Perhaps the "AMERICAN-ITALIAN" and "CHAMBERSBURG" folders are the fastest growing folders in the Hamilton Library's Local History Collection. I am currently processing many very interesting Chambersburg photos and articles that will bring warm memories to those of us who knew and loved the Chambersburg of just a decade or so ago. "The Burg" has been going through a negative change since the mid-1980's when the neighborhood changed drastically from old line residents who scrubbed their front stoops, swept the gutters in front of their homes and were in the majority of home owners who took pride in where they lived. Over the recent past, all that changed when the old residents moved to the suburbs, many restaurants closed in order to get away from the negatively changing neighborhood with drive by shootings and other unfortunate societal changes.
Ralph Lucarella said...
HI TOM...I GUESS I CAN QUALIFY AS BEING AN OLD TIME CHAMBERSBURGER. THE HOUSE I WAS BORN IN ON MOTT ST., HAD GAS FIXTURES FOR LIGHTING AND ALL WE HAD FOR HEATING WAS A COAL STOVE AND CELLER FURNACE. DURING MY TIME THE BURG WAS MOSTLY OCCUPIED BY ITALIANS AND IT WAS LIKE ONE BIG FAMILY WHERE EVERYONE WAS MOSTLY RELATED. I REMEMBER RENATO WELL AND THE MANY GOOD THINGS HE ACCOMPISHED. REGARDS.
Monday, October 03, 2011
Hi Tom:)
No neighborhood on the face of the earth is 100% crime free so there were crimes here and there in the Burg but it was amazingly safe. You could walk the Burg, Franklin Park, and Villa Park at all hours. When the weather was nice we left our front door open so the air would come thru the screen door til 11PM to midnight without even thinking about it. These 2 examples I have just stated are not something I write as a theoretical example. They were literally true. I can see my Mom on the chair with our cat watching TV in the front room with the door open now. And I walked the Burg at all hours for years as my job offered flexible hours. God Bless the Old Burg.
It must be said that today's Burg residents are mostly good folks but there are bad guys there that we just did not have. It is going to take the people themselves demanding safer streets from their elected officials to bring the Burg back. I wish them well:)
Monday, October 03, 2011
My kids tell me that I just make things up if I say that I can't recall a shooting or much crime back then in our old neighborhood. But fact was, over in our section there wasn't it just didn't happen.
But things were different and people had different core values. Remember McCafferty Ford leaving keys in the cars nights and weekends.
A lot of what happens is what you accept and expect. My kids think this is normal and has always been the case. That is far from true. Today, a shooting on Randall or Home makes my jaw drop. You would never read that 40 or 50 years ago perhaps with the exception of that serial attacker from Hamilton the preyed on Duck Island way back. But it was not every week, month or year; that was unique.
Ed Millerick
Monday, October 03, 2011