Blast from the past: Penney's ad 1961

Enjoy this blast from the past--a July 5, 1961, Beaver County Times ad from Penney's at Northern Lights.

Ambridge Borough Swimming Pool, Part 2: Getting there--the trek to the pool

This is the second in a series of posts about my favorite summer spot, the Ambridge Borough Swimming Pool. Upcoming posts will offer more memories including: the bathhouse, the pools, the snack bar, and working there.  

Before you could enjoy an afternoon at the pool, you had to get there. And for many of us, that was quite a trek.

The pool was, to put it mildly, inconveniently and inaccessibly located: In what was then Ambridge Borough Park (now Walter Panek Park). On the top of a high steep hill overlooking 22nd Street. High above a town that was basically one big hill rising from the Ohio River--or a number of medium-sized hills, stacked one above the other, depending how you looked at it.

True, there was a road that entered the park, part way up the 24th Street Hill.* If you were driving up the hill, you made a right turn into that road--a narrow, winding, bumpy road that, if I'm remembering correctly, the borough "paved" with tar and chips.

Yeah, about that "driving"...

If you had asked an adult to drive you to the pool, I dare say that you'd get an incredulous look and "If you're too tired to walk, you're too tired to go to the pool."

And, as a practical matter, most of us came from one-car families (or a no-car family), and that one car had probably been driven to work by a parent. Or if the car was parked at your house, parents had much better things to do than to drive their kid(s) to the pool. Even when we were old enough to drive, very few of us had a car or even regular access to a car.

So we walked.

I started walking from the 1500 block of Beaver Road. The walk along Beaver Road wasn't really so bad for the first six blocks, even though I often wished that the street were tree-lined to provide shade, especially on really hot days.

Then, I passed Walnut Street and had to climb up that really steep hill that was such fun to ride a bike down, but not so fun to trudge up on a hot summer's day.

Then another five blocks. Finally, just past 22nd Street, there was an alley that intersected Beaver Road. If I made a right turn, walked up that alley, made another right turn, walked a bit, then I could see...

The Steps.

124 steps.**

Onward and upward.

You'd think we'd be too exhausted to swim after the climb, but you'd be wrong. Maybe it was the smell of the tar wafting from the parking lots that perked us right up. Or maybe we were so eager to get into the pool we didn't realize we were tired. Or maybe we just were in really good shape from walking everywhere. And climbing lots of steps.

There were also shortcuts through the woods. One path led southwest-ish down the steep, wooded hill, across a small stream, and ended at Walnut Street, not far above Beaver Road. I took that path once in a while, but since that route lacked parental authorization, I always felt a bit guilty when I did.

Kids walked much further than I did; some walked from Valley Road, at least a 3 1/2 mile trek.

We walked, because if the choice was between staying home or walking miles, literally, to the pool, the clear choice was walking, because the pool was the best fun you could have on a hot summer's day.

Next: The bathhouse.
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*I learned just two years ago, while looking at a map during a visit to Ambridge, that the road I'd always known only as the "24th Street Hill" had a name: Breitenstein Road.
 
Until a private fly ash landfill owned by Gabriel Sacco was opened in ravines near the park's boundaries in the late 70s, the entrance to the park road was aligned somewhat differently than it currently is. That landfill closed in 1988.
 
**There is some disagreement on the number of steps. 122? 124? Perhaps someone who still lives in Ambridge could volunteer [their grandchild] to climb the still-existing steps and provide a definitive answer.

Ambridge Borough Swimming Pool, Part 1

This is the first in a series of posts about my favorite summer spot, the Ambridge Borough Swimming Pool. Upcoming posts will offer more detailed memories including: getting there, the bathhouse, the pools, the snack bar, and working there.
 
Ah, childhood and teen-hood memories of years of many long, happy summer days spent at the Ambridge Borough Swimming Pool.
 
The sights: the big, yellow brick bathhouse; sunlight reflecting off the water in three pools and lots and lots of concrete; girls in one-piece or very modest two-piece swimming suits; girls and women wearing ugly, detested swim caps*; men and boys in short (by today's fashions) swim trunks.
 
The sounds: children laughing; children screaming; water splashing; lifeguards' whistles tweeting; KDKA radio blaring top-40 hits over the tinny, sound-distorting speakers mounted on light poles; transistor radios playing stations cooler than KDKA.
 
The smells: chlorine, Coppertone, wet clothing, musty towels, hot tar, french fries being deep fried in the snack bar.
 
For part of the day, we'd lay contentedly on small beach towels laid on hot concrete. For part of the day, we'd be in the pool, playing, swimming, or just standing in the water cooling off. And when we got a bit older, part of the day would be spent strolling around the pools, hoping that the boy or girl we had a crush on would notice us.
 
And all the while we'd be socializing with friends or talking with siblings, and in those days before we were warned about sun exposure causing skin cancer, and we were not yet worried about developing prematurely wrinkly skin, trying to get as tan as possible as quickly as possible. There were no SPF sunscreens then. Only lotions to promote a "deep, dark tan" or a homemade mixture of baby oil and iodine that reputedly made you darker, quicker. but probably just stained your skin.
 
And usually, we were at the pool without parents or other adult supervision. All day.
 
Of course, when I was very young, I went with my parents to the pool. Usually on the hottest Saturdays or Sundays of the year, when the pool was packed with people, and you could hardly find a spot in the baby pool to pretend to swim in.

I don't exactly remember when my mother started letting me go to the pool with my younger sister or a friend, but it seems I was perhaps 7 or 8 years-old. And the people running the pool didn't mind that we came without someone to keep an eye on us. Can you imagine a parent these days letting an elementary school age child go to a public pool by themselves? And the pool allowing those children to come without an adult?

I'm sure the admission prices, which seem unbelievably inexpensive now, were still a financial stretch for some of our parents: the Beaver Valley Times of July 17, 1958, announced that half-price season passes were available: Children in grades 1-6: $2; Children in grades 7-12: $2.50; Family passes for families of any size: $6; adults: $4. Season passes, not a daily admission fee. Swim lessons for children were free, although there was a $0.50 registration fee. I haven't yet found out what the daily admissions fee was in '58, but in 1969, children paid $0.25 per day to swim**.

But before you could do anything at the pool, you had to get there...

Next: Getting there: the trek to the pool.
___

*Girls and women were expected to wear swim caps because long hair clogged the pools filters. That was through the early 60s. Then boys and men started to wear longer hair, and there was a rumor that boys and men with long hair would also be required to wear swim caps. But then, I guess long hair was no longer a problem for the filters, because no one had to wear swim caps anymore. Unless they wanted to. But no one did.

**Beaver County Times, May 13, 1969

Laughlin Memorial Library

Photo of Laughlin Memorial Library, Beaver Valley Times, October 5, 1953

Original caption reads: 

LAUGHLIN LIBRARY--Dedicated in 1929, the Laughlin Memorial Free Library in Ambridge was erected at a cost of approximately $200,000. It was endowed by Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Laughlin of Sewickley, as a memorial to their son, Major Alexander Laughlin Jr. In 1935, the name was changed from the Ambridge Free Library to its present title. The building fronts Eleventh Street and is used by various civic organizations for meetings. The library contains more than 20,000 volumes. Director is Mrs. Sarah B. Caldwell.

_____

At some point after the library celebrated the 50th Anniversary of the building's dedication in 1979, the library dropped the "Free" from its name. I don't know yet when that change happened.

Laughlin Memorial Library

Laughlin Memorial Library
postcard

Although I could say my schools and church were the institutions outside of my family that most influenced me growing up in Ambridge, in all honesty, I'd have to say that my biggest influences probably were the library and the swimming pool.

I was a voracious reader. Every other Saturday during grade school—and sometimes more frequently than that—my friend Susan Hrusko (who still lived in Ambridge until she died in June, 2013) and I would walk to the library from our homes on Beaver Road. I'd borrow three books, the lending limit at the time, then walk home. Two weeks later when the books were due, we'd do it all again.

I always thought the interior vaguely smelled of furniture polish, perhaps explained by all the wood: the large four-sided circulation desk, shelves, tables, and chairs. And the card catalog cabinets. In those pre-computer days, the cards in the wooden cabinets' many intriguing small drawers would help me find books by title, author, or subject.

I'd leave the three books I was returning at the front of the circulation desk in the center of the library, then make a right to the children's section, which then took up about two-thirds of the front right side of the floor. There I'd check out the books displayed on tables with angled tops and benches to sit on, or the books on the tops of the low free-standing shelves. Then I'd peruse the books on the shelves on the walls, pulling out books that looked interesting, until I found my three selections to take home that week.

In nonfiction, I liked books about geography and history. In fiction, my taste ran the gamut from Louisa May Alcott to series books about girls or young women having adventures: teen detectives Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden; Cherry Ames, the mystery solving nurse; and Vicki Barr, the mystery solving airline "stewardess." You might notice a pattern there.

In the '50s and '60s, children under a certain age (12? 13?) were only allowed in the children's section of the library, which I seem to recall was set off from the rest of the right side by a low bookshelf. It was an exciting day when I was finally old enough to be able to see what was on the shelves in the rest of the library. The first book I remember reading from the adult fiction shelves was Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy. Another book about a young woman, but with a story much sadder and shocking to me than the girl detective heroines'.

There was a glass fronted set of shelves in the "grown-up" part of the library that, rumor had it, held "sex books." Oddly, I don't remember ever checking the titles on the books behind those doors. Probably afraid someone would see me. That would have been so embarrassing.

When I was ready to check out, I'd take my selections to the circulation desk and the librarian, usually Mrs. Grubbs, would complete the checkout process. (I only vaguely remember the checkout procedure, so if someone remembers the details more clearly than I do, I'd appreciate your providing a more accurate description in the comments).

I believe the librarian would take a card with the name of the book and its call number out of the paper pocket pasted in the back of each book, ink a date stamp, then stamp the books' cards with the due date and note on them that I was borrowing them (by my library card number?). She'd keep and file those cards. She would then find a smiliar card that had my name typed on it, stamp it with the due date of the books (and the books' call numbers?) and put that card in the back pocket of one of the books. I always loved watching the librarian stamp the dates and hearing the soft stamping noise.

On our way home with our books, Susan and I would sometimes stop at the religious supplies store on Merchant Street to buy "holy cards" or at the Rexall drug store at the corner of Merchant and 14th Street (now part of the Elderberry Court elder care home) and have a Reymer's Lemon Blennd at the soda fountain.

On my June, 2013 visit to the library, given all the changes in the rest of Ambridge, I was pleased to find both the exterior and interior mostly unchanged. Sadly, the exterior is now missing the two tall ornate lamps topped with glass globes that once stood at the base of the steps. They were stolen several years ago. Inside, the children's books are now shelved in the basement, and the card cabinets, of course, are long gone, but the all the marble and wood—still there. That made me happy. I didn't notice any furniture polish smell though.
_____

A history and description of the Laughlin Memorial Library can be found in A History of Beaver County's Libraries by Christy L Blackburn on the website Beaver County History Online.

I had always assumed that just as the B. F. Jones Memorial Library in Aliquippa was built with money from the Jones family who owned Jones and Laughlin Steel (J&L), the Laughlin Memorial Library was built by J&L's Laughlin family. But according to the information on the site, I was wrong. It was built by the Laughlin family who once owned Central Tube Company in Ambridge as a memorial to their son, Alexander, Jr., who died at age 37.

The story behind the library's marble columns is impressive:

These columns are rare and majestic due to their source. The blocks from which these columns were carved were quarried from the top of a mountain on the Island of Palmerio, off the coast of Italy in the Bay of Spica. The quarry is located 600 feet above sea level. After being quarried, the giant monoliths were slid down from the top of the mountain to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. There they were loaded on small boats and transported to the port of Leghorn, where they were transshipped by ocean steamers to the Hilgartner Marble Company in Baltimore. Here, the blocks were converted into highly polished columns. Black and gold marble is found only around the Bay of Spica. According to quarry authorities, "the columns of the library are the largest monolithic columns of this type in the world."