

Rick Sebak produces, writes and narrates documentaries for WQED tv13, as well as national specials for PBS. His programs are available online or call 800/274-1307.

Click to view a clip from Rick's interview with the Mazuknas: Windows Media | QuickTime

One Morning, the North Side Exploded

If you lived through the boom, you remember. It was 79 years ago this month: Nov. 14, 1927. At exactly 8:43 in the morning. Three big storage tanks of natural gas exploded on Reedsdale Street on the North Side, approximately where the Carnegie Science Center sits today. The next morning, The New York Times reported, "The force of the explosion was felt for many miles, and toward the heavens a ball of fire rose, signaling its message of disaster." Twenty-six people died, but the exact circumstances will never be known. Workmen from Equitable Gas and Riter Conley - 13 in all, some with acetylene torches! - were repairing a leak on top of the largest tank, which had a capacity of 5 million cubic feet. When that tank exploded, it ignited a 4-million-cubic-foot-capacity tank just 200 feet away; then a third tank, this one 500,000 cubic feet, also went up. It was a triple explosion of mammoth, deadly proportions. Right: The Equitable Gas explosion shook buildings in a 20-mile area around the Point. The twisted remains of the three tanks are shown here at Fontella and Reedsdale streets on the right bank of the Ohio. Photos courtesy: Pennsylvania Department, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh "The workmen were blown to bits," was how the nonpolitically-correct Works Project Administration of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania described it in the book, Story of Old Allegheny City, written toward the end of the Depression. The explosion also "caused lofty downtown skyscrapers to tremble and sway as if hit by an earthquake," according to the Times. Damage (including ruined factories, commercial properties and private houses over a 20-mile area) was estimated at between $4 million and $5 million in 1927 dollars (when The New York Times cost a mere 2 cents). Hundreds of people were injured and left homeless. The closest I've come to the event was when I borrowed slides from Al Mazukna for our WQED program called "North Side Story." I interviewed Al and his wife, Lois, in Manchester on the front stoop of Al's boyhood home at 1325 W. North Ave. Al was just 4 when the blast occurred, but he remembers many details: He was eating breakfast in the kitchen. He heard the blast and was confused-he thought something had fallen from one of the kitchen cupboards. When he got up to look, he saw his mother and his brother standing by the kitchen sink, and there was glass all over the floor. All of the windows along the back of their three-story house had been destroyed by the blast, all but the lower half of the window where Al had been sitting. "It must have been my guardian angel," says Al.