• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • About me
  • Contact

Joel Solkoff

High-tech housing for the poor, disabled and elderly

Chinese (Simplified)EnglishFrenchGermanHebrewItalianPolishPortugueseRussianSpanish
  • Disability and Elderly Issues
  • Food
  • Architects for Change
  • Joel Solkoff’s Resume
  • Joel’s Books
You are here: Home / Disability and Elderly Issues / McKeesport is not as depressing as you might think: Special

McKeesport is not as depressing as you might think: Special

July 2, 2012 by joel 2 Comments

I realize not as depressing as you might think shouts out that McKeesport really is a depressing place. It is.

When I get around to it, I will describe the exceptions to depressing, such as this fire juggler whom I saw last night while I attended Corpus Christi, an annual Downtown McKeesport event two blocks from the Blueroof Experimental Cottage where I am entering this blog post on my laptop on the kitchen table.

If you are quick, you can see me now live on the Internet blogging away at Blueroof Technologies’ Experimental Cottage–do-gooders extraordinaire so aging in place can happen with dignity and independence for:

  • Young at heart
  • Veteran
  • Civilian
  • Perfectly able or
  • Disabled like me

http://75.149.30.169:60001/CgiStart?page=Single&Language=0 [Only one view at a time: so take a metaphorical number and experience the enforced patience of becoming elderly or come back and click impulsively.]

I took the following photograph today of a side street (not that McKeesport’s Fifth Avenue is much better) to show what I mean by depressing:

In the six or so years that I have lived and traveled through the Rust Belt Of Pennsylvania, McKeesport is definitely the most depressing of Rust Belt depressing towns. McKeesport has been losing population steadily from its all time high in 1940 of 55,355 to the most current figures available– a mere 19,731 people according to the 2010 U.S. Census–an ongoing decline; this time 17 percent fewer people than 10 years ago.

++++

McKeesport is 19 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.

Double click on the photo.

See a START pin showing where I am now on Sunday morning July 1, 2012, 7:10 AM, getting ready to take a shower at the Blueroof Experimental Cottage, 400 Spring Street, McKeesport 15132.

++++

Hope: The Mirriam-Webster Dictionary of the English Language (Copyright 2012) defines hope as: “expectation of fulfillment or success.”

McKeesport Hope 1. Best shower for the elderly and disabled. For me, as a 64-year-old man with a spinal cord injury who cannot walk: hope in McKeesport means being able to take the best shower (safest, most satisfying) that I have taken in the 18 years of being a paraplegic: a shower I can take without assistance from a health care aide, a shower that does not put me in danger of falling posing the risk (as my neighbors back at an independent living facility at State College which I call home face on a daily basic–a risk that all too often leads to an ambulance outside my window, a trip eventually leading to Centre Crest, a nursing home where at great government expense, my neighbors die in despair).  [I am generally a cheerful guy]

Here in McKeesport is the best shower for paraplegics in the world:

When I entered the bathroom to take a shower, the lights to the bathroom were not on. As the forward wheels of my scooter crossed the beam generated by this contraption co-founder Robert Walters installed:

the lights go on. [Let there be Light.]

Meanwhile, inside the shower a motion detector is making sure that I do not fall.

Here in the shower, a motion detector watches out for me. See it. It is on the top left of the bathroom door. It looks like this:

If I fall, the detector detects no motion. If I do not get up after a period of time programmed by an expert, the walls call 911 and my family.

Actually, the voice that makes the call is a voice synthesizer located on a shelf in the laboratory in the basement. The interns who installed it had a range of voices to choose from. They chose the surprisingly sexy voice whom ever afterward is known as Amy. I can just imagine my daughters Joanna and Amelia when the lascivious voice of Amy calls to inform them their father has just fallen in the shower.

++++

McKeesport Hope 2. Fresh water fish are back in the Mon Monongahela River.

Now that the River is no longer polluted with the effluents caused by National Tube Company, once McKeesport’s largest employer, sadly missed because the unemployment rate here is in the double digits, fresh water fish have returned.

Signs for live fishing bait are prominently displayed. The Marina, quite pretty, is doing a booming business.

[I must stop this work in progress here. A friend just called reminding me that it is past 10 and this posting, dear subscribers and readers, promises that a return to more hope and more despair await you.]

However, July 4th is nearly here and let me close by reminding you that the pursuit of happiness is currently denied to too many of the men and women, veterans of our wars –who fought to keep us free–and their families.

Blueroof plans to build a research cottage for a veteran family to provide the kind of decent housing Blueroof has become famous for creating–a place not only of residence but of research to ensure that disabled, aging, and low-income veterans can age in place successfully and that our engineering, architecture, and architectural engineering schools can better learn how to provide designs that improve the quality of their lives.

++++

Words do not escape me. Rest assured, I will return–showered and ready to post and comment on photographs such as this one:

This too is McKeesport

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)

Filed Under: Disability and Elderly Issues Tagged With: Blueroof Experimental Cottage, Blueroof Technologies, Joel Solkoff, John Bertoty, McKeesport, Showers for disabled and elderly

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Baxendale says

    July 2, 2012 at 12:40 am

    Why are these benefits limited to the “young at heart”?  This is ageism.  It is just those who are old at heart who need walls to call our clearest and queerest when we fall in the shower.  Quite apart from the cardiological aspect — if I were young at heart would I have needed three stents and a bypass? — there is the mental health angle.  Someone of my age would have to be delusional not to be old at heart.  That doesn’t mean we old folks cannot enjoy life — toujours gai, Archie, as Mehitabel the Cat so wisely said — but aging in place is not for the young in any organ.

    Baxendale

    Reply
  2. Jmcpdornich says

    July 2, 2012 at 10:55 pm

    Thanks for sharing this Joel! Good stuff. Are you still in McKeesport?

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

Current

Disability bathroom design

September 3, 2020 By joel

Covid 19 has accelerated the need for a new utilitarian architecture: Architecture for the vulnerable ( like me)

August 19, 2020 By joel

Covid-19 Architects: “We Who Are About to Die Salute You”

August 6, 2020 By joel

Covid 19 impasse: Why architects need to know how a member of the US Congress must be expelled by the end of the month and how that relates to building emergency housing at a time when its absence is deadly and dangerous

July 23, 2020 By joel

John Wayne don't run away

Rain: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

July 5, 2020 By joel

Theo van Gogh’s The Interview

June 27, 2020 By joel

Recent

  • Ani Ma’Amin: This is what I believe
  • March March from The Chicks: My Personal Anthem
  • 建筑师注意:美国新冠状病毒死亡人数将会激增;你们必须为穷人建造住房
  • I am now a card carrying member of the National Organization for Women
  • God is not on President Trump’s Side; God is on my side
  • The late great James Baldwin on racism in America
  • COVID-19 Updated Information
  • Sensuous Françoise Hardy, Sixties icon, is now 76 years old
  • Mandarin Chinese numbers 1 to 10
  • FOOD: When leading means following the crowd
  • US Representative in Congress Val Demings, Democrat, Florida must be our next Vice President. Must be.
  • Alizée
  • Zimbabwe Last Month: People are dying
  • Make sure the Calgery Stampede is up and running on July first, 2020
  • My Hebrew teacher Mama was born in Louisville Kentucky with the name on her birth certificate:”Muriel Magdalena Pellicia”
  • Cher extremely alive
  • French rock goddess is a protégée of Isadora Duncan
  • Attention Architects: US COVID-19 Deaths Will Skyrocket; You Must Build Housing for the Poor
  • Passover Message to my Fellow Congregants Ohev Sholom, Williamsport PA
  • Perhaps the World Ends Here by The Poet Laureate of the United States
  • My drop dead enthusiastic review of The Meritocracy Trap

Links

Blogroll
  • 1. PHOENIX REHAB1. PHOENIX REHAB With the help of the gifted Alicia Spence, I begin to walk.

  • 2. SMART SPACES FOR INDEPENDENT LIVING2. SMART SPACES FOR INDEPENDENT LIVING "The demographics of baby boomer aging over the next decade foreshadow great economic, political and cultural changes that could overwhelm many developed countries," said Richard Behr, founding director of the Center.

  • 3. IMMERSIVE CONSTRUCTION (ICon) LAB3. IMMERSIVE CONSTRUCTION (ICon) LAB My home in virtual reality, the ICon lab shows 3D and 4D (the fourth dimension is Time) models on 3 eight-foot hight screens; when the lights go off, put on the 3-D glasses.

  • 4. AMIGO MOBILITY4. AMIGO MOBILITY CEO Al Thieme created the first Power Operated Vehicle (POV) scooter. Most manufacturers separate their battery chargers from the scooter. You can plug an Amigo right into an electric socket .

  • 5. T & B MEDICAL5. T & B MEDICAL "Travis and Barb Barr, the 'T' and 'B' behind T & B Medical, Inc. have one goal in mind...to attend to every client's individual" mobility and durable equipment needs. I am a continual customer and recommend T&B highly--HIGHLY.

  • 6. INVACARE6. INVACARE Invacare is the world's leading manufacturer of wheelchairs, bariatric equipment, disability scooters, respiratory products and other homecare products.

  • ACCESSIBILITY FROM APPLEACCESSIBILITY FROM APPLE For the disability community, computer technology creates the ability to engage in computer design of aging-in-place housing.

  • CAREGIVER VILLAGECAREGIVER VILLAGE Using a virtual reality world, Caregiver Village improve the lives of family caregivers. Second Life, eat your heart out.

  • EMAIL MEEMAIL ME I once had a boss who loved focus groups. One afternoon at a shopping mall, readers of my newsletter told me EXACTLY what they thought, not knowing I was behind the one-way mirror. Please do the same.

  • HME NEWSHME NEWS HME News is the monthly business newspaper for 17,000 home medical equipment providers.

  • McKEESPORTMcKEESPORT "The decrease in the population since the 1940s is attributable to the general economic malaise that descended upon the region when the steelmaking industry moved elsewhere. The major employer WAS the National Tube Works, a manufacturer of steel pipes.

  • MONONGAHELA RIVERMONONGAHELA RIVER George Washington crossed the Monongahela into McKeesport to bring rum to the his friend, Queen Alliquippa, a Seneca Indian ruler. This was during the French and Indian Wars, Remember them?

  • NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND

  • PENNSYLVANIA ASSOCIATION OF REHABILITATION FACILITIES (PARF)PENNSYLVANIA ASSOCIATION OF REHABILITATION FACILITIES (PARF) PARF represents the Commonwealth's premier facilities serving individuals with physical, mental, and emotional disabilities. Traditionally, the highlight of the disability community is the annual conference at the Nittany Lion Inn at the Penn State campus

  • YOUGHIOGHENY RIVERYOUGHIOGHENY RIVER McKeesport is where the Youghiogheny and Monongahela Rivers meet. Fresh fish like the Walleye are back at the Youghiogheny, now that factories that created jobs are no longer polluting the river.

Previous Posts

Tags

Addison Court Amelia Altalena Solkoff Amelia Solkoff Amigo Mobility Architectural Engineering assistive technology blind Blueroof Technologies cancer Central Pennsylvania Centre County design featured-grid Helen Keller HME News Isadore Solkoff Joanna Joanna Solkoff Joel Solkoff John Bertoty John Messner kidney cancer McKeesport Medicaid Medicare Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center Miriam Pell Schmerler Miss Sullivan New York City North Carolina PA Penn State Pennsylvania power chairs President Obama Robert Walters Sarah Schmerler scooter Sonali Kumar Spain State College United States University Park Virtual reality Wikipedia

Footer

Recent

  • 1971 birthday letter to my father
  • If by Rudyard Kipling
  • Grandfather (that’s me) relocating to NYC to save my life at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
  • Why I relate ending hunger in US America to writing about my cancer survival for The New York Times
  • My love hate relationship with The New York Times 2018
  • Radio hate monger of the 1930s Father Coughlin returns to Fox News
  • A fine romance with no kisses
  • The US Needs a New Capitol City: Covid Agenda Item
  • The US Election & Housing for the Vulnerable
  • We who are about to die…or architecture

Subscribe

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 50 other subscribers

Cart

Copyright © 2021 · Magazine Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.