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Lawrence Howard: --it might be included. Sony and I were talking just
before you arrived and we were just sort of running down some of the range
of topics that would be-- we'd like to touch upon, some of which I hope
that I really talk with you on the phone. Patrick: Yeah. You've been-- you
mentioned some of them that you wanted me to talk about.
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Leroy Patrick: I tried to remember what you said.
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Howard: Why don't I just run over some of those things? some of the things
that were of interest to us. For one thing, we're very interested in
looking at Homewood Brushton as a community. Ms. D'Angelo, for example, is
interested in the general subject of community development and is doing her
paper on that general topic. And that would be-- it seemed to us of
interest to have at least one person coming from the class and would have
had some first hand on the ground experience with the general subject of
community development. Certainly Homewood Brushton is an area in which
community develop has been talked about for a long time by a lot of people.
So that was one of the topics that is of interest to us. They're also very
much interested in housing. And Mr. Brown, for example. He and I have been
interviewing a number of people in the general housing area. And so, again,
it seems to me that it would be highly desirable to have someone who had an
interest in housing, especially housing for Blacks in Pittsburgh, which for
Mr. Brown is a specific type of interest to talk about a specific project,
how you got involved in the project, how it grew, what relationships you
had to the packagers to put it together, what the non profit sponsorship
looks like, what problems you're having, how it's working out, What's what
does it feel like to be an owner of 300 units? So all of that area seemed
to me to be an area of interest that we would like to touch upon.
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Howard: In a broader context. Much of-- much interest here has centered on
really what the what the Renaissance meant. What, what did changes in
Pittsburgh since 1940 mean, especially in the lives of people? Did they
participate in this in any way? Were they affected in a positive or
negative way? Has it been of benefit to them as people? We know, for
example, the contributions that's made to the Central Business District and
the visual changes in the environment, but what has it meant to lives-- in
the lives of people? And also, more specifically, how do you as a Black
leader fit into all of this? A person who has had involvement not only with
the church, which is an important institution in terms of social will and
the development of community, but also personally involved in politics and
in democratic politics, not only the city level, but the state level as
well. National level to some extent, too. Uh, you're certainly-- the
experiences that you must have had in Pittsburgh as a consequence of the
riots and especially the emergence of organizations like Pace, which came
out of that which you had something to do with. Patrick: Yeah. Howard:
There are so many topics here. It seems to me that, that seem to, to relate
to, uh, to your experience that I would-- didn't know quite where to begin,
but I thought I'd place to begin might be this. If you could start out by
telling us a little bit about yourself and how you got into Pittsburgh.
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Patrick: I'm the minister of the Bethesda United Presbyterian Church. I
finished Lincoln University, which is the oldest Black school of higher
education in the world, started in 1854. It's in the eastern part of the
state. Howard: That's right. Patrick: I went to Union Seminary for my
theological work. Union Seminary in New York City. Which seminary
emancipated me spiritually. [laughter] I pastored in Chester, Pennsylvania
during the 40s. And came to Pittsburgh in January of 1951, which means I'm
almost accepted now as an old Pittsburgher because I've been here almost 23
years. But I have always been interested in social problems. In college, I
was editor of our school paper, for example, and we had a-- Lincoln
University is a-- right near Oxford, Pennsylvania, near the Delaware, near
the Maryland line. And we were-- we had the dual school system in the
Lincoln University Village. It has its own post office. And there was the
the Blacks in the little one room school and the Whites had a somewhat
better, not a whole lot better, but somewhat better building. And I recall
having my photographer for the paper go out and take pictures of this and
publish them in in the in the Lincolnian and then sending copies to the
governor and the Department of Labor and Industry, Department of Health,
and having all these people in Harrisburg coming out to see Leroy Patrick.
There's nothing more heady than to be a senior on a college campus, you
know, and have people looking you up, calling you out of class. You really
feel like you're you're doing something. Well, I left school and what I
went into--
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Howard: Was, uh-- was, uh, Nkrumah there during your time?
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Patrick: Nkrumah was a classmate of mine. Yeah. [Howard: He was the] We
lived in the same dormitory.
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Howard: --founder of, you know. Patrick: Of Ghana.
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Patrick: Um, so I continued this interest in Chester when I became the
pastor there. That is NAACP schools and other kinds of things around that
community, housing. When I came to Pittsburgh, I really determined to, to
get out of that. I didn't make a conscious decision. But it's a time
consuming process to do a lot of social activity and pastor a church. And I
became involved against my-- not my better judgment and not against my
will, but against what I had determined to do because when I came here,
Pittsburgh is a southern town. And the school system, the well, the
swimming pools were segregated. We had the Aikwell [??] on Washington
Boulevard and we had the Highland Park pool, which was the pool for Whites.
And of course, there was Sully's pool in the South Park. We could go to
North Park pool. Howard: 51. Patrick: In 51. We could go in the North Park.
We couldn't go into the main pool in the South Park because there is
Sully's pool out there, which they are going to close I see in the papers
because of budgetary restrictions. I'm just giving this little background
to see how I got pulled into sucked into this because I, I-- and you must
stop me because I may get off on tangents and I want you to get what you
want out of me today. It happened in that first summer. I came in January.
In the summer of 51, we had what was called a youth camp, denominationally
sponsored inner city youth camps. And they were coming to Pittsburgh. They
came that summer. Youngsters, White youngsters from all over the country
Chicago, New Jersey, California, into Pittsburgh to do some things in
churches.
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Patrick: They washed the walls in my church, they wash windows in another
church. And they were going to finish that week with a, with a swim in at
the Highland Park pool. And when the announcement was made by the
leadership who didn't know the problem that this posed for us, the Blacks,
my church kids. When the announcement was made, my kids came to me after
the meeting and said, What shall we do? We can't go to the Highland Park
pool. And I had not been here long enough yet to be intimidated. So I said,
oh, we're going to swim in Highland Park pool. [laughter] Now-- then I
began to inquire around, you know, what's the problem here? Why are my kids
so uptight about this? And discovered that indeed we could not swim in
Highland Park pool? Well, I promised them we would swim. We had then in the
city, in the office of the mayor, what was called the Civic Unity Council,
which became in the 50s, the Fair Employment Practice Committee, which
became in the 60s, the Commission on Human Relations. So I talked to Chris
Motz, who was the director, and said, we're going to swim in the pool. And
I talked to Reisdorf, who was director of Parks and Recreation, and said,
we're going to swim in the pool and I want you to have as many policemen
there as you think necessary to keep [laughter] us from having our faces
bashed in, uh, and on.
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Speaker3: Did you swim in the pool? [laughter]
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Patrick: Yes. We finally swam in the pool. We got-- the Saturday that my
kids said we were going to swim in the pool. We were meeting in the
rhododendron grove there. I told my kids to bring their suits and the girls
and boys. And I got to the kids, and the White kids weren't around. They
had gone on in or hadn't got there or some such reason. I don't know what
happened to them. At any rate, discovered my kids, about a dozen kids. Only
one kid had brought his trunks. But he said, I have two pair. So I grabbed
him and the kid standing nearest to me and said, Are we going in the pool?
Because there are about 50 policemen around. It looked like a battalion,
you know, blue shirts, blue motorcycles. And the lieutenant was asking me,
Where are your-- where is your group? And, you know, I'm getting nervous
because the kids hadn't shown up. So I grabbed them and we went into the
pool. One was a kid about my complexion. Another one was a very, very dark
Black. I've never been so happy to have a dark Black with me as I was that
day so that it was evident that Blacks were swimming in that pool. Well, as
a result of that, and it's a whole story in itself. But I was asked to
serve on the board of the NAACP and to chair a swimming pool committee. And
we went into the [??] pool where we were stoned. We went out in South Park
and so on and so on. And then I was asked to chair the Public
Accommodations Committee, which meant that we tested bowling alleys and
restaurants, which wouldn't serve us because we couldn't get service in
restaurants in the-- not from Downtown but in the area. The little metal
grill at Larimer and Meadow Street, for example, wouldn't serve us. And so
I did all that testing with that and bowling alleys. We--
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Speaker3: Pardon me, what was the date of this?
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Patrick: We are talking now about 51, the summer of 51, the winter of 51,
52 on into the next summer of 52. And my involvement continually
proliferated. And then and this continued through the 50s. In the 60s,
early 60s, there was organized under the aegis of the NAACP, what was
called the UNPC United Negro Protest Committee. Early 60s, in the
middle-late 60s became United Black Protest Committee. They changed. And I
chaired that construction-- its construction committee, which meant that it
was a job of my committee to get bricklayers and skilled craftsmen on the,
on the various projects. We went out to Stanton Heights. That heights is a
built up community now, but way back there they were just putting in that
tremendous housing project and no Blacks were were in the crafts. The high
rise here in the hill off Center Avenue. No Blacks.
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Speaker3: Are you telling me about the, the project or Stanton Heights
itself?
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Patrick: I'm talking about the project which is built in Stanton Heights.
You see, there's a shopping market and then there's a housing project.
There's a high rise, and then there are many other dwellings. I'm saying
while the high rises go on, the, the City housing authority is putting in
the high rises-- these other buildings, and they had signed their contracts
that they'd be nondiscriminatory, but they were not enforcing this. And it
was my job as the chairman of the construction committee to try to get them
to enforce it. And there and in the Hill, I was arrested in the, in this
high rise here that's off Center Avenue in the Hill. What is it the Bentley
drive high rise there, for example, when they were putting that up. But--
because I wouldn't get out of the way of the truck. I told the police
tomorrow morning, you're going to have to arrest me or else we're going to
stop this job down. So he arrested me. Well, that's-- one thing led to
another, and I found myself becoming more and more involved. Politics the
same way. Way back in, I left Chester, Delaware County, which is a rock
ribbed Republican area. I went with Dilworth, Richardson Dilworth, who was
running for, for governor in 50. I went around Delaware County with him in
the, in the car because we were Democrats and my people thought I was
crazy. But he didn't get elected. But um-- in fact, few of my people ever
got elected.
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Patrick: So I came here with a letter from Al Crawford to Dave Lawrence,
who was the mayor of the city. And I went and had a chat with Dave
Lawrence, you know, one politician, in quotes, to a politician. Howard:
Yes. And we were good buddies until I started really getting involved in
these other things. And Dave Lawrence didn't like it. I grabbed Dave
Lawrence one day, for example, after a luncheon that, that, that Al Hillary
[??] group was having. You know, her group have achieved a group to have
the annual luncheon. And Dave Lawrence was there. So I grabbed-- the guy's
getting his coat and said, now listen, I'm going to write you an open
letter if you don't. I forgot what the problem was now so and so and he
flayed me and I flayed him, you know, I was younger then and more--
arrogant, I guess. At any rate, our friendship sort of ended at that point.
So during this period, this, this city was in the midst of its renaissance.
And I think everyone admitted that Pittsburgh's done a good job at physical
renaissance. And the-- I'm glad that we've saved the Triangle and glad to
see a civic arena. And I guess I'm glad for Three Rivers Stadium, I guess.
But little has-- was done during that period for the Human Renaissance. We,
we think we got most of the people from the Lower Hill out in Homewood when
they demolished the Lower Hill. Those people came because they had no other
place to go.
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Patrick: So the Homewood now is the-- well, it's getting to be almost a
first largest ghetto. I think it's beginning to approach the Hill in terms
of its of its population. And when the East Liberty redevelopment was to
take place, I was able to get on the committee, which started way back in
56. Bob Pease, who was development, DRA, director at that time. Bob Hawes,
Mannesmann, Mannesmann store out there. Hahn, Hahn Furniture. There was a
small committee which met in the Shady Avenue Hotel to begin talking about
the need for Renaissance in East Liberty and what we were to do. And I kept
insisting in every meeting, not only I, but Bob Hawes at King's House and
others that we've got to see this time, that we don't just uproot people
without letting them find someplace for them to go. Uh, and at least a more
serious attempt was made to, to relocate people. It wasn't fully
successful, not wholly because of, of the fault of the relocation
authority, somewhat so. But some people started to panic. And the
non-homeowners or renters, you see just started to get out and go where
they could get because they heard you were going to tear up Harvard Street.
You're going to take care-- tear up Sinclair Street and so on. So a good
number of those people came into, into Homewood. So the, the, the, the
dislocation in East Liberty was not quite so bad.
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Patrick: But then it was bad enough because Homewood became even then more
crowded. Well, at-- during this period. And my church relocated from East
Liberty into Homewood. We were in the urban redevelopment area. I'm in a
very large structure, four levels of auditorium, a sanctuary that seats
1200 people, which I don't need, a gymnasium that had not been used for a
generation when we, when we went into that building, because the White
congregation who was there refused by policy, the board of elders refused
to admit Blacks so that the church, which was a strong church in the 20s
and in the 30s, began going down, down, down and in the oh, in the late
50s, the congregation had dwindled to somewhere around 150 with a
worshiping group of 50 to 75 and a 1200 member sanctuary. And when their
minister left them in 59, the presbytery would not allow the congregation
to call another minister because it was doing a disservice to the church,
to all of the church and so forth, and gave the feds the opportunity of
moving into the building. We suggest that they merge with us, but they
didn't. They merged with another White congregation in Homewood, which
lasted for two more years, and that congregation merged with the third one.
Now at Point Breeze, Fifth Avenue and Penn. That's where the remnants of
that congregation is. So I got into Homewood then as-- 61, as one of the
ministers of the community. The bulk of my membership had always lived
there.
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Patrick: The center of gravity for them had always been home. We did a
study of our membership and discovered that 80 to 85% lived out there. So
while these-- I was doing these other things, Homewood was not was not
idle. Bill Howell at the-- who was then the director of the boys Club had
started what's called the HBCIA, the Homewood Brushton Community
Improvement Association, which still exists. He's had a great big dinner at
the twin coaches here last, last month. Uh, they were getting together
homeowners to try to keep up their property because as the people were
coming in, of course, the whites were fleeing. And, and many people don't
keep up-- particularly renters don't keep up their properties. At the same
time that, around the same time the HBCIA was started. This is a block club
organization. It still exists. There's another one now called the OBB,
Operation Better Block. Jim Gibbon runs that, and Jim was able to get into
the community chest last year. So he he has some stability of funding
there. There was organized the Homewood Brushton Citizens Renewal Council.
This council was started by Action Housing, which moved into Homewood to do
some pilot things. It had some Ford Foundation money, and it was an attempt
on the part of Action Housing and the Ford people to see what could be done
with the inner city community to keep it from from deteriorating as badly,
for example, as the Hill had deteriorated.
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Speaker3: Pardon me? About what year was this?
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Patrick: Um, this was about, about 60? It was just before I got there. 59
and 60. See, so that the renewal council had been started before I became
officially a part of the community in the sense that I was there every day
as a pastor. HBCIA about 55. So it it had some-- it had started and was had
some solid foundation by this time. Uh, Renewal council in time in 64
became the CAP agency because Homewood became, well, it was number four on
the poverty list. You know, the Hill first, I think Manchester second,
somewhere else there in East Liberty third and Homewood number four. I
never understood why Homewood was number four. That was some hanky panky
somewhere along the line. It should have been number two, but maybe number
three after Manchester. I don't know if you've been to Manchester. That's,
that could have been number one in some respects. Well, the renewal council
was started. It became the Cap agency so that it had not only a a
relationship with Action, which had some funds, but with CAP. OEO in 64,
65, 66 had some some real monies to fool around with, not very much came
out of it, but it did have some real money to it. And we then-- sought to
do, oh, a number of things. No, we had what we call the Community Services
Committee, which meant-- that was the committee which had to do with city
services, just getting the people to pick up the garbage and sweep the
streets.
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Patrick: You don't know what a tremendous problem it is. And maybe you do
know that just to get these city services to come around and, and pick up
the trash on a regular basis and then there is always an inordinate amount
of trash, it seems that, that comes out in in the ghetto. So we had that
kind of committee. We had a public safety committee. We continually were
going to number five and to the various directors of public safety trying
to get beat policemen out there. Then there was the-- a housing committee.
And we were working with with the housing authority to try to get some new
housing. And there is now what's called-- and to get Homewood certified as
a redevelopment area because no money has been spent out there in the years
when the people were working in the Hill and Lower Hill and downtown, that
became-- it did become certified as a housing area and Homewood North. The
Galvanic Project are a result of that. The Kelly Street highrise, the
result of that, that housing committees. The HBCIA not this case the Rural
Council, but HBCIA personnel, for example, are responsible for the Homewood
Brushton Neighborhood Health Center. Whatever you say about about Wilbur
Nelson and Novice Miller and Reynolds. And so those, those, those people
really put hours and hours of time in, in trying to get projects like that
off the ground.
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Patrick: You have to be prepared when you go into community, organization
work especially, to spend hours and hours when you feel that you're just
spinning your wheels. You know, you you go over and over and many trips
Downtown and trips to Washington, rewriting proposals. But, you know, we do
have now a Homewood Brushton neighborhood health center. We do have a, a, a
high rise on Kelly Street. We do have the Galmarnock [??], new housing
developments. In the late 60s, I think it was 67 or 68, I asked my session,
that is my board of elders, to have us form a nonprofit corporation to do
something in housing ourselves. By no means was the housing need being met.
Action had done a little bit of it out there. Then Action, as you know,
spun off or was instrumental in forming Arco. And we formed this nonprofit
corporation with me as president and with my elders as the board of
directors. There was some talk of making it a community kind of thing, but
you can deal with the core people that you're working with all the time,
but you bring in a lot of other disparate elements and the-- poses another
kind of problem. So we formed the Bethesda Corporation-- and we sought to,
to then to get some, some housing going.
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Patrick: Well, we had no money to put in it. My church has a lot of-- I
know in New York for example, there's a lot of different kinds of-- had a
lot of different kinds of programs and still has. We've had a, I suppose, a
quarter of $1 million budget, 20 to 30 to 40 people for the past oh ten
years I suppose. But all the money that comes in like that are earmarked.
You can't use them for this kind of thing. Then I went into Arco, talked to
Mill Washington, and they were looking for nonprofit sponsors that would be
recognized by FHA. FHA has some requirements-- longevity likelihood of
remaining for 40 years around, and some responsibility and insight on the
part of its board and so on. We were certified by FHA as a nonprofit
sponsor, and I agreed that we that, that the board agreed that we would we
would go into the business and for each project we have four projects, five
projects, 350 something units now. First unit was 141 houses. We had to set
up a corporation for that same board, but the different corporation for the
state purposes. FHA purposes. Uh. Bethesda Homewood Properties, Beth Home,
L Home, Bethesda, Wilkinsburg Properties. These are all homes in
Wilkinsburg. And now we have-- at least we did have until Nixon came out
with his moratorium, a fifth one that is about-- that was about to get off
the ground.
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Patrick: So the the the-- and we-- when we went into it, Arco agreed to
purchase the properties because they had money to do it. And then we would
pay them when we got the mortgage, you see. Then we agreed to hire Arco to
do the rehab work. So these are all rehabilitated homes and the, the units
cost to rehab from nine to about $13,000. Well, some of the houses are in
pretty bad shape. If you buy a house of $3,000, you know, it's not much.
And it takes a lot of it takes a lot of money to fix it up. We have been in
that business now for the past five years. We at first were going to manage
the houses ourselves, but FHA allows only 6% of the mortgage for management
purposes. And it doesn't really-- it doesn't mean that there is enough
money to to open an office and pay a competent manager. It's going to have
to pay a man 15 or $18,000 to do that kind of job. If you're going to get a
good person going and get an $8,000 man, then you're going to get an $8,000
job, open an office clerk, all that sort of thing. It didn't warrant us
after we after we sat down with the figures and saw how much money we would
need and how much we were being allowed. So we agreed to contract it out to
Arco. And that was really a blessing because I had begun to get calls from
people who heard that Bethesda was in the-- was now both buying houses and
renting houses.
00:29:51.000 --> 00:31:10.000
Patrick: And they were calling me to-- you know, I want to get on the
list. When can I come, When can you talk to me about getting housing? And
with all the other stuff that I have, I couldn't, I just couldn't get into
that. So now when the calls come, I simply tell them we have nothing to do
with it. The contract is Arco's. Now, if this is a person that I know and
you really need a house. And I'll say listen Larry needs a house, you know,
[laughter] But that's the way it happens in every situation, isn't it? You
know? You know how that happens. You, you, go on. So Larry gets a house,
and I heard he got a house. I don't know anything about it. So that's
been-- it's been a very happy situation in the sense that we have been
able, in that way to to make available many, many decent homes for people.
Now, one of the needs is for social services. But here are people going
into a house which has been newly renovated, rehabbed. They have lovely
walls, they're all clean, they've been furnished, new stove, new closets
and so on. And the family has to be some of them has been taught how to,
you know, how to take care of this property.
00:31:10.000 --> 00:32:45.000
Patrick: And for a good while, for about three years, I had what we what
was called a family service unit, which was a a program subcontracted under
United Family Service. And we could use these workers to to help in cases
like that. That program was phased out finally because the state would not
continue to fund it. They said that the federal regulations do not allow
it. Federal regulations went into effect on the Weinberger in November 1st.
They phase it out in August 31st. So I was talking to Milt only last week
about our need to to try to get some monies. We do have some monies in one
of our projects to allow us to have a-- some sort of social service
component in, in these projects. But it takes more than-- this money only
for one person for one year, and that's not going to do it. So that whole
area is one which the government has not really addressed itself to. Um,
but it, it, it, it helps. It helps the community. Now, Homewood was a
thriving community in 61, and the early 60s. Homewood Avenue did a $9
Million worth of business. Today it's, it's I suppose if it does $200,000
worth of business, it probably $200 worth of business. It's, it's a, it's
doing well because all of the stores well moved out in 68 partly because of
the riots.
00:32:45.000 --> 00:34:31.000
Patrick: We went up, and I don't say we, but at least many store windows
were broken. It's something to see. Guardsmen standing on the corner of
Frankstown and, and Homewood Avenue and Bennett Street and Homewood Avenue.
And there are full war regalia. I recall going through the area in that
that period. Very sobering sight. So you had store windows broken and you
had merchants intimidated. The, the, the stores, uh, were told they had to
get Black workers. All very good. But some of them were just mom and pop
stores. The five and ten did get its Black workers, but by the time it got
around to that, the East Hills had become a fairly flourishing area and the
trade had moved to East Hills by large. The haberdasheries, the little
notion stores and the others out there had simply closed up and moved out
and we still haven't come back. Two, three years ago, I. I had heard of
this. All of this money that the life insurance companies have to put into
the inner city, if you can get some local money to do some matching. And I
hosted a dinner and not a dinner, but a luncheon meeting at the William
Penn Hotel with my-- I had my session do it to which I invited some of the
top business, industrial, and foundation leaders. I've gotten to know many
of these people through the years working on various boards.
00:34:31.000 --> 00:35:57.000
Patrick: I've been on Red Cross board, Salvation Army Board, the chest,
and you get to know them and the foundations and people. I invited them
there. We had a firm out of Washington come in and do a study of our
community, a firm which had done something that is a packaging firm, which
it had done something in Indianapolis in which they'd gotten the, the power
structure interested in rehabilitating the community. I was trying to see
whether we could get that kind of interest here. So we had all these people
present and they ate my lunch, which cost me $275, I think. And I had a, I
sent them and I said to them in the letter, it was on my stationery that
this is not a device to get you here, to make some surreptitious pitch for
money for Bethesda, but for the community in the city, which I think could
stand some real help from persons like you. And then we had it pitched so
that the slide presentation and all of our things would be over, that they
could leave by 1:30 because these people if they come at 12, they want to
get away. They want to be on leave by 1:30. Then your meeting is is simply
shot. I thought that we did a real professional job and we did, you know,
Harold Tweedy, first federal, all these people these-- and you know they
listen and yes that's very nice.
00:35:57.000 --> 00:37:26.000
Patrick: But I couldn't get a single-- I couldn't get any movement out of
those folks. Well, it was costing-- we needed to get something like
$500,000, which would have floated a three and a half million dollar
something from the, from the, you know, the prpoerty insurance that fund
that they had set up and I couldn't get a hold of that kind of money. So
now Homewood is slowly trying to get back it-- Homewood South. I speak of
Homewood South. That's the Frankstown Avenue to the railroad tracks. It has
been certified as URA area and we were beginning to meet last fall. Richard
Adams, who directs the office out there, was calling us together because
finally money will be released to do something to Homewood South, as has
been done in Homewood North, the galvanic homes and some new housing and
some business money. So 1,000,000 point 8 had been released. Then came
December and the president's executive order. The thing just stopped. I--
it looks like it's going to be stopped until we get Nixon out of the White
House. And since he's not going to resign and they're going to be slow in
impeaching him, we may be stopped for the next three years. Lord help us if
we can't get him out. But the Lord has his own slow time schedule. If he'd
take some advice. He would hurry things up from time to time. [laughter]
00:37:26.000 --> 00:38:59.000
Patrick: So at this time then, Homewood is not not doing as well as we
would wish to have it do. Although HBCIA is still active, the new account
is still active. The new accounts, for example. I think the one substantive
thing it will have done is to open that skating rink $184,000. We had 80
some thousand from OEO. We had a foundation that put in some 20,000. We
borrowed the other from the bank, and we took the old car barn there. We
pay a dollar a year rent for it. We put this money in and refurbished it.
And we have now the Greater Pittsburgh Coliseum, the skating rink. But it's
a beautiful place. If you ever out there, you must just stop and look at
it. It's really tremendous. And, uh, the, the children use it by the
hundreds every week, really, by the thousands. But it can accommodate, I
think it is 900 per session. You have children using that thing by the
thousands. The Ardmore Rink out on Ardmore Boulevard is what was formerly
used as some of you may know, or Bridgeville. Now, the kids use our rink. I
doubt that any White kids will come out-- be coming out in any good numbers
because Whites are still afraid to come to Homewood for some reason. Uh, I
don't know why. Are you afraid of Homewood? Howard: No. Patrick: All right.
[laughter]
00:38:59.000 --> 00:39:02.000
Speaker3: I'm afraid of Homewood sometimes.
00:39:02.000 --> 00:39:06.000
Patrick: What did you say?
Speaker3: I'm afraid of Homewood Sometimes.
00:39:06.000 --> 00:39:12.000
Patrick: Well. You're going to be afraid of any part of the city
sometimes.
00:39:12.000 --> 00:41:26.000
Speaker3: Yes that's right. That is true.
Patrick: Yeah. Any part of the city at night and even in the day these
days. I visited Mrs. Clarence Burrell, who was the wife of the minister
[??] Baptist church on the corner of Paulson and Mayflower Street, who was
coming home at 1:00 two weeks ago, and kids grabbed a pocketbook, knocked
it down. They kicked her. She had to go to the hospital. It was 1:00 in the
day and this is a-- this is not a bad area, this is not Homewood, this is
East Liberty. You know, this is East Liberty. So I can understand why why
persons are afraid. I remember in 68, we we've had for a number of years a
tutoring program in our congregation, in our church, in this community
center that is that was sponsored by the Council of Jewish Women. And in
68, in the summer of 68, was the riot you see in the fall, the women came
to me to ask, was it safe for their kids to to come to Homewood? His White
kids and the Black community. Well, I at that time had two staff persons
who were White. My direct presentation [??] and my assistant minister at
the time were White. I said, I don't think we have any problems here, you
know. This church has not been molested. We've been robbed. But we never--
they've never been any problems. All churches are robbed these days. We
don't-- [laughter]. So after talking about it and I think somewhere around
late October, they agreed to have the kids come back in and never any
problems with any of those kids who were coming in. And there must have
been, oh, 15, 25 of them during the course of that winter season coming in
and never any problems. But I'm not saying that you can't go out there
tomorrow and get mugged. You know, that's the nature of the city anytime.
So when you say you're afraid. Yeah, be careful. My wife doesn't walk out
anywhere at night, you know, And I'm pretty careful where I go at night
when I'm not in the car. Well, now, enough of that. Suppose we talk about--
about politics.
00:41:26.000 --> 00:41:48.000
Speaker3: Could I just ask one question before you get off the subject?
Patrick: Yeah. Speaker3: Um, what's the-- what's happening with the
population in Homewood? We know that it's difficult now to do anything for
the business community or for housing because of the moratorium. But what's
the population? Is it-- are you losing people? Are you gaining people? Is
it is it the same? Patrick: We are. Speaker3: Are you overcrowded?
00:41:48.000 --> 00:43:39.000
Patrick: We're overcrowded because there are so many abandoned dwellings
in Homewood. And-- but the population is, is not growing a great deal.
There has not been, as you know, any big influx of Blacks into Pittsburgh
because we're not on the main artery from anywhere. You've got to really
want to come to Pittsburgh to ever get here. You just you're not like
Cleveland or Philadelphia. So that-- we don't, we've never had that big
influx of Blacks from from other from the South, for example. The
population is relatively stable. We have more and more people going into
Penn Hills, those who who can, flee. But by and large, it's a stable
population, A good number of them, one would call, I suppose, middle class.
If you say the civil servants, the teachers, the federal workers, the, you
know, the post office people, the department stores, the Mill people who
who in terms of income would be considered middle class no matter what
their other orientation might be. There's still a large number of those. We
have a large number of DPW people. About 20, almost 25% of the population
is on public assistance. We have a large number of, of, uh oh, older
people. I don't know what the number would be. It'd be, I suppose, between
500 and 1000 out there of whom some very small number would be in that
Kelly Street highrise, because that's a project for the older people. So
the, the population is not diminishing the problem in getting a business
going.
00:43:39.000 --> 00:45:10.000
Patrick: There is now it really has to be a specialty stores and it, it
probably would have to be some sort of chain because the the whole avenue,
in my judgment, has to be torn out and rebuilt. We really, really need to
make Homewood Avenue a some sort of mall that would that would allow for
sitting along. This is done in part of Liberty sitting along the the stores
and and tearing out those old buildings and putting up something that's
attractive because people are in the habit now going to East Hills or East
Liberty, you see. And therefore this has to be a kind of specialty area
with, with a higher degree of, of, of police protection to because the, the
some women even before the stores finally moved out were somewhat afraid to
go down on the avenue because what happened to the statue of the pocket
book will still happens out there and it is happening in other places. But
that problem, that kind of thing will mean that, in my judgment, we just
can't put up a store here and a store there. We've got to do a massive job.
And when I've been asked this question, I said we need to clean out all of
the avenue and put in some attractive buildings with attractive
surroundings, with the kind of focal point that will draw people and
attract people to to it.
00:45:10.000 --> 00:45:30.000
Speaker4: Uh, Father O'Malley, the pastor of Saint Joseph's Church in
Manchester. He told me that he believes that there's no such thing as an
integrated community. He said communities are either Black and White or
going [audio cuts out] calls and tells me that. Called me on the phone
first by surprise to get a telephone call from him.
00:45:30.000 --> 00:45:33.000
Speaker4: But he called me just an hour ago before I came--
00:45:33.000 --> 00:46:33.000
Patrick: There's something-- there's something that happened that you
probably don't know. We have some of the city. Political figures insist
that. The top people, including Dr. Shiva, must meet with the people of
this center and offer us some help. And this is the way that he's trying to
get out of it. I didn't know Mr. Grant would give him a thing like this,
and I hope that's not the point of his speech. But this I expected.
