Ford was producing so many cars in the ’teens and that it built satellite assembly plants in cities so Detroit could efficiently ship “knocked down” chassis, and final assembly could be done near the point of sale. Pittsburgh’s plant has long sat decaying on its automobile row, Baum Boulevard, the Lincoln Highway through the east end of town. Now the final tenant is moving out but plans call for a revamping into medical offices.
The Pittsburgh plant at 5000 Baum Blvd (at Morewood) in Bloomfield was one of two dozen that Ford opened in the spring of 1915. Though only 40 cars were produced per day, it served the needs of the region through 1932. The ghost of the Ford Motor Company script can still be seen along the roofline.
The Post-Gazette reports that the last tenant — the flagship Paper Mart store — closed after 25 years there:
The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center bought the building about two years ago and began clearing tenants out as their leases ended. Papermart was the last tenant when its lease expired in January. UPMC extended the lease on a month-by-month basis, but the cost had gone up….
Frank Raczkiewicz, a spokesman for UPMC, said the building will be “another cancer research facility” and that the medical giant, which is based in Oakland with headquarters Downtown, has already outgrown the Hillman Cancer Center.
Route 30: Three Stories, One Highway, a film written, produced, and directed by John Putch, will be shown in Ligonier, Pa., this weekend at the Ligonier Theater, 210 W. Main St. Times are 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 2:30 p.m. Sunday.
Route 30 features three interconnecting comedic stories. The cast of 15 includes TV stars Dana Delaney, Dave Delouise, and Ed Gotwalt of Mister Ed’s Elephant Museum (below, in his own poster pose). The film was shot in October 2007 between Chambersburg and Gettysburg, mostly along the Lincoln Highway/US 30. Putch is the son of Bill Putch and Jean Stapleton, best known as Edith Bunker of All in the Family. The two founded Totem Pole Playhouse along US 30 in Caledonia State Park, between Chambersburg and Gettysburg, and so is where Putch spent his youth. Mister Ed was a regular performer there too.
The 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth on February 12th has launched numerous events to honor the 16th president of the United States, 1861-65, Lincoln’s name was invoked almost 50 years after his death in naming the Lincoln Highway, and so the bicentennial brought about the marking of the Lincoln Highway’s eastern terminus.
Here’s part of an article announcing the Proclamation of the Lincoln Highway, from the New York Times on September 13, 1913:
Also related to the anniversary, Craig Harmon of the Lincoln Highway National Museum & Archives reports that the Ukrainian Embassy contacted him about his 2nd annual Lincoln essay contest, specifically regarding “What Abraham Lincoln Means To Me,” an invitation of essays from world leaders. The embassy soon followed up with an essay written and signed by Viktor Yushchenko, the President of Ukraine! His essay includes this heartfelt sentiment: “His energy, inspiring faith in triumph of humanism, in vistory of freedom over slavery, as well as his selfless work to achieve his ideals became the model that I try to emulate in my everyday life.”
Below is the wreath laid at the Lincoln Memorial on his birthday by Harmon, reresenting the Lincoln Highway National Museum & Archives.
Portrait credit: Brady National Photographic Art Gallery (Washington, D.C.), photographer. “Abraham Lincoln, three-quarter length portrait, standing, facing left.” 1864 January 8. Selected Civil War Photographs, 1861-1865, Library of Congress.
Here’s a clip from an Indiana Lincoln Highway student curriculum project that the Indiana LHA has been working on. The Lincoln Highway Story is a Chamberlin Video Production, financed by the Hannah Lindahl Children’s Museum. Full-length DVDs will be available at this summer’s LHA conference in South Bend, Indiana.
Magna, Utah, just west of Salt Lake City along the Lincoln Highway, is the setting for Dadnapped, premiering on the Disney Channel at 8 pm tonight. The movie features Disney’s stable of teen stars like Emily Osment and others from Hannah Montana. The photo above showing the town’s Empress Theater and others can be seen on the Flickr page of DWRowan. The town (renamed Mercury in the film) was spruced up and altered some for the film but many buildings will be recognized such as the Empress. Filming was late in 2007. The trailer also features some scenes of the town.
Osment will be promoting it on The View this morning, other Disney stars are on other ABC shows today, and with two music videos premiering later, Disney at one point reportedly billed tonight’s schedule (perhaps overbilling to us older than teens) as “the equivalent of the Beatles and Rolling Stones appearing on the Ed Sullivan Show on the same night.”
The plot? “Melissa has a bad case of sibling rivalry, only her competition is a fictional character in her father’s best-selling novel about a teenage super spy. When her father is ‘dadnapped’ by a group of overzealous fans, it’s up to Melissa to muster the courage and know-how to find him… which suddenly puts her in the midst of her own adventurous plot.”
ABC in Utah reports that Salty Pictures Inc., the production company that made Dadnapped, received $400,000 in economic incentives from the state. In return, the company spent almost $2.7 million in Utah. Filming for Dadnapped wrapped up in June of last year.
Other shows filmed around Magna range from an episode of Everwood (2003) to Stephen King’s The Stand (1994) to Carnival of Souls (1962) at Saltair.
Eric Ebbinger has been getting lots of press the past week for running the Lincoln Highway across Ohio in 5 days to honor Abraham Lincoln. Ebinger, 31, of Norwalk, started the 241-mile trek on Lincoln’s 200th birthday (Thursday) and plans to finish today, on President’s Day. He’ll start the final 27 miles at 9 am in Massilllon, heading eat towards East Liverpool.
With winds gusting up to 30 mph at his back on the first day, Ebinger said he pushed himself too hard. He paid for it Friday.
“I had a really rough day,” he said after taking an ice bath. “I had to have an emergency massage in Bucyrus. “My legs were filled with lactic acid. I didn’t properly rehab the first night.”
That wasn’t all. “I had blisters all over my feet,” Ebinger said. “It felt like I was running on broken glass.”
Eris posts daily updates on his website, www.thelincolnrun.com, which is the source of these photos. Starting at the top, Gerry Payne as President Lincoln met Eric at the square in Wooster after a 32 mile day; wife Misty helping to coordinate things; Greg and Bel, owners of the Oak Park Tavern on Route 30 east of Mansfield, opened their restaurant for Eric and crew of about 10 to gave them water, bananas, and Gatorade; Gerry Payne and Eric walking a portion of the original brick Lincoln Highway near Wooster.
LHA director for New York Jerry Peppers joined Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and NYC Commissioner of Transportation Janette Sadik-Khan to unveil a Lincoln Highway street sign in Times Square yesterday, the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth. It is said to be temporary or at least the first until a larger one can mark the spot as the Eastern Terminus of the coast-to-coast road.
Peppers says the sign is “on a post at the corner of Broadway and 42nd Street just a few feet from where I posted the marker in the WQED special. It simply reads Lincoln Highway and is not exactly what we want [a plaque with an explanation], but it is a start.” The New York Times ran the above photo and a short blog entry, including this quote:
“As a wonderful tribute to the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birthday, we have placed a historic marker to celebrate the construction of our nation’s first transcontinental highway,” Mayor Bloomberg said. “It memorializes Times Square’s connection with the route’s storied history, and reminds all of us that New York City remains the gateway to the rest of America.”
It also quoted Peppers, who has worked at bringing this to fruition:
The Lincoln Highway brings together the ‘Main Street Across America’ and the nation’s most famous intersection — Broadway and 42nd Street. It’s particularly important to mark the eastern terminus of the Lincoln Highway, where it will serve as a reminder to millions of New Yorkers and visitors from all across the globe who pass through here of our nation’s history and the City’s connection with the rest of the country’s early highways.
In the 95 years since the establishment of the Lincoln Highway, there has never been a sign or marker at the Eastern Terminus, unlike the Western Terminus which has had various signs over time. The Lincoln Highway’s identity was never strong in urban areas, where streets and street names were already entrenched.
New York City will erect a temporary marker today denoting the Lincoln Highway’s Eastern Terminus at Times Square in commemoration of Lincoln’s Birthday. The New York Daily News reports:
This morning, City Hall will take the first step toward placing a marker bearing Lincoln’s name in Times Square. Why Times Square? Because 42nd St. and Broadway was the starting point for the first transcontential highway in the U.S., a route that bore the name of the 16th President. Conceived in 1913, the Lincoln Highway predated the Lincoln Memorial in honoring America’s foremost leader. It led drivers west to a Hudson River ferry to Weehawken and then clear across the country, to Lincoln Park in San Francisco. In much of the country, stretches of the Lincoln are revered as Americana. But the mile-long New York portion – the shortest but most-traveled stretch – has been all but forgotten. No more. The city today will erect a temporary “Lincoln Highway” sign as the start of the process for installing a formal testament to Lincoln and to the role Times Square played at the dawn of the automotive age. Well done.
NY LHA director Jerry Peppers said he was surprised to hear about it two days ago: “Although I supplied a form of marker and a form of plaque, I do not know what they intend to post. I am told that Mayor Bloomberg himself will be at the unveiling around 10 AM Thursday, depending on his schedule.” Below is Peppers in Times Square with his own very temporary LH marker.
A brief AP story published a couple hours after the event paraphrased an official: “New York City Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan (SAY’-dik-Kahn) said the historic route exemplifies a modern goal: finding innovative transportation solutions.”
Gregory Franzwa, founder of the modern-day Lincoln Highway Association and editor of the LHA Forum, is ailing. LHA president Bob Dieterich reports that cancer has left him sometimes too weak to walk or talk. This follows soon after his scare with lung cancer, which he kept to himself then humorously documented in Folio. That’s the newsletter of his Patrice Press and it’s more like a full magazine eagerly anticipated by its readers. Here’s wishing Gregory and wife Kathy all the best. You can send him your good thoughts as well, or better yet, a good joke at <books@patricepress.com>.
The just-published Winter 2008-09 Lincoln Highway Forum is as always packed with info, including a fascinating cover story (OK, written my me!) on postcard collecting in full, beautiful color. Other features include the story of Beaverdam, Ohio, the restoration of the Bedford Springs Hotel in Pennsylvania, and info on the June 2009 conference in South Bend, Indiana. Become an LHA member here and start receiving it today.
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