it."
"This is what used to be Diamond alley. They've changed the name a little. That's all."
All! When did that policeman become a Pittsburger, if he thought that was all? In the good old times which this old citizen remembered, Diamond alley had differed from Diamond street in more than in name.
Just over there, on the north side of the alley, and close to Smithfield street, used to stand the Second Presbyterian Church, a quaint old structure placed in the center of a graveyard. Think of a graveyard on Diamond street and then say that Diamond alley differed only in name! And just opposite the church was a big, rambling frame building used as a tannery. That was rather different from the smart brick structures standing there now. Of course there was no expectation of seeing either of these buildings at this time, for somebody set fire to the tannery almost 50 years ago, and the church was also destroyed in the conflagration; but to the disappointed visitor they seemed no more ancient now than some of the more recent landmarks which had disappeared as completely as they.
Once a quiet residence street.
He used to live on Diamond alley, this man; and at that time it was a quiet, thoroughly respectable and rather desirable place of residence. Now he could find no trace of the old house that had been his home. Even newer buildings than that had gone—pleasant, comfortable houses that he remembered seeing built. And now he was the only one who recollected their having existed. And yet he is not an old man. Change comes fast as well as thoroughly. One of the favorite play-grounds of this same man, when he was a boy, was a portion of Grant Hill which Diamond alley had not cut through. As I say, he is not yet old; but the time when Diamond alley did not extend from the Diamond up to its present termination seems very remote indeed to the people of to-day.
But the change which most affected the temper and spirits of the troubled homecomer was the least material one of all. It was to be expected that a rapidly growing city should condense itself as well as extend its borders; that it should utilize all the space heretofore prodigally wasted. That was forgivable and even commendable. But to change the style of the street nomenclature was a thing hard to be reconciled to.
"In my time," he said to me afterward, "streets were streets and alleys were alleys. Now the alleys are streets and the streets are avenues. I don't like it, but I suppose it must be all right."
Old street names.
It was the new statement of an old grievance. Time was, as we all know, when the shorter thoroughfares running from Liberty street to the Allegheny river, were all streets with names instead of numbers—St. Clair street, Hand street, Mechanic street and so on. The others, running from Liberty street up the hill, away from the Allegheny river, were streets also, but numbered streets—First (or Front), Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, and up to Eighth, I believe; which last, according to my recollection, existed only as an abstract and hypothetical street. It was there, but it did not show, being occupied by railroad extensions or something which prevented its being so available for traffic as the other streets were.
In the course of municipal events it became desirable to change this order of things. I don't recall what arguments were used in urging the change; but one was that the old arrangement was too cumbrous and complicated. Another, as I recollect, was that in the increasing growth of the city and the consequent multiplication of the short streets, finding names for them all involved too great a strain on the inventive faculty of the governing powers. This last, however, was the suggestion of a satiric enemy who opposed the alteration. If the two systems of streets had only been continuous the matter would have been simple enough; but their ends did not correspond at all. St. Clair street, for example, did not reach Liberty street opposite the foot of the old Sixth street, so as to form the lower division of that thoroughfare. So it was decided that the two systems should henceforth both be numerical; but those below Liberty street should be streets and those above Liberty street should be avenues. St. Clair street became Sixth street and Fifth street became Fifth avenue.
Not without protests.
Some of us who dwelt in Pittsburg when the change was made remember the agitation produced by it. The protests were not so loud and emphatic as in the case of some other projected innovations, perhaps, but they made themselves heard, nevertheless. Ridicule was not spared by those in opposition. They declared there was not a street in the city to deserve the title "avenue." One facetious advertiser announced himself (one time only) as doing business at such a number "Diamond avenue," and a reporter described a drunken row as having occurred on "Virgin avenue."
It seems queer at this date that a state of things which appears to have been always a part of the established order should have been brought about against so much opposition. Of course the opposition did not avail. But for a time after the change was made it was productive of no little confusion. If an old resident wanted to find a particular number on Fifth street, he was very sure to look for it on Fifth avenue; and many troublesome complications came about in consequence. The trouble was not of long duration; but there were some who, as a matter of stubborn principle, refused to accept the new dispensation. They consistently refused to recognize Fifth avenue as having any existence at all. It was Fifth street. And even now there are old Pittsburgers who are filled with wrath and scorning when their thoughts are turned that way. So long does a mere sentiment abide.
Some forms of expression.
So, also, does a habit of speech. Indeed, that is very apt to survive the sentiment or the significance that inspired it. I have heard old people in the country say of a lazy fellow that "he'd never do to carry fire." They themselves did not know what they meant by the expression, or how it came to describe lack of energy. It did describe it, though, and very effectively. It simply referred to the old time when percussion matches were not, and when people saved themselves much trouble by carefully preserving a fire over night among the ashes in the fireplace. If, by evil chance, the fire went out a living brand must be brought from the hearth of a distant neighbor. To do this successfully required alertness and dispatch. So it was literally true, in those days, that a lazy man was not fit to "carry fire." The saying long survived the condition of affairs that gave it meaning.
The California gold fever of 1849 gave national currency to certain bits of slang that still persist among people who have no idea what they originally meant. "Pan out" is one of them. It has kept its meaning, but very many people use it without a thought of the washing pan of the early gold miner. Not long since I saw an explanation of how the word "skedaddle" originated, and the authority stated that the soldiers invented the term to describe the panicky retreat of a routed enemy. The soldiers adopted it and gave it currency, but the word was in use before the war began. I heard it in the West before Sumpter [sic] had been fired upon. I suppose it grew out there somewhere.
Scotch-Irish idioms.
And it has been suggested to me that some of the peculiarities of expression which strangers have noticed among Pittsburgers had their origin in the idioms of the Scotch-Irish, who were the early settlers of Pittsburg. If the city had remained Scotch-Irish there would probably have been distinguishing traits of language, but there has been such a mixing up of peoples there that any peculiarity now is only individual, not general.
There is one Pittsburg trait which I think may fairly be called a characteristic of the place. That is the lively and abiding love of music. Of course, there are music lovers everywhere; but it cannot be said of every community that it is music loving. That can be truthfully said of Pittsburg. The first season that Theodore Thomas took his orchestra through the country, did he and his artists meet anywhere a more appreciative and hearty welcome than in smoky and noisy old Pittsburg? Most certainly not. He did not have to demonstrate what good music was. The people already knew it, and were enthusiastically glad to listen to it. Even poor music they will take when good is not to be had, but good music is never astray among Pittsburgers.
And not only so. They have made a good deal of it themselves. Not the least pleasant of the memories an old-timer cherishes is the memory of the many delightful concerts he has heard given by Pittsburg singers. So many of these singers there were; and of such excellence; so heartily in love with their melodious work; so well equipped for it and so cordially united in it, that really I do not recall another community that could so well withstand a famine of professional music, if such a calamity were to befall.
James C. Purdy.
