Pittsburgh Post-Gazette from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania • Page 41

111 Hal Boyle REPORTS FROM MET NAM Vvv CIA VUC, South Viet Nam (AP) Ai you land on the small runway In a ptane i 'vJl i i vV that contains native soldiers, some chickens and ducks, five squealing pigs and three small steers, the first thing you see is a sign saving, "The L.B.J. Ranch." That sign is the way a U.S. Army special forces team has chosen to say that America is WEDNESDAY, MAY 19, 1963 1 MtHLf here to stay for the duration. "The L.B.J. Ranch" is en 'A rased in a bitter ficht acainst Squirrel Cage By DOUGLAS WELCH enemy rustlers.

It is typical 1 of many special forces 'i' r.Lrza I rii -r bastions throughout the South Viet Nam which seek to pro- "Trfi A GOOD DAY to you all, and particularly to ladies who belong to Garden Clubs and who obey the rules and don't sneak around using fancy natural fertilizers so their flowers win iook more exotic than their neighbors. The Garden Club is meeting Slated for demolition the Market House at Federal and Ohio Streets, part of the local scene for more than a century. End of an Era in Old Allegheny downstairs in my house at I this very minute, and, from what I can hear at tne top oi iha ctoire whom fllwaVS T-xr i eavesdrop on the Garden Club, are Dringing ionutu charges against poor Mrs. I Cooper. The way I understand it shp has been cheating on Mr.

Welch her roses. She has been using By WILLIAM M. RIMMEL rpiIE DAYS of Alle- gheny's oldest landmark, the Market House, at Federal and Ohio Streets, are numbered. The market that has been a part of the Allegheny scene for over 100 years will close Its doors for the last time on June 30. The rambling old brick building will be demolished early in July.

A 10-story apartment with parking facilities for the tenants will be erected on the site. Thousands will miss the Market. For it was here that the rich from millionaire's row on Ridge Avenue and the tect villagers from the Viet Cong. Mr. Boyle Gia Vuc lies in a valley bordered by-rugged and lovely hills 83 miles south southwest of Da Nang, the country's second largest city.

It is astride the famous "Ho Chi Minh Trail," the chief north and south pathway for infiltrators. It centers around old French-built fortifications and resembles In some ways an American 19lh Century fort against the Indians on the Wyoming or Montana frontier. The "ranch" covers some fiO square miles in which 3,000 Montagnanls, or mountain tribespeople, till their farms and dwell In a diw.en closely grouped hamlets of thatched huts. The group of a dozen Americans Is led by Capt William A. Hicks of Linden, N.

C. It is his job to work closely with a strike force of 375 native troops who make up a miniature United Nations themselves. They consist of the hillbilly Montagnards and Vietnamese and 25 Nungs, who are Chinese mercenary soldiers. The Nungs get roughly $10 a month each, paid for by Uncle Sam and about three times what the other native troops earn. But they win high praise from the Americans here.

"They are real good troops-about the best you could ask for," said Lt. Charles A. Carroll of Delmar, N. and Sgt. Dom-inick Tantalo of Waterloo, N.

added, "if we run into any real trouble, the first thought of the Nungs is to cover the Americans." Under Hicks, no American here has been killed, but a number of Viet Cong have. "We run continuous local patrols. Air strikes have been a real help to us In these hills," Hicks wild. "We estimate that there are two companies of enemy In the area, and we feel that our presence here has forced them to detour a lot of the Infiltrators using; the Ho hi Minh Trail." A figure of key interest on "The L.B.J. Ranch" at the moment is Horace.

Tuesday; from noon Thursday until noon Friday and from noon until 9 o'clock on Saturday. At that hour the clerk of the Market sounded a bell and in 30 minutes the gas was shut off and the doors were closed. Besides opening and closing the Market, the clerk who was elected by Council collected all stall rents and turned the money into the city treasurer every week. It was also his duty to weigh all butter, lard, enforce regulations set down by council and to see that the building was hosed out after every market day. He was assisted by a constable who was empowered to assist the clerk and enforce the rules and arrest all law violators apprehended within the building.

SMOKING WAS prohibited within the limits of the Market House. Any person found turkey droppings, and there is some Garden Club rule that you can't do that. The rule, she says, is against using CHICKEN droppings which is entirely a different matter. But Mrs. McMurty says that turkey and chicken droppings are so similar that they can be "constructively" considered to be identical.

The whole case now against poor Mrs. Cooper hinges on whether this constructive approach to turkey droppings is admissable. I believe, though, that admissable or not, nothing ran save 31 rs. Cooper because last year she won first prize In both the gladiula and mum shows, the sweepstakes In the primrose show, and Best of Show In roses. And everybody said she was cheating by using forbidden natural fertilizers including chicken droppings which were outlawed clear back In 1936.

She was reprimanded last year for using chicken droppings, and it Is charged that her substitution of turkey droppings this year is a gross violation of what you might say was her parole. Mrs. McMurty Is not accepting for a minute Mrs. Cooper's wide-eyed, soft-spoken defense that she never dreamed turkey droppings could be construed as chicken rlrnnnincs tinder the bvlaws of the Garden 1956 bought a shop In the Brighton Road district. But the majority of the merchants stayed on.

They had been assured that the Market House would be the last structure to face the wrecker's ball. And then came the official announcement last month the Market House would close its doors on June 30. THE OFFICIAL NOTICE to vacate the old Market House was received with mixed emotions by the merchants, many of whom have spent their lives in the building. Joe Lindenfelser, who went to work as a butcher for "Kutcher the Butcher" back in 1919, said he'd retire. So did Art Schmidt, a butcher who started in the Market as an errand hoy 43 years ago.

Tom Nardini, whose parents and grandparents have sold fruits and vegetables since the present structure was built over 100 years ago, is relocating at 205 East Ohio Street. Herb Statchel and Bob Gallear, butchers and Bergman's Bakery will occupy space in the same building. They have been assured their new location will not he demolished until after Christmas of 1966. Tom, like all the other old town's housewives came every week to buy herbs to brew their medical cure-alls. THE MARKET WAS remod eled and refurnished in 1936 at a cost of nearly $300,000.

A balcony was installed at that time and new lights were added. Since that time little or no improvements have been made. In 1956 the stall holders banded together when city officials indicated that the Market was to be torn down and replaced by a parking garage. They agreed to assess themselves 50 per cent of their monthly rentals to the city to hire a lawyer and fight the impending rush of progress. Their fathers, their mothers and their grandparents before them ran the stands they operated and they let it be known that they did not Intend to give up easily.

The merchants pointed out that in 1955 the gross rental revenue to the city was $89,. 788 and the net profit was $16,808. The question of the legality of any move to replace the Market House was brought up at a meeting in the building. The stall holders pointed out that the original town plan for Allegheny adopted in the 17S0's set aside a public square of four central blocks for a jail, city hall, market house and other public uses as the Common Council deemed advisable, City officials pointed out that the way appeared clear for erection of a garage on the side as such a garage wcu'd be for the public use. THE FUROR SOON died down.

The demolition of the Market House was forgotten. It was a drab scene in the daylight hours. And the customers were few and far between. But at night when the stand holders and medicine men lit the oil lamps and began hawking their wares the place took on a different look. It was then that the sidewalks were packed from curb to curb with shoppers and curiosity seekers.

One stand would offer homemade ornaments for decorating the tree. Another had toys of every description. And still another offered old fashioned hard candy molded in the shape of animals, Christmas bells and even old St. Nick. Here and there the holiday salesmen offered homemade tables and chairs for the children or doll houses and furniture.

Some had hand made Noah's Arks filled with hand carved animals. THE MEDICINE MEN abandoned their cure-all medicines to peddle monkeys on a string, jack in the boxes, mechanical bears and magical tops. And added to the color and sound was the Little German Band that moved from corner to corner playing Christmas tunes. It was indeed a wonderful week of sound, light and color that still lives in the hearts of many. The Market not only housed the city's farmers and merchants but was also the meeting place of politicians and thieves.

Joe Hilldorfer, whomever wore a necktie and used diamonds for buttons on his gleaming white shirt fronts, and Senator Morris Einstein, both political powers of the day, planned many a political campaign over a butcher's block in the rambling brick building. So did Allegheny's Mayor Jim Wyman and his Safety Director John R. Murphy. And many a sensational robbery planned over hot cakes and coffee in McBride's restaurant at the corner of South Diamond and Federal Streets or Eddie Edward's place at East Ohio and East Diamond Streets. Old-timers around the Market House love to tell of the colorful characters who worked and loafed in the market in those early years.

jr market tenants, said he'll miss the place. "It's been like home to me for over 50 years. I Horace is a crossed Poland China and Hampshire boar imported nt great effort to improve the local breed of pigs. If Happened Last Night By EARL WILSON housewives of Dutchtown rubbed elbows as they did their weekly shopping at the stands inside and from the farmers who displayed their wares on the sidewalks outside. The rich came in their carriages.

The poor came on foot lugging huge market baskets. Federal Street was a winding wagon trail lined with stone walls and fences when the idea of a public market for the sale of farm produce was first talked of back in 1794. BUT IT WASN'T until December 7, 1829, that officials of Allegheny, then a borough, authorized construction of a Market House at the intersection of Ohio Street and the widening of the Diamond around the site to 120 feet to permit vehicles to pass the Market on either side. Farmers were the only tenants when the one-story frame Market was opened in 1832. But by 1840 stalls were allotted to others for the sale of meats, butter, eggs and poultry on Tuesday and Friday when the Market was opened from daylight until 2 p.

m. Stalls rented from $12 to $15 a year. In January, 1864, the city fathers authorized construction of not only a modern Market House to replace the overcrowded wooden structure but also a Weight House for weighing hay, grain, cattle and lumber on what is now Ober Park and a City Hall where the Buhl Planetarium now stands. But before the new Market was completed, Allegheny discovered it didn't have the money to pay for the building. The contractor, according to records, agreed to complete the $33,313 building and let the city raise the money by auctioning off stall locations.

NEW YORK Garry Moore's had a meeting with new CBS TV president John A. Schneider, since returning from his round-the-world trip and wouldn't it be ironic if Garry went back on TV and replaced his Club. I can hear Mrs. McMurty's heavy voice rumbling over all the others. Mrs.

Cooper beat Mrs. McMurty in three shows last year. You would never dream from Mrs. Cooper's placid, wispy exterior that she has, in effect, a criminal mind, and that she would cheat by using turkey droppings on roses. She admits quite freely that she drove 30 miles to a turkey farm and bought 40 pounds of dropping from an astonished farmer.

After she had the sack safely in her hushand's car she would rather carry turkey droppings In her husband's car than in her own car-she told the farmer what turkey droppings could do for roses, and he promptly put up a sign along the highway advertising turkey droppings at about the price per pound of tenderloin of beef. She admits all this, I gather, but she denies that she waited until dark to spade the stuff in around her rose bushes. The Widow defended Mrs. Cooper and I thought she did it rather well. The Widow called attention to the fact that Mrs.

Dibble last year had produced a prize-winning white rose In a mocha shade really coffee-colored by using a rusted solution of choppedup tin cans. Moreover, Mrs. Dibble lias told a big old He when people asked how she got that wonderful effect she told them she used coffee grounds. It was her husband who let out the secret one night at a neighborhood party. I remember how she reacted at the time.

"Big Mouth!" she hollered. "Somebody get him a microphone so he can tell It on television." A committee has been appointed to decide whether Mrs. Cooper should be disciplined. If she is guilty, they will form a hollow square around her at the next meeting and take away her dessert replacements? I never thought I'd hear E'd Sullivan top Beiie but he did at Danny's Hideaway: Billy Berle, Milton's 3-year-old son. Milton, phoning Ruth Berle and the 3-year-old In Los Angeles from Danny's, had asked Billy to repeat some information.

Billy said, "You middle-aged men can't remember anything!" Berle Mr. Wilson repeated this to Ed Sullivan who cracked, when I was "I can't even remember middle-aged!" started by carrying baskets for my father's customers. I often carried as many as six heavy hamperlike baskets out to the carriage of one of the rich housewives from Ridge Avenue on market days," he continued. "My grandmother and grandfather worked in the market when it was built. "Mother often told of how grandmother almost froze that first winter in the market.

The building wasn't completed and the tenants had little protection from the cold that first winter." ANDY SCHLOSSER, who has operated a butcher's stand for neary 40 years, will move his shop to a building he owns at James and Suismon Streets. But Andy says he'll miss the people who pass through the old market every day. Edward Ward, who has operated Herchenroether's meat stand for 39 years, is going to retire. Ed is proud of Stand No. 3 and like the others will miss chatting with the people who stopped at his stand over the years.

lie has a couple of market house leases Uiat are over 100 years old. They are hand scripted and show that back in those days stalls rented for $8 a month. Today he pays $53.96 a month. Bill Townsend, who has operated a butcher's stand since 1930, said he'd have to quit. "I'm too old to start all over again.

I have no place to go and besides trade won't follow you In this day of the super market." Wallace Hite, whose family have operated the drug store at the corner of Ohio and Federal Street for more years than he cares to remember, is undecided on where he'll move until the new shopping plaza is opened. He hopes to join with several merchants in one of the available vacant buildings on East Ohio Street. AND SO IT goes. One merchant is planning to hold on for another year and a half and another is planning to quit. But they'll all miss the old Market House.

Like the old timers, too, will miss the old Market. For it was part of the golden past of old Allegheny. Words Wisdom By WILLIAM MORRIS Tom Nardini Third Generation smoking cigars, pipes or using any other device for smoking tobacco during market hours was subject to fines ranging from one to three dollars. Stall holders were also forbidden to alter their stalls or stands or deface the walls, pillars or stands with signs or printed matter of any kind outside of their own names, under penalty of a fine of $10. Farmers who brought in meat, vegetables, milk and butter were permitted to sell their wares from their wagons which were parked around the outside of the building.

But it wasn't long before traffic congestion brought an end to this practice. On Monday, Wednesday and Friday nights, district farmers were allotted space on the sidewalks around the market to peddle their garden produce. And from dusk to dawn thousands of men and women lrom every section of the city came to haggle with the farmers over their produce and prices. The farmers continued selling their produce on the sidewalks for years until traffic congestion brought rules prohibiting such street sales. They moved their wares to the Monongahela Wharf between the Wabash and Smith-field Street bridges.

Later they moved to West Lacock Street, in the lower Northside, where they still offer their wares three nights a week. THE MARKET was a wonderland of lights, color and sound on Christmas week years ago. Stands where you could buy everything from a musical top to a Christmas tree filled every inch of space around the outside of the building. MANY TALK ABOUT a policeman nicknamed "Bundles" by the merchants because his arms were always loaded. He was transferred time and again when stand holders complained about his weekly demands for foodstuffs.

Even when he was transferred to a beat at the end of Perrysville Avenue he'd halt the farmers headed for the Market House and chisel fruits and vegetables. Others talk of the Irate housewife who horsewhipped one of the market tenants in full view of the other merchants and hundreds of customers. She had caught him with another woman. A few mention Willie Loftis who ran errands and did odd jobs in the Market. Willie was always daubing his head with hair restorer because the merchants taunted him about getting bald.

He failed to show up for work one day and police sent by merchants found him unconscious in his Dutch-town room surrounded by hundreds of bottles and jars of cure-all junk. Doctors at the hospital said he had been starving himself to use the money for hair restorer. And still others talk of the herb stands where Dutch- Bei le's steaming at Groucho Marx for permitting publication In "fred alien's Idlers" of a letter In hich Fred referred to Berle as "a Messiah." Mary Ann Mobley, off to the Cannes Film Festival, is so prim and proper she's not even faking: a bikini. "But you ought to wear eluded a friend. Budd Schulberg was so angry about Steve Lawrence's absences from "What Makes Sammy Run?" that he was preparing a gigantic blast and just then Steve reappeared in the show.

(Steve, his doctors and the show's doctors have sort of thought he was really sick.) Secret Stuff: What prominent Broadway ite and his wife just got married? Society writer Jerome Zerbe and his paper are parting. Jerry, who's independently rich, Is ffoing to write three books and produce a film. Jack Paar's exit from TV is busting up his fine organization with agent Martin Ku minor going into management, Paul Keyes writing for Dean Martin and Jack prepared to run his radio station and tend his crabgrass and his money. It seems, somehow, that there should be more uproar about his saying he was leaving and NBC saying "O.K." and putting "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." In his spot. Year before yesterday It would have been Page 1.

"Don't Tell A B'way cafe operator doesn't know that the rug was ust yanked out from under him. The Judy Garland Sid Luft divorce and Judy's marriage to Mark Herron seem just a few days away. Joe Lindenfelser Started in 1919 And then came the announcement that the, 74 acres inside East and West Parks was to be transformed into a New Allegheny Center. Every structure Inside the parks with the exception of the Carnegie Library, Buhl Planetarium, Allegheny High School, Divine Providence Hospital, Bell Telephone building, Northside Community House and three churches were to be demolished. Since then the tenants of the Market House have watched the demolition crews move from street to street erasing hundreds of homes, stores and churches.

A few of the old-timers like Allen McCulley who worked in the building for 63 years and Oliver Bader whose family had cut meat in the market for 90 years retired. John Scully, who led the fight against demolition back in Stall rentals brought in $5,580 and the auction which was held on January 11, 1866, raised another $15,970. WHEN THE MARKET was opened double rows of stalls in the center of the building were set aside for not only the farmers and dealers in fruits but also merchants who sold beef and pork by the quarter or more. Butchers who sold bacon were allotted stands around the sides of the building. The ledges at the back of the butcher's stalls were allotted for the use of farmers selling butter, eggs and poultry.

Dealers in flour, hogs and meat sold by weight were provided stands In other sections of the Market. Farmers unable to find space inside were given space on the sidewalks outside the building for the sum of 25 cents a day. The Market was opened from noon Monday until noon TRY TO MATCH each numbered word with the lettered word or phrase closest In meaning. 1. Filbert: (a) boy's (b) hazelnut; (c) parasitic bacterium.

2. Fillip: (a) thin cut of fish; (b) finger snap; (c) young Filipino. 3. Fingerling: (a) small fish; (b) wide ring; (c) nervous scratching with fingers. 4.

Fink: (a) ruffian; (b) teen-age singer; '(c) strike breaker. 5. Firkin: (a) wearing sly smile; (b) small tub; (c) tiny firearm. 6. Fissure: (a) cleft; (b) trout-packed mountain stream; (c) fish hatchery.

7. Fistula: (a) child's fist; (b) tube; (c) small island. 8. Flagellant: (a) flag-waving patriot; (b) small wind Instrument; (c) one who whips. 9.

Fizgig: (a) soda dispenser; (b) flirtatious girl; (c) party with plenty of zip. 10. Fishgig: (a) seaside picnic with music; (b) harpoon for spearfishing; (c) deep-sea diving rig. ANSWER: lb (FIL-bert); 2-b (FIL-ip); 3a (FING-erling); 4-c (FINK); 5-b (FUR-kin); 6 a (FISH-er); 7b (FISS-choo-luh); 8-c (FLAJ-eh-lunt); 9 (FIZgig); 10 (FISH- gig). Planning a family spectacular? that.

Get a personal loan and be ready with the cash, or open a Rite-A-Loan account and simply write a check A wedding? A trip to Europe? A new Hi-Fi? You'll enjoy it inore if your mind's at ease about the money to pay for it. Twenty minutes or so at Union National Bank should settle when the time comes. UNION NATIONAL BANK Member F.D.I.C i 1 i.