Photo by Steve Mellon ~ Story by Bob Batz Jr.

	Click photo for larger image.

Mary Jane Doran used to get home to Brookline by the No. 39 streetcar.

Last week, she was transported there by photographs.

"Oh my!" she said, sifting through a bag of old photos while sitting on one of the twin beds in the room she shares with her sister, Marita Garrow, at the Southwestern Assisted Care Residence in West Mifflin.

Only she didn't feel as if she was that far south.

For an hour, she was back in the city neighborhood of Brookline, where she was born and spent almost every one of her 89 years -- most of them in the same house. She could practically smell the peonies that bloomed in their yard. She could practically hear their little white dog, Salty.

"This is on Chelton Avenue," she said, holding one sepia group shot of a children with one hand and pointing with the other. "I'm pretty sure that's my brother, Dennis; that's my sister, Dorothy; that's Jane" -- meaning, herself. "I think that's Ruth Seitz. That's Marita. And that's a doll baby."

Meanwhile, Marita sat quietly in a chair across the room.

	"Here" is a weekly feature produced by Post-Gazette photographers and writers who roam the region to capture close-up slices of life. Can you point us to a special person or place, experience or story? E-mail us at here@post-gazette.com. Link to past installments HERE.

Before Marita was born (in 1920), and before the family moved into that big brick home beside their father's parents, they lived one avenue over on Berkshire. Mary Jane immediately knew the weedy lot there in which her brother is standing, wearing a ball cap and holding a bat. "Oh, he was always crazy about baseball."

There she is in her first Communion dress, in a matching Persian lambswool hat and muff, as well as in her Navy uniform -- she served during World War II and Korea -- marching down Brookline Boulevard in the Fourth of July parades.

These are the kinds of photographic treasures the South Pittsburgh Development Corp. is seeking.

The nonprofit volunteer group aims to document Brookline's history, perhaps to publish in a book, and so it's asking current and former residents to bring in old photos to be electronically copied on a scanner.

Thanks to the two sisters, with help from relatives and a neighbor, the Doran collection will be part of the first "scan-fest," to be held from noon to 3 p.m. Saturday at the Brookline branch of the Carnegie Library, 710 Brookline Blvd., during the SDLC's Spring Fling.

The second scan-fest will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. on Tuesday, April 6, at the office of state Rep. Michael Diven at 734 Brookline Blvd. Those who have old images in electronic format can submit them directly to project leader Amy Fisher at amyfisher.spdc@verizon.net or by calling 412-344-2179. She has cooked up a new Web site, www.brooklinepark.com that contains a link to a previously gathered collection of old images.

SPDC President Linda Dimitroff says the group is particularly interested in pre-1960 exterior shots showing streets and landmarks and famous -- "or infamous" -- people.

"We'd like to build this legacy, if you will," she said, noting that time is of the essence, "especially as the generations are shifting here and the older folks are passing on. If we don't collect this information now, some of it won't be identifiable."

Organizers have to hope that folks at least saved these precious photographs, and that they even wrote on the back of them, as Mary Jane Doran did to some.

Mary Jane flipped over one shot -- she and Marita standing together in lovely 1940s or '50s suits and hats -- and read her own handwriting aloud to her sister:

"'This was taken in September just before we went out to the airport for our flight to New York. Hefty! Am I not? Isn't Marita good-looking?'"

Marita laughed.

She was back in Brookline, too.