Riding on Route 19 in Pine in his brand-new Ford pickup, Sonny Palermo reminisces about how things looked along the road years ago.
"This used to be nothing but fields out here, small farms. And that's where the old Wexford Drive-In used to be."
A church stands there now, and the irony of that isn't lost on him as he chuckles about going to the drive-in as a teenager in the '70s.
Mr. Palermo lives in one of the last remaining homes in the corridor, which is now zoned for commercial use. His house is actually on Church Road -- the heart of the Village of Wexford -- but Route 19 is just a few yards from his front yard, and his business, Palermo Auto Body, is right behind his house.
As a lifelong resident of the northern suburbs, Mr. Palermo, 52, has seen lots of changes along the highway.
In the early '70s, he worked at a gas station at Ingomar Road and Route 19 in McCandless. Back then, he said, that was the last traffic light on Route 19 until Zelienople.
"We used to race out to Zelienople and back to see how fast we could do it at midnight," he said. "There was nobody on the roads."
When driving on Route 19 now, it's difficult to find any other house along the road that still serves as a home. The corridor is filled with strip malls, offices, car dealerships and more.
The old white farmhouse where Mr. Palermo has lived since 1989 was built around the turn of the 20th century. On one side of his home is a business and on the other side is St. Alphonsus Church. Its cemetery borders his property.
It's an unconventional place to live, but he loves it.
"The neighbors are very quiet," he said with a smile. "They don't come over and borrow cream and sugar or anything, don't ask to use my tools, it's actually quite nice living there."
Despite the constant flow of traffic on Route 19, the inside of his home is peaceful, he said.
"Believe it or not, in that old house, I shut the front door and it's just as quiet as can be in there."
Some sounds are unique to the location, he added. "I hear the [church] bells. Every now and then for a funeral, I'll hear the bagpipes."
A picture hanging on the wall of his business shows what the area looked like in the late 1920s. He saw it the first time he visited the nearby Atria's restaurant, where historic photos of the region are displayed. He was captivated by the photo image. Something in it looked familiar.
"I stared, looking at it for a while, and I said, 'That's the front of my place.' "
He obtained a copy of the photo and later showed it to a man he saw visiting the cemetery one day. That man, Bob Myers, 90, identified the young girl in the photo as his sister-in-law, a member of the Duffek family, which owned the auto business at that time. As far as Mr. Palermo can tell, the shop has been fixing cars since about 1919.
Because of his keen interest in the history of his property, Mr. Palermo has asked that anyone who has information about his business or the site to contact him.
He said he has thought about moving, but he appreciates the advantages of living next to his job.
"I often thought it would be advantageous for me to rent the property out and live somewhere else, but I'll tell you what, it really makes it easy getting back and forth to work," he said with a laugh.
"It takes me three seconds to get to work, and that's if I'm moving slow."
For nearly two decades, he has watched from his front porch as Route 19 has become busier and busier. But he can't see himself living anywhere else.
"The day comes that I have to move out of there, it's going to break my heart."
First Published: January 18, 2009, 10:00 a.m.
