A Pittsburgh Long Gone- Oakland.
I don't know why, but today I found myself wistfully thinking about some of the places in Pittsburgh that are gone forever. I guess that's just an inevitable function of having lived in one place for so long. In the 18 years I've lived here, I've spent the bulk of my time in a few neighborhoods- Oakland, South Side, Lawrenceville, and Sharpsburg. I also spent one year living (regrettably) in Shadyside, an uptight part of town that I rarely think about with nostalgia. Apart from my current residency, all the houses I've lived in have been in areas with substantial populations of younger people. This fact made those places essentially transitory, both in terms of their inhabitants and business districts. I have had vibrant and interesting experiences in each of them. Much of my memory is indelibly marked by the places that I associate with those years, and sadly some of those places have passed into history forever.
Oakland is anchored by the presence of the University of Pittsburgh, where I attended college. I recall hearing stories from alumni about the beloved haunts of their youth, and I remember thinking how irrelevant such talk was to my own life. Now looking back I can understand their yearning for those youthful days. The Upstage Nightclub along Forbes Avenue was one of the places my friends and I worked our way into the world of men. Back then they had live acts that included early versions of Nirvana and Helmet. I saw Naked Raygun there in 1990. It was a gritty, unfinished place with a couple of pool tables and a wide open floor. It had a back bar staffed by one of the meanest looking, tattooed, bald, punk rock icons in town. But the strongest associations I have with The Upstage revolve around their weekly quarter draft nights.
My friends and I would show up before the doors opened at 8PM, and wait impatiently for access. Once we were inside we raced to that unsmiling bartender at the back bar and bought as many little plastic cups of beer as we could fit on a table. Sitting there, rolling our Drum tobacco, we'd flagrantly stare at every attractive girl who passed. We paced through the bar as if we owned the Upstage, and for a time it seemed like that was a self-fulfilling prophecy. My friends and I were brazen, and we didn't ever walk away from a fight. But because we knew virtually all the employees, we were consistently indulged. They even started an unusual practice to deal with our more violent moments. Whenever we got into a brawl they would escort us out of the bar, but we were allowed to wait on the entrance steps to be let back in after fifteen minutes in the "penalty box". Our opponents were usually thrown out of the back entrance, and told that they weren't ever welcome back. That gave us a certain social cache that was both respected and (sometimes) resented. Of course we relished our reputation, and fashioned ourselves with an only partially ironic nickname- "The Scumbags". We felt invulnerable, and were never substantially challenged. We'd make our triumphant return with heads high, and the DJ would mark our re-entrance with whatever our most favored song request was at the time. That was service.
Our little group also spent some time seeing bands at the Beehive at King's Court down the street. That was a two-story coffeeshop with a full-sized film theater and murals painted on every surface. The movies were screened from an old-fashioned projection booth, and included foreign, second-run, and independent features. While I was an employee there I developed my initial passion for high quality and obscure films. As a worker, I was allowed to see anything I wanted for free, and I could bring a friend. Man Bites Dog, Kieslowski's Color Trilogy, Exotica, and Resevoir Dogs were among the works I first saw there. Occasionally the owners would throw illicit late night keg parties, and we'd all enjoy ourselves until daylight before slipping out onto the atypically empty streets of Oakland. They also had bands there, and the Jesus Lizard and Stephen Malkmus appearances were two of the best shows I've ever seen. Eventually the proprietors got tired of the landlord's greedily repeated attempts to raise their rent, and they pulled out. The building has been forlornly vacant ever since.
Sadly these two institutions are gone now, and Oakland has mutated into an urban strip mall. Most all the unique character of the neighborhood has been wiped away, and the homogenized culture that has replaced it holds no fascination for me. I wonder what there is left for the current crop of students to mourn in its eventual passing. At the same time, I feel like a wizened old man relating stories about "the war". Was it really so romantic as I now make it out to be? And is this what middle age feels like?
Oakland is anchored by the presence of the University of Pittsburgh, where I attended college. I recall hearing stories from alumni about the beloved haunts of their youth, and I remember thinking how irrelevant such talk was to my own life. Now looking back I can understand their yearning for those youthful days. The Upstage Nightclub along Forbes Avenue was one of the places my friends and I worked our way into the world of men. Back then they had live acts that included early versions of Nirvana and Helmet. I saw Naked Raygun there in 1990. It was a gritty, unfinished place with a couple of pool tables and a wide open floor. It had a back bar staffed by one of the meanest looking, tattooed, bald, punk rock icons in town. But the strongest associations I have with The Upstage revolve around their weekly quarter draft nights.
My friends and I would show up before the doors opened at 8PM, and wait impatiently for access. Once we were inside we raced to that unsmiling bartender at the back bar and bought as many little plastic cups of beer as we could fit on a table. Sitting there, rolling our Drum tobacco, we'd flagrantly stare at every attractive girl who passed. We paced through the bar as if we owned the Upstage, and for a time it seemed like that was a self-fulfilling prophecy. My friends and I were brazen, and we didn't ever walk away from a fight. But because we knew virtually all the employees, we were consistently indulged. They even started an unusual practice to deal with our more violent moments. Whenever we got into a brawl they would escort us out of the bar, but we were allowed to wait on the entrance steps to be let back in after fifteen minutes in the "penalty box". Our opponents were usually thrown out of the back entrance, and told that they weren't ever welcome back. That gave us a certain social cache that was both respected and (sometimes) resented. Of course we relished our reputation, and fashioned ourselves with an only partially ironic nickname- "The Scumbags". We felt invulnerable, and were never substantially challenged. We'd make our triumphant return with heads high, and the DJ would mark our re-entrance with whatever our most favored song request was at the time. That was service.
Our little group also spent some time seeing bands at the Beehive at King's Court down the street. That was a two-story coffeeshop with a full-sized film theater and murals painted on every surface. The movies were screened from an old-fashioned projection booth, and included foreign, second-run, and independent features. While I was an employee there I developed my initial passion for high quality and obscure films. As a worker, I was allowed to see anything I wanted for free, and I could bring a friend. Man Bites Dog, Kieslowski's Color Trilogy, Exotica, and Resevoir Dogs were among the works I first saw there. Occasionally the owners would throw illicit late night keg parties, and we'd all enjoy ourselves until daylight before slipping out onto the atypically empty streets of Oakland. They also had bands there, and the Jesus Lizard and Stephen Malkmus appearances were two of the best shows I've ever seen. Eventually the proprietors got tired of the landlord's greedily repeated attempts to raise their rent, and they pulled out. The building has been forlornly vacant ever since.
Sadly these two institutions are gone now, and Oakland has mutated into an urban strip mall. Most all the unique character of the neighborhood has been wiped away, and the homogenized culture that has replaced it holds no fascination for me. I wonder what there is left for the current crop of students to mourn in its eventual passing. At the same time, I feel like a wizened old man relating stories about "the war". Was it really so romantic as I now make it out to be? And is this what middle age feels like?
posted by Merge Divide at 7:23 PM
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