When I come back to town to visit and walk on Logan Ave. from 10th to 11th Streets, it looks different. The Logan Hotel (a.k.a. Arlington Hotel) is gone. Houses across the alley (Herald St.) from the LaMar Apartments are gone. The Elks club no longer operates at the corner of the yellow brick road (W. Herald St.) and Logan. And now I know the Y will be no more.
Physically, the streetscape looks different, but if you close your eyes, you still can feel how things used to be. People are coming out the rear exit from Lugg’s heading toward Logan Ave. Uncle Paul just put his ’37 Buick away in the garage he rents on Herald St. just up from Logan Ave. The 4:40 from Pittsburgh must have arrived because there are two or three people carrying suitcases coming down 10th on their way to the hotel.
If it’s a week night, there will be meetings or other activities going on at the Elks. If it’s a weekend, chances are something will be going on at the Y. From the day it opened, the Y was the center of virtually all indoor recreational activity. Whether for a play, a music recital, a basketball game, bowling, dancing, table tennis, or just plain hanging out, the Y was the place to be.
As I understand it, the first Y was part of the Pennsylvania Railroad and it came to town way back in 1904 in a building on west 14th St. near Logan Ave. The original location was a block and a half from the PRR superintendent’s house (now the American Legion Home) and four blocks or so from the railroad yards in east Tyrone.
In 1913, the PRR constructed a new YMCA building closer to the town center and it became an instant hit. Not known for doing anything halfway, the PRR designed this structure with all the amenities necessary to create a cultural and recreational center that was the envy of the region. In addition to boarding rooms, it was equipped with game rooms on the main floor, a bowling alley, a pool, and a gymnasium on the lower level, an auditorium with theater seating, and a public lending library with reading rooms. Every afternoon, the sixty-five member Tyrone PRR Shop Band could be heard practicing in the YMCA auditorium in preparation for an upcoming Saturday concert.
By 1934, the PRR withdrew support of the Y and turned it over to the town. In 1955, the name was changed to the YMCA of Tyrone.
While the PRR concert band moved out, new musicians and actors moved in to fill the void. Dance and music recitals, high school and community plays, and out-of-town professional acts all shared the stage in the famed auditorium.
I never saw the old building or did I ever hear anyone speak of the first venue. I’m certain it was a classic building well-suited for the times, and many residents benefited from its many programs and offerings. The new building on Logan Ave. added grace and grandeur heretofore unseen in the region, and it was truly befitting this rapidly growing community.
The Auditorium
Thinking back on the Y, I remember a few of the things that made it special to me. I think I was about four years old the first time I ever went there. My mother took me to see a play put on by the Tyrone Players. I don’t remember much about the play but I do remember the vastness of the auditorium. Even though we sat near the back, we could hear every word and, since our seats were elevated, we could see all the action. These seating arrangements were ideal on another occasion as I sat in awe watching a traveling magician pour a quart of milk into his hat and then proceed to saw his assistant in half.
Like most small town productions, family members and friends of the actors of the Tyrone Players raised the roof when their “favorite” took center stage. Jokes that might bring barely a smile or a snicker in a different setting drew hearty responses and tears of laughter from an appreciative audience at the Y. On the street or in the downtown shops the following day, reviews were exchanged that were usually wordy and always glowing in the description of the performances of song and dance. However, these reviewers were much less verbose and “close to the vest” when describing the mystery drama of the previous night so as not to reveal whodunit!
Shows usually ran about one and a half hours but performances lasted a lifetime. The Y had given birth to theater-goers!
Membership and Pool Tables
Even though I didn’t go to the Y that often, it was still a great place to go after school, especially when we had only a half day. I didn’t have to pick up the papers at the Herald office until 3 p.m., so I’d have several hours to wile away the afternoon.
At $7 a year, annual membership in the Y was a little more than I could afford; still, there were activities that didn’t require membership. If you and a friend each had a dime, you could “rent” table tennis paddles for an hour. A quarter would give you free reign over the pool table — and you didn’t need a challenger.
On the right side, there were several Ping-Pong tables that were in use most of the time. To the left, there were three large, green, felt-covered tables. Two were regular pool tables, and often there were waiting lists for players to get their chance to show off the benefits of an “ill-spent youth.” The third table was different in a couple of ways. First, it was larger; second, there were no pockets; and third, the balls had no numbers. This table fascinated me, and I can remember watching one afternoon as two older men finessed movement of the cue ball off the rail to gently strike the target ball. There were no hard shots taken, just a skilled demonstration of placing the ball at select locations on the table. After about two hours, I realized that I’d never understand this game, but “billiards” still fascinated me. On the way home, I stopped by Barone’s Sportland on 10th St., and looking in from the doorway, I verified that all their tables had pockets.
Duckpins
Going to the lower level exposed me to still another oddity. There were bowling alleys, and I knew a couple of kids who would occasionally set pins in order to bowl free frames. For the most part, the lanes were similar, if not identical, to those I had seen on 10th St. The sound of rolling balls, crashing pins, and vocal laments of frustrated bowlers in this confined space was all too familiar. At least it was until I showed up one Saturday morning.
Things were different! The noise from balls rolling down the lanes was less. Pins didn’t crash, they “bounced” and frustration was replaced with laughter. On closer scrutiny, I saw that the balls were smaller — about the size of a softball — with no finger holes. The pins were shorter, looked “fat,” and had a wide, black rubber band around the girth, causing them to bounce when struck by the ball. I even saw a pin bounce up to a standing position after being knocked down by a particularly fast ball. I saw Billy Skelton working as a pinsetter, so I walked toward the pit and yelled to him asking what this game was called. He yelled back, “Duck!” which I did. After Billy stopped laughing, he told me the game was duckpin bowling.
The Court
Of all the “special” rooms in the Y, nearly everyone in town had a fondness and memory of the gymnasium or, as we called it, the court. You entered the court from the main floor, passing the front desk at the end of the main room. To get to the court, you had to walk down the left side of the suspended catwalk to the stairs at the far end of the floor. There were several wooden benches on the catwalk where a few patrons could sit to observe the happenings on the floor below. There were dances there every Friday, youth and adult basketball games during the season, gymnastic classes and tumbling on Saturday mornings, and volleyball on occasion.
The basketball court epitomized what is meant by the term “home-court advantage.” Adult league teams from out of town had a lot of difficulty adjusting to the nuances of this fabled court. Built directly on top of spongy, moist ground, the floor had several “soft spots” that were not visible to the naked eye. A ball dribbled on one of these spots would bounce only about half as high as normal. Ball handlers from our favorite home team knew the locations of these spots and would weave their way up the court through these invisible defenders.
At the east end of the court, the ceiling was much lower than the west end, and the local boys knew to shoot long range with little or no arc. It was amusing to listen to the first long-range set shot from the visiting team as the ball caromed off the ceiling girders. “Boink!” One also had to be careful on lay-ups at the east end goal. More than one guard from a visiting team found himself crashing through the emergency exit door under the basket and into the alley at that end of the court.
Whether or not you remember a play or a special show, a song performed in a Christmas pageant, a dance recital, or a magic trick by an out-of-town professional, the auditorium was the place that made these memories. For me, I’ll remember bouncing bowling pins, pool without pockets, and a court with a funny roof and a friendly floor. When I pass up Logan Ave. from 10th to 11th, you may see me smile. It’s probably because I just remembered a friend saying, “Meet me at the Y.”
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