Jun 29, 2009 8:41 pm US/Eastern
KD Country: Dormont
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The Dormont Pool parking lot was packed Saturday morning with 355 intrepid harriers turned out for a revival of the Dormont Dash.
KDKA
The Dormont Pool parking lot was packed Saturday morning with 355 intrepid harriers turned out for a revival of the Dormont Dash.
"I'm going to keep the course open for one hour," announces Gus Melis just before the start.
He initiated the first Dash in 1975. But it has been 19 years since it last was run.
Now, it has been revived to kick off for Dormont's centennial. Gus still wears the floppy hat and pajama shorts he wore years ago.
"The exact outfit that I wore for race No. 2," he laughs. "These pants still fit me. The shirt feels a little different, and I have changed my underwear!"
Tradition only goes so far. The revival of this race is symbolic of a borough that's growing younger.
Jennifer Baron and her husband, Greg Langel, recently moved here from New York.
"I considered myself a New Yorker, and probably thought I would never leave," Jennifer admits. "But I was really drawn to Pittsburgh's topography, the architecture, the neighborhoods here. One of the things I loved about Dormont was that neighborhood feel."
Muriel Moreland has had that "neighborhood feel" all her life.
She once taught in what is now the Municipal Building, which also serves as the Dormont Museum she currently operates.
Muriel speaks of buildings that once were, and now are something else like the popular Dor-stop Restaurant.
The boarded up Hollywood Theater will soon re-open.
Then there's the Potomac Bakery, owned by the same family since 1927, the barber shop of Pete Chiodo and Dormont Dogs, which makes hot dogs named for borough streets.
But opinions differ on the true location of "downtown."
"If you ask me which is the main street it's Potomac because I grew up on this side of West Liberty," Muriel says. "And my husband was born in a house on the other side of West Liberty, so he always thought West Liberty was more important than Potomac."
West Liberty? Potomac? It doesn't really matter. At 100 years and counting, Dormont is a happy place.
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