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Sunday, January 21, 2001
To get to McKees Rocks, you drive off the rim of Pittsburgh and, heading along the Ohio River, start looking for a small town in an area that seems unrelated to the city. In five minutes, Pennsylvania time, you've gone from skyscrapers and prosperity to a low, level landscape missing its industrial base and looking played out.
Gone from McKees Rocks since the 1950s is the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad repair shop, once the area's largest employer. Then with the decline of steel the borough lost its own steel-related production. When the corporate tax base disappeared, the consequent high taxes on residents -- combined with poor planning and political corruption -- caused middle-class families to start moving out. Subsidized housing and low-income communities replaced them.
The borough McKees Rocks, combined with Stowe Township, has been left to struggle with the damage caused by a listless business development while at the same time it copes with the changed economic and social health of its residents.
It's an area that's down -- but not out.
McKees Rocks-Stowe has its boosters, and when you fall in with them, you get a different take on what life here is like. Recently I spent a day with Mary Mancini Hartner, and by the end of it I was looking for a house to buy. Living in McKees Rocks, I could get my daily bread at Mancini's, my pierogi, stuffed cabbage and haluski from Helen Mannarino's Pierogies Plus, spend an entire morning deciding which of Theresa Vasselo's cookies to buy, pick up Ricci's Italian sausage when I needed it, stop by Jenny Lee Bakery, where over the years at the Market Square store, I've tried almost everything and, though I have my favorites, liked almost all.
From this source of good things I could continue my McKees Rock pilgrimage with visits to Linder & Associates, where the vast, astonishing collection of furniture, furniture making, and furnishings, Oriental rugs, art and antiques are like a museum's with price tags. I was unprepared to find, tucked away down Yunker Street, a warehouse worth of interior designs drawing its customers from all over the world. Finally, exhausted by my day in the Rocks, I could drop down into a comfortable chair at the Primadonna Restaurant for an Italian-style dinner that would renew my energy.
This is pretty much how Mary and I spent our day, eating and schmoozing. It is a day like the one she plans to put on the block at the Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center. Her tour will be auctioned off Feb. 17, when the center will sponsor "Carnevale Siciliano," a fete honoring Sicily and benefiting the museum's Italian-American Program. Mary's heritage is Italian, as are many businesses in McKees Rocks. I couldn't take part in the family-related conversations that Mary had with other purveyors, but I could bask in the glow that filled the space with conversation: "That was your father's uncle's boy," "She was married to your cousin's first husband," "They went to school with Rosa's oldest," "Not my grandfather, but my grandfather's father."
It wasn't just what they said. It was the environment in which they said it. Two places that tugged at my heart were Theresa Vasselo's Bakery, 805 Broadway, and Pierogies Plus, 342 Island Ave. I observed that the mostly female staff never stopped working while still managing to engage with one another. The Italian faces at Theresa's and the Slavic faces at Pierogies Plus were the only difference. Polish, Russian, Ukrainian or Italian, they all dressed in the same comfy style: stretched-out slacks and patterned aprons over sweatshirts soft from so many washings. It's my favorite look when no men are around.
Nearly 57 years in business, Ricci's has always been run by men. Grandfather, father, grandson and great grandson, every one an Ernest (the original Ernest, Junior, Ernest B, Ernest A). Clean is the first impression one has here -- so clean the sun seems to shine inside the store. This is just what I want in the place where I buy pork sausage. Uniforms for the help behind the counter are standard whites. In the refrigerated cases, Abruzzi sweet sausages and Calabrese hot are neatly curled, while bulk sausage has the gloss of freshly ground. In the back stand the buckets of quality spices used to give Ricci sausages their sought-after flavor.
Grilled sausage, cut to fit, makes a classic sandwich on a split, fresh baked roll of Mancini bread. With Mary as guide, visitors get to explore the maze of rooms that gives this operation character. The bakery was started 74 years ago by Jimmy Mancini, Mary's Abruzzi-born uncle, who located it in one rented room where he made 100 loaves a night, then delivered the fresh bread in the morning. After World War II, he was joined by his brother Ernest, and the bakery moved to a house at 601 Woodward Ave. Under Ernest Mancini, Mary's father, and, later, Mary herself, the bakery has expanded to where it makes 10,000 loaves a day, employs 48 people and operates around the clock.
The men and women who staff the facility are friendly. The daytime bakers work like a choreographed team. Sensitive to each other's every move, their hands fly as they cut and shape dough for the massive ovens in the next room. It's beautiful to watch, and the fragrances of the baked bread make one yearn for a knife and butter. Mancini's bread has the flavor of growing up in McKees Rocks. Orders regularly go out to former residents scattered from Texas to Alaska.
Last stop: the Primadonna Restaurant, 801 Broadway (412-331-1001). It's 10 minutes from Downtown and has plenty of street parking, so many people find their way here and reservations are a good idea. Owner Joe Costanzo, the energetic and personable host, has his guests' interest at heart. Primadonna specializes in large servings of high-quality, robust Italian food with entree prices averaging from $15 to $20.
For History Center's gala and the McKees Rocks tour information: 412-454-6405.