I grew up in Squirrel Hill. Most people, when they hear that, ask, somewhat surprised, are you Jewish!?
I’m not. I’m an almost purebred (and possibly slightly inbred.) Celt and a lifelong Presbyterian. Squirrel Hill is home to Pittsburgh’s largest Jewish community, but not everyone who lives there is Jewish.
Fred Rogers of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood lived in Squirrel Hill, in a house with a living room large enough two accommodate two pianos.
The neighborhood is beautifully walkable, which is good, because traffic there is a bitch, and there’s no place to park.
Walk down Forbes Avenue, in Squirrel Hill, and you’ll pass Sixth Presbyterian Church, where Fred Rogers worshiped, the Jewish Community Center, with the Hebrew Numbers on the clock, and Redeemer Episcopal Church. That’s the kind of neighborhood Squirrel Hill is.
Go down Murray Avenue, possibly to Mineo’s. (They have the best pizza in town, ask anyone.) You’ll pass bearded Chasidim, Asian immigrants, students from the city’s universities, yuppies, hippies, senior citizens, high school kids, an eclectic mix of humanity.
On October 11l, 2001, I was in the Squirrel Hill Library, at the monthly meeting of the Pittsburgh Science Fiction Club. Also there, that Saturday afternoon, was a group of Muslim women, in hijab, checking out books. Nobody bothered them. Everyone else was getting books too. That’s Squirrel Hill.
People have been talking about the lovely old houses, and tree lined streets in the neighborhood. If you pass Tree of Life, you will see large, well kept, older homes. If you go two blocks away, you’ll find duplexes and row houses. Go through the business district and you’ll find apartment buildings.
A lot of doctors live in Squirrel Hill, the neighborhood is near most of the city hospitals. So do nurses, orderlies, and technicians. They live in smaller places of course, but not that far from the doctors six bedroom homes, or the business district.
When I went to public school, my classmates were a mix too. One of my friends was a descendant of the Seminole Chief, Billy Bowlegs. Another came from England. One came from Germany.
Rosh Hashonah and Yom Kippur were in school vacations for the gentile kids at my school. Most of the students, and most of the teachers, were Jewish. On the High Holidays we gentiles had to come to school But we couldn’t have class, because there weren’t enough students, or teachers to get anything done. We’d spend the day watching movies and playing games.
Growing up in Squirrel Hill, I learned early that not everyone does things the same way, and that’s not a bad thing. A lesson that has proved useful in this life.
It is not a community where you would look to find hate. When I was in grade school, I was told some boys painted swastikas on a synagogue. I was disgusted. I hated seeing swastikas on desks and walls. When I could, I would connect the lines, making four squares from the ugliest symbol in the world.
When I was in grade school, I heard that a man on Shady Avenue had a 22 rifle, and was taking pot shots at passers by. The police blocked off the street, and eventually convinced him to put the gun down and come with then, for an extended stay in a mental health facility.
When I first heard about a shooter in Squirrel Hill, I thought it was another incident like that.
Of course it wasn’t. It wasn’t like the shootings in 2000, when a man named Richard Baumhammers, went on a crosstown shooting spree. He killed two Jewish people,. one of them on Murray Avenue, in Squirrel Hill. Baumhammers only had a handgun. He couldn’t do as much damage as Bowers, who had an AR15.
Bowers, the shooter, I’m told, lived in Baldwin, a blue collar suburb. You’d find tree lined streets and nice homes in Baldwin too. The houses aren’t as large, but the property taxes are lower. Baldwin isn’t walkable, and it’s laid out like a rat’s maze, but it isn’t a bad place to live.
Bowers was a truck driver. That’s not a bad job.
He may have had problems making ends meet. A lot of us do. Sadly he went online, and believed a bunch of losers, who told him that his problems were caused by illegal immigrants, Blacks, Hispanics, women, gays not greedy bastards like the one in the White House.
I didn’t know any of the 11 people killed last Saturday. But I passed Tree of Life, at least once a week for most of my life. They have a beautiful stained glass window on the Shady Avenue side of the building. If I’m passing the building at night, and I’m not driving, I will look as long as I can at the flowing colors, depicting the creation of the world. It will be, I think, a very long time before I see that window lit again