PITTSBURGH IN THE 1960'S

The 1960's started with the Pittsburgh Pirates winning the World Series over the New York Yankees in 1960.

The final phase of the Parkway West project is completed as the Fort Pitt tunnels open on September 1, 1960.

Prior to the opening of the tunnels motorists had to exit the Parkway West and go via the West End Circle and go across the point bridge to get to downtown Pittsburgh.

Civic Arena opens in 1961 and many events take place in the new arena. Ice Capades, Ringling Brothers Circus, WWWF wrestling and many concerts took place during the 1960's. The Beatles, Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra all performed there. In the late 60's KQV radio would present its "Shower of Stars" concert series where you got to see 4 or 5
acts. Pittsburgh Penguins hockey was also played at the civic arena in the 60's.

Interstate 79 connecting Erie with Washington, PA, is completed by the late 1960's.

The Bridge to Nowhere is finally completed in 1969 just in time for Three Rivers Stadium to open. The bridge was started in the early 60's and then a few years went by before it finally was completed in 1969.

SHOPPING

Shopping in the 1960's was way different from the way it is today. Downtown Pittsburgh was the main shopping area and most people went downtown once or twice per month. Most took the Gradison bus into town and back.

Downtown Pittsburgh was a fun place to go in the 1960's. Downtown had all t he major department stores including Kaufmann's, Horne's, Gimbels, Woolworth's, Murphy's, and McCrory's. For teens downtown Pittsburgh was a regular weekend hangout as many would go to the various movie theaters or to the local record stores. National Record Mart actually had 3 different locations in downtown in the late 60's, Sam Goody Record Store was also downtown.

In the 1960's there were numerous menswear and ladies' wear stores, shoe stores, jewelry stores and book stores.

In 1962 shopping malls started to pop up around Pittsburgh. Northway Mall on McKnight road was the first shopping mall in Pittsburgh. South Hills Village came in the mid 1960's and Monroeville Mall in 1969.

There were also many popular shopping centers in the 1960's around Pittsburgh. Miracle Mile shopping center in Monroeville, Great Southern shopping center in Bridgeville, West Hills shopping center in Moon Township, Northern Lights in Baden, Crafton Ingram shopping center in Crafton, Southland Shopping Center in Pleasant Hills just to name a few.

Besides the major downtown department stores, Pittsburgh had Grant's, Murphy's, Woolworth's, Kresge, McCrorys, Zayre, Gee Bee, Sears, and J.C. Penny.

Electronics and appliance stores started to pop up in the 1960's in Pittsburgh. Kelly & Cohen was probably the most popular with Radio Shack, Olson Electronics, Lafayette, Clabers and popular furniture stores Hahn Furniture and Buyer's Mart all carrying appliances, TVs, and stereos.

RESTAURANTS

Eating out was not as popular in the 1960's as it is today. The average family only ate out about 3 times per month. There were far fewer restaurants to go to back in the 60's and the ones that were around were generally locally owned and not part of a chain.

Some of the bigger name Pittsburgh restaurants of the 1960's were the Le Monte, Pat McBrides, Johnny Garneau's, Tambellini's, Tonidale and Teddy's restaurant.

In the 60's there were also places that had a floor show along with dinner. The two main places were the Holiday House and the Twin Coaches. Popular acts such as the Lettermen, Tony Bennett, Bobby Vinton and others would be featured. As rock and roll became more popular with adults these places started to become less popular

Eat 'N Park and Howard Johnson's were the two most popular family restaurants in the 1960's. King's Family Restaurant first opened in 1967 but only had one or two locations.

Fast food was quite different in the 1960's. We had McDonald's but they were few and far between. Pittsburgh also had Burger Chef, Winky's, Sandy's, Arby's, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and some local pizza shops.

Dairy Queen and Tastee Freeze were all over the place in the 1960's along with a ton of other soft ice cream stores. Isaly's and Bard's were the two places to get the best milk shakes, sodas and sundaes. These stores also carried lunch meat and a few groceries and some locations were even small restaurants.

FOOD & TRADING STAMPS

Grocery shopping was much different too in Pittsburgh during the 60's. The main stores were Kroger, Thorofare, Loblaws, A&P, Giant Eagle, a ton of local independent markets.

One big difference in the 60's was there were no generic or store brands. No one offered double coupons, as a general rule there were very few coupons available in the 60's. Trading stamps were the big thing in the 60's when you bought groceries or gasoline. There were 3 stamp redemption stores in Pittsburgh in the 1960's, these included Top Value Stamps, S&H Green Stamps, and Plaid Stamps. You had to fill up a stamp book and then you looked in their catalog to see how many books you needed to get what you wanted. By the late 60's you could pay $5 and that would equal a book. Most people didn't realize this stamp collecting was a real rip-off as the items in the catalog were really high in price based on $5 per book.

ACTIVITIES

In the 1960's there was no cable TV, no DVD or VCR's, no cell phones, no CD's, so what did kids do for fun? Weekends and evenings in the summer were spent going to little league games or local dances put on by various civic groups. Amusement parks ere very popular as Kennywood Park was just really coming into its own during 60's. One thing that is different now compared to then is that they had a swimming pool at Kennywood. White Swan Park near the airport and West View Park in the North Hills were also popular hangouts.

West View Danceland was a real popular place during the 1960's as well as the Linden Grove, the White Elephant and the Lebanon Lodge. Downtown Pittsburgh had the Staircase Lounge which was one the most popular downtown lounges.

Pittsburgh Pirates baseball games were very popular in the 60's mainly because you could get in for $1.50 in the summer swimming pools were popular, two of the favorite places were Raccoon State Park and Mineral Beach on Route 88 near Finleyville. Roller skating and ice skating were popular during the 60's. North Park, Neville Island, Bridgeville, and Canonsburg all had nice rinks. There were also a lot of bowling alleys and pool rooms in the 60's.

TELEVISION

By 1960 Pittsburgh already had TV stations come and go. KDKA Channel 2, WTAE Channel 4, WIIC Channel 11 and WQED Channel 13 were all on the air. The original WPGH and Dumont Network were gone by 1960.

Local news was a big part of Pittsburgh television in the 1960's. KDKA had Bill Burns and Paul Long as their two main newsmen, Joe Denardo on weather. WTAE had Dave Murray and Carl Ide on news and Eleanor Schano on weather. Eleanor actually wore a negligee as she did the weather in the early 1960's. WIIC had Adam Lynch, Alan Boal and Mark Schaffer as their newsmen and By Williams on weather. Joe Tucker, Ray Scott, and Tom Bender were all well known sportscasters in the 1960's in Pittsburgh. Jean Connelly, Bill Cardille, Marie Torrie and Don Riggs were all household names in the 1960's on Pittsburgh TV.

Pittsburgh offered a number of very popular local shows. Rodney and Kinish hosted by Hank Stohl on KDKA TV was a popular children's show. Adventure Time with Paul Shannon on WTAE featured a live studio audience of children and had a nice variety of cartoons and The Three Stooges. Ricki Wertz hosted the Ricki & Copper show as well as Jr. High Quiz, and Romper Room had a local version on WTAE. Cooking with Kay Newman and the Captain Jim show aired on WIIC TV as well as Give it a Whirl, a local game show hosted by Steve Rizen. Perhaps the most popular show on WIIC was Studio Wrestling hosted by Bill Cardille.

WQED, Pittsburgh's educational channel, had The Children's Hour with Josie Carey and in 1967 started Mister Roger's Neighborhood. WPGH signed on again as Channel 53 around 1966 or so. The station aired mostly reruns, movies and syndicated shows, but it did pick up and air network shows that the main affiliates did not run.

Dark Shadows was the most popular show aired by WPGH in the late 60's. Teen and young adult shows such as the Ed Hurst Show from Philadelphia, Playboy After Dark and Roller Derby were all on the Channel 53 lineup in the 60's.

WSTV from Steubenville came in pretty strong in much of Pittsburgh and in the early to mid 60's a popular dance show called Nine Teen Time aired with Wayne Van Dyne and Stan Scott as the hosts.

WSTV was a combination of CBS and ABC affiliates and would air kinescopes of prime time shows on the weekends. This gave many of us a chance to see a show that we would not have been able to see because another family member wanted to watch something else.

In the 60's most households only had one TV set and there were no cable channels on the air By the late 1960's most of the local stations started broadcasting the local shows in color and by 1970 just about everything was in color.

In the 1960's in Pittsburgh you really only had 5 choices for TV and no remote control, if you wanted to change the channel you had to get up and manually change it. Many people also had to move the rabbit ears antenna for each channel as well. By 1968 the average Pittsburgher had a color TV.

RADIO

Pittsburgh radio in the 1960's offered very little choice compared to what we have today. KDKA Radio was by far the top station with its Cordec & Company morning show hosted by Rege Cordec. Ed Schaunssey did the morning news and popular DJ Clark Race hosted the afternoons and talk show hosts Ed and Wendy King did a late evening talk show. The Ed & Wendy King show was one of a kind as you never heard the caller's voice. In 1968 Jack Bogut came aboard as morning show host and other staff members included Art Pallan and Terry McGovern. Mike Levine handled the evening talk show when Pirates baseball did not air . KDKA played top 40 music during the 1960's but did not air any real heavy rock.

KQV was the top choice for teen listening in the 1960's. DJ Chuck Brinkman was the first real popular disc jockey for KQV among young listeners. Dave Scott, Hal Murray, and Steve Rizen were all on the KQV staff in the 1960's. In 1967 Jim Quinn joined the staff as the night jockey (The Leader) as he called himself took the city by storm and was Pittsburgh's most popular Jock in the late 1960's. Fred Winston and Kris Erik Stevens also were on the KQV staff in the late 60's. KQV played top 40 music but still had 10 minutes of news each hour and a full commercial load, something that would have no chance of success today.

WWSW-AM 970 was a top five station in the market and was a full service Pop adult station. "Double double" as the station was known as played no rock & roll music at all The popular artists of the 40's & 50's who were still active on the easy listening charts were the artists played on WWSW.

WCAE AM 1250 became WTAE in the mid 60's and was a full service adult station. Very little rock & roll was aired and a lot of focus around the morning show hosted by Al Jazzbeau Collins.

WJAS started the 60's as a pop music station but switched to middle of the road by the time the Beatles hit in 1964. In 1968 the station switched to an all-talk format and became quite popular. Merle Pollis, Ted Payne, Perry Marshall, and John Cigna all became household names.

WEEP radio started the 60's as a rock and roll station but switched format in the mid 60's to country music. The station also had a controversial morning host named Jack Wheeler.

WAMO served the black community well back in the 60's as it has done since it signed on the air. Porky Chedwick was very popular on WAMO in the 1960's as well as Brother Matt, Sir Walter (John Christian) and Hal Brown.

FM radio was non-existent in the 1960's in Pittsburgh. Most FM stations just played background music. WDVE, which was KQV's FM station came into existence in 1969. The station was automated much of the day and played album rock cuts. The station was not popular until a number of years later.

WIXZ AM 1360 made a big splash in 1969 with the teen audience, the station's biggest problem was its weak signal at night.

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