Serbs and Croats who emigrated to Pittsburgh found jobs on the island or in one of the meat byproducts processing plants along River Avenue, the site of a thriving leather tanning district since the 1840s. They found jobs in Pittsburgh's two remaining wool pulleries or in the district's last tannery or at the two canneries bracketing the stretch along the Allegheny's north shore between Herrs Island and the 16th Street Bridge known briefly between 1848 and 1868 as Duquesne Borough. Because it was part of our past, part of the daily lives of the people who lived and worked along East Ohio Street. And because the island was much more than just something at which passersby turned their noses up. The past, scented or otherwise, attracts people and dollars better than any contrived creation.
Stadiums are disposable wealth with limited lifespans.
The past, on the other hand, by the very nature of its depth preserved on the landscape and in our lives as history, endures, educates and entertains. Before the backhoes and bulldozers are unleashed on the North Side to build yet another imagined community like that on Herr's Island, I would urge Pittsburgh leaders and residents to find an alternative way to invest in our future that doesn't involve the destruction of yet another piece of our community and our past. Pittsburgh's North Side cultural landscape already has been marred by narrow-sighted development without any regard for the past. Pittsburgh, look deeply into your past industrial and social successes and failures.