Recognizing Our Latest, Greenest Addition
Published Fall 2008 - Squirrel Hill Magazine

In 1981 Mark Haber took over the Murray Avenue Newsstand, the one located between Beacon St. and Hobart St. (How many readers remember Eddie, the longtime owner who sold it to the young Mark?) In those days residents came out on Sunday morning in great numbers, making their way to the newsstand for Sunday papers, to Bageland for real New York-style bagels, to Adler's for lox and perhaps to Rosenbloom's for corn rye bread and Rhoda's for corned beef. Life was good on lower Murray.

Around this time Sheila Chamovitz, a documentary filmmaker and Squirrel Hill resident, produced a film chronicling life on lower Murray. She was prescient to do so, for much was about to change. Soon gone would be the kosher butchers, the bakeries (let's remember too Silberberg's), some of the delis. I was acquainted with Sheila at the time, but I had never seen the film. Until recently... (While browsing in our wonderful Squirrel Hill branch of Carnegie Library, I came upon the VHS tape of the film, checked it out and viewed it. So can you.)

What struck me so much while viewing it, besides the nostalgia of revisiting a passing era, was the fantastic amount of LITTER all over the place!!! Oy, what we took for granted then! (Like people smoking in the aisles while shopping at Giant Eagle.)

I miss the delis, I miss the bagels, I miss the bakeries. I DON'T miss the litter. I'm truly glad to see the difference between then and now in the amount of litter on our streets and sidewalks.
Merchants have stepped up with brooms and dustpans. Citizen volunteers have stepped up with litter pick-up activities--some daily, some weekly, some in-between. (When I enter Mark's newsstand, I see the blue-handled broom he keeps by the door, part of an earlier campaign of the Squirrel Hill Litter Patrol.) A different ethic has taken hold: we want and we expect and we will work for a clean community.

Which brings me to our latest addition to the streets, something not to be seen in Sheila's film: the ubiquitous cigarette butt catcher (take a bow, c.b.c.). That wide-bottomed, long-necked, beautifully green item with the openings on top to receive cigarette butts. Actually, there is a bucket of sand at the base, so it can receive burning cigarettes and put them out just fine. Cigarette butts don't degrade so easily, so getting them off the sidewalks and streets and into these containers goes a long way toward developing a clean neighborhood.
And did I mention the timeliness of this new, long-necked (I know I've said that before, but it's sexy to say) player in our "CleanStreets" campaign? (Of course, I'm speaking of you, c.b.c.--take another bow.) Just last month the new state-wide law promoting clean indoor air took effect. Indoor smoking in workplaces and commercial establishments is verboten, and greater numbers of smokers are now outdoors and in need of places to drop their butts! And in time for this new demand, the Squirrel Hill Litter Patrol was there, having recently installed 20 new CBCs in addition to the 10 earlier placed in the business district. Thirty in all, and in time for the new law! Yahoo!!!

We volunteers in these anti-litter efforts may get a little crazed from time to time, or a little excited by things like new CBCs, but we're basically a harmless, even good-natured bunch. If you would like to join us in our efforts, please contact me at PeterADworkin@yahoo.com or call our ever-active chairman, Bicky Goldzer, at 412.521.2542, or contact us throught the office of the Squirrel Hill Urban Coalition, telephone 412.422.7666.

Yours truly, Peter Dworkin, is organizing volunteers who will be committing to picking- up regularly on particular streets or blocks, hence our "CleanStreets" campaign. Good people, good exercise (CBCs aren't the only sexy things in our group), and we supply bags, gloves, vests, grabbers, and only if you want them! Become rich--find money. Do a good deed. We await your call, or your email.

E-mail: info@shuc.org