Center Street in New Castle wasn’t much of a street, and it wasn’t in the center of anything. But this dead-end dirt road that ran parallel to Neshannock Creek was home to 15 families, including the Zona family. Virtually everyone who called Center Street home was dependent upon the local mills for employment.
Mesta Machine Co., Pennsylvania Engineering, New Castle Scrap Iron and the Panella Co. were all within walking distance of Center Street. All of these companies dealt with metal: scrap, rebuilt heavy machinery, large scale welding, rolling mill equipment manufacturing, and rebuilt tools for the tool cribs, which my dad managed with pride.
Our house had actually been a yard office for the Carnegie Steel Co., which my grandfather had moved to Center Street where he owned a small parcel of land that could accommodate the little house. Our house at 127 Center was certainly not much but – not to be too corny – it was home.
When snow covered the large piles of scrap metal each winter, it took on the appearance of snow-capped mountains. The peaks were especially beautiful but were not quite the Alps. Somehow, we managed to play baseball in the cinder-covered parking lots of Pennsylvania Engineering, and boy were those ground balls to the infielders a trip.
The enormous rebuilt machines became our pirate ship or rocket ships. What was around us, including a river and wooded area, made for much summer fun – particularly catching crawfish, which we sold to fishermen who used them for bait. A dozen of those little guys would sell for $1.50, which seemed like a million bucks to us back then.
In all, life for a kid growing up on Center Street was a gift to the imagination. There were no playgrounds within walking distance to the neighborhood but what we had was so much better than a playground – although we did cut a finger or foot now and then.
My right hand is an ongoing reminder of the not-so-bright side of Center Street when I fell on a piece of sharply cut metal. My palm required a row of stitches and was bandaged for days. For some reason, I tried to hide my bandaged hand from my fourth-grade classmates.
Maybe I did not want the attention. But my fellow Center Street friends received cuts and bruises far worse than me. I also remember the time the scrapyard purchased a truckload of car batteries. It broke the plastic casings to get the potentially harmful metallic material within. To think that us kids would climb onto those large black battery cases playing “king of the mountain.” What did we know?
While I fondly remember playing on the large rusting machines in Mr. Panella’s lot (and out of view of our parents, who for obvious reasons wanted us nowhere near those enormous rusting machines), we probably had more fun in the wooded area near the Pennsylvania Engineering works.
It was there that we played cowboys and Indians. One time, my friend Rickey agreed to being tied up to a tree like a real cowboy. Sadly, he was forgotten until his grandmother began to worry as night began to descend. Luckily, one of the kids remembered Rickey being tied to that tree in the nearby woods. That particular game was never played again for obvious reasons.
Since Center Street was located near both the city fire department and city police station, shooting off fireworks on the Fourth of July was technically a no-no. But that did not stop the good people of Center Street from lighting a few.
And since my uncle owned one of the biggest firework companies, we were regularly provided with a box of Roman candles and other beautiful classic fireworks.
Did I mention that Dad ran like the dickens when a police cruiser pulled down the street with its lights off? The neighbors across the creek had told the officers that the fireworks were coming from our neighborhood.
Since Center Street was a dirt road, summer brought billows of dust that forced everyone to keep their doors and windows closed. And since the city did not apply oil to the street, the men on the street had to do it. They filled watering cans with oil, and the day they applied it became like a block party. But it worked and people like my mother could not have been happier – until shoes soaked in oil ruined her nice rugs.