History Tidbit: WTAE’s Sign
September 18, 2015Streetcars in the Early Pittsburgh Days on Facebook shows this picture of a trolley heading along what is now a grass median on Ardmore Boulevard sometime in the 1960s. Naturally I was more taken with WTAE-TV’s sign on the STL tower. The tower is still there, but the current sign (which needs new light bulbs) is basic by comparison.
That sign actually stayed through the early 80s, as I recall.
I really think that we have done ourselves a disservice by adandoning the private off road right of ways that the street cars had. The picture shows a good example of mass transit being able to by pass the congested highways by having such a right of way. There were many areas of the Greater Pittsburgh Area where the street cars had such right of ways. It makes me wonder who now owns those former streetcar right of ways and could they be used for modern mass transit. I remember the old WTAE sign in the picture having passed by it many times.