The Wurster Interviews, Part 11: The Less Early But Still Early Years of PPE

Read previous installments:     Part 1     Part 2     Part 3     Part 4     Part 5      Part 6      Part 7      Part 8      Part 9      Part 10

THE SOUTH SIDE

I started working for the Welfare Department in 1971. In 1972, they opened a South Side office and sent me there. At the time, I had never been on the South Side in my life. I thought of dragging my feet and trying to stay in Southern district office, which was downtown. I was living in East Liberty amd would have to take two buses to get to the South Side. I didn't have a car then. I decided to go with the flow. I've never liked commuting, so in 1982 I moved to the South Side just a few blocks from the welfare office at 900 Sarah Street.

During the reign of steel, the South Side had been a working-class community — steel workers and their families. The South Side became a dying community with lots of boarded up storefronts. By 1982, a signficant change had occurred. South Side was becoming a hip place, a cultural mecca featuring antique stores, art galleries, and craft shops. It all started with Charlie Samaha.

A Pothole Big Enough for a Coffin

Charlie Samaha,
an actor from New Orleans,
an antique dealer from New York City,
a steel man, an investor in real estate,

Charlie Samaha,
with the neck of a bull,
a shaved head, mustachios,
a man you could not push over,

Charlie bought a coffin
and placed it in a pothole,
laid down in it like a dead man,

holding the stalk of an American flag
instead of a lily, this was
at rush hour on Friday afternoon.

On Saturday morning it was on the front page,
and on Monday city money
began to pour into the South Side.

[This poem has previously appeared in the South Pittsburgh Reporter and The British Detective (Main Street Rag Publishing, 2009).]

Charlie had come to Pittsburgh from New York City to work in the steel mill. When steel declined he was laid off. He had already opened an antique store, which he worked part time. When he lost the steel job, he believed that South Side was ripe for investment. He saw South Side as a place that could be turned around through antiques, crafts, art, fine dining, etc.

He started buying buildings — as did his buddy, Fred Flugger, a designer. Freddy owns the building by the parklet at 12th and Carson. He also owned the building that City Books went into. They wound up buying the building from him, City Books did.

Charlie rented storefronts and apartments and studios. He rented storefronts only to arts/crafts and antique stores. He rented the apartments and studios only to artists at what he believed was below market rate. He would check up on these artists and if they weren't doing their art he would evict them. True story.

SACA (South Side Arts Crafts and Antiques) was an organization composed of the arts, crafts, and antique shops to promote activities that would benefit them and the arts, crafts, antiques community. I hope this next part will not be boring. Here's a list of some of the shops and characters.

• Al and Joan Bierman were located at 23 Bedford Square and later relocated to a building they purchased up on Carson Street. Al's personal collection was juicers (like to make orange juice). He had hundreds of them. At one time, he was also president of the Pittsburgh Glass Association, which put on a big exhibit every year of antique glass.
• Keith Atwood was a master goldsmith. He made this ring I'm wearing. Keith occupied the storefront below me at #22 and later bought the building next door, #21, and moved there.
• Marlene Montgomery had an art, antiques, and gift shop. Her husband owned a tire company.
• Henrietta Steinlitz was the proprietor of Artists-in-Action. She was a great framer. Her husband, Arnold, was in site development for such companies as Kentucky Fried Chicken and Dunkin Donuts. In his spare time, Arnold helped Henrietta with the store.
• Barbara Harrington had Olde Birmingham Shoppe. You remember South Side was originally Birmingham. That changed when it was annexed by the city of Pittsburgh. Barbara's specialty was "honey, it's you" jewelry.
• Rick Sewald had South Bank Galleries, which is still in business. Rick deals in both art and antiques.
• Roberta Weissburg had a shop on 13th Street which later became known as Roberta Weissburg Leathers. It now has high-end locations in Shadyside and South Side Works. Roberta designed the costumes for Silence of the Lambs. She still gets weird phone calls late at night.
• Studio Z was an art gallery owned and operated by Kathleen Zimbicki, the artist.

Key later additions, which came along after I moved to the South Side in '82, were:

• Carson Street Gallery, owned and operated by Barbara McClure, whose husband was a tax lawyer. Barbara was brilliant. She handled artists such as Bob Qualters, Adrienne Heinrich, Frank Harris, David Goldstein, and John Bender.
• City Books was originally City Books + Antiques owned by Frank Carroll. Ed Gelblum, a philosophy professor at Duquesne, later came in as a partner. They got rid of the antiques and dealt only in books. Eventually, Ed bought the building and Frank left and opened an esoterica bookstore in the East End (Squirrel Hill).
• Destiny Studios, a Celtic art shop which moved into 22 Bedford Square after the goldsmith moved next door.
• And finally, LaFond Gallery, an art gallery owned by Adelaide LaFond and managed by Michael Hertrich.

Of course, there were others, but these loom largest in my memory.

Next in issue 15: THE SOUTH SIDE continued