Home >  Nation & World >  Census

Predominantly white neighborhood can't shake its reputation

Sunday, June 23, 2002

By M. Ferguson Tinsley, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Joyce Blackhall and Martel Brown had heard stories about Troy Hill, the quiet neighborhood perched high on the north shore of the Allegheny River. But they moved there anyway.

	Lloyd Foster, left, owns The Spott, a variety store on Lowrie Street in Troy Hill. The store in the predominately white neighborhood has been in the center of controversy since Foster took it over. (Steve Mellon, Post-Gazette) Graphic: Troy Hill: Minority population, 1940-2000

Blackhall, 49, a Butler native, and Brown, 46, from Manchester, are a biracial couple. She's white. He's black. In 1991, the couple settled in Troy Hill despite warnings from Brown's father.

"He said we shouldn't come up here because he'll get lynched," Blackhall said of Brown.

While that hasn't happened, the couple has encountered discrimination in a variety of forms. And that does not surprise some white residents.

Asked if Troy Hill has a reputation as a place that's inhospitable to blacks, Cheryl Wedrick, office manager for the Troy Hill Citizens Council, who is white, said: "We do."

"I'll be perfectly upfront," Wedrick affirmed. Then she said she wished the reputation would die.

White-haired and friendly, Wedrick said she'd thought about the problem for years and even encountered it in high school, when German-American classmates mocked her for being half Italian.

"I have lived here all my life, and I never met any black people until I got into the working world."

Census data gathered over the past 70 years indicates that Troy Hill has remained nearly 99 percent Caucasian. Recently, however, an influx of black people has altered the face of the community. Some whites say it's about time. Others don't like it and have shown their displeasure.

Marcy Nedzelski, 37, of Straubs Lane, is accused of being one such resident. She's charged with two counts of arson and one count each of ethnic intimidation and risking a catastrophe, all felonies.

On Oct. 13, 2000, police say, Nedzelski smashed a Molotov cocktail against the front steps of a neighbor's house, the home of Jannette Snow and her 3-year-old daughter. Neither was injured.

Police believe that Snow's home was targeted because the child is biracial. Before the fire, someone had scrawled racial slurs across the walkway outside.

Nedzelski faces trial Sept. 10. If she's found guilty on all counts, she could face 28 years in jail and $90,000 in fines.

Troy Hill is one of Pittsburgh's older neighborhoods. Most residents, many of them elderly, have lived there their entire lives. It's a place where the buildings -- and apparently attitudes -- haven't changed much either.

Europeans from the British Isles settled the community in the early 1800s. By the 1820s, the Swiss brought German customs and language. Names like Wohleber, Kleinhampl, Schutz and Schaeffer can be found sprinkled among the residents of Lowrie Street, Troy Hill's main drag.

In 1980, census records show, there were 42 blacks among Troy Hill's 3,251 residents. By 1990, census takers counted one black out of 2,742 residents, but a decade later, in 2000, the number had increased to 33 among 2,540.

Now, "We have about 15 to 20 minority families," said Dick Schubert, Troy Hill Citizens Council president. "It's not an alarming amount."

The Rev. David Schorr, priest at Most Holy Name Catholic Church on Harpster Street, said he admonished his 2,800 parishioners, most of whom live in Troy Hill, to set aside old prejudices.

"But the old ways die hard," he said.

Melanie Meiser, 21, who is white and a lifelong Troy Hill resident, said her parents and those of her friends had passed down race prejudice from generation to generation "because that's how they were brought up."

But more and more young people are rejecting that teaching, said Meiser, whose boyfriend is black.

Her parents have begun to say prejudiced things to her toddler son, Giovanni, who is white. "He's not going to be raised that way. When he's old enough, he can date whoever he wants. It's going to be a mixed world, and they can't do anything about it."

For the time being, however, other experiences seem to prevail. In October, when Lloyd Foster, 38, who is black, opened The Spott, a snack shop and pool hall on Lowrie Street, the front of the building was egged. Foster never reported it to police.

North Side police Cmdr. Edward Kelly dismissed it as the sort of prank that often happens in Troy Hill, regardless of race.

Foster, however, sees it as purely racial.

"I used to hear that this was the last pure all-white neighborhood in Pittsburgh," he said. "I expected little things to happen. But I didn't think they would hate me so much just because of how I look."

On Mother's Day, The Spott barbecued and sold $800 worth of spare ribs in front of the store. But twice on subsequent weekends, the enterprise was shut down.

Foster says it was because he's black. City officials say he was shut down because he didn't follow the rules.

The first closure occurred because Foster had no permit; the second because the condiments cart blocked a parking space. Foster had no right to stay. The peddler's license he'd purchased for $258 after the first incident meant he had to move regularly, and his application for a vendor's permit is awaiting City Council approval.

During the two sales days, Wedrick, the Troy Hill Citizens Council office manager, said nearly a score of complaints about Foster's sidewalk venture poured in. The council contacted city Councilwoman Barbara Burns, whose district includes Troy Hill. Burns e-mailed Kelly, and Kelly shut Foster down for the second time.

Burns scoffed at Foster's allegations of discrimination.

"Shame on him for saying that," she said. "I think he is using that somehow as an excuse. He needs to call our office."

She wondered why he would open a business in a neighborhood "where [he] didn't think [he] could succeed." Further, his ignorance of city regulations was no excuse, she continued.

"I think he's trying to circumvent the costs of doing business," Burns said. "The rules weren't put in place to discriminate against anyone. There's a reason that we control the public throughways."

Foster vowed to keep trying and sought help from Schorr, who at first agreed to let him set up in the church parking lot as long as Foster obtained liability insurance. Later, however, Schorr, who's served in Troy Hill for 12 years, had to withdraw the offer.

"We want to help him however we can," Schorr said. "But the Troy Hill Citizens Council called and said that Barbara Burns said if there is one complaint, the city will file action against the parish."

Making money was not in Joyce Blackhall's mind when she moved to Troy Hill. She just wanted to raise the two children she has with Martel Brown.

About a month after moving in, she said, "Someone put a sign on my car that said: 'Don't park here nigger lover.' " Blackhall snatched the sign off and marched up to half a dozen neighborhood doors.

"I said, 'I just wanted you to know the kind of people who live near you,' " the feisty Pennsylvania Parole Board secretary recalled. "I don't think you want to see in the media that Troy Hill has people who think like this. If this happens again, I will let them know."

The sign hasn't reappeared.

A year ago, when Blackhall pondered the purchase of the duplex where they live, a neighbor told Brown, "If she buys it, tell her not to rent to black people. They don't pay their rent."

Not believing the white neighbor's effrontery, Brown looked at the man, pointed at himself and awaited an apology or explanation. The man simply said: "Oh, you're different."

The family has built trust and made friendships, though. Once, after Brown on his own shoveled snow for neighbors, baked goods appeared on their doorstep. And another time, when Blackhall was so ill she could not go to work, a neighbor woman helped her every day. The woman is still a good friend.

"I want it to be known that it's not all the people in Troy Hill," Blackhall said. She believes things are changing, too.

"They have no choice," she said. "Hello! We're here and we're not going anywhere. It's a thing that's happening. There are more people mixing races."

But recently, a neighbor boy called Devin, 11, Blackhall's oldest, a racial slur. Brown said the boy and his sister later admitted that their parents regularly used the slur at home.

Blackhall says she helps her children by talking to them about the intolerance of others.

"It doesn't seem to bother them," she said. "At least, not that I could tell. But I don't know what it's doing to them inside."