A brochure issued by The Boys' Club of Pittsburgh in 1927 or 1928.
The population of a small city crammed into dirty, dilapidated hovels....tenements that defy description...too many children, too little money...unemployment...poverty...living pared to a point where even the common essentials are luxuries--that is what life is today for a large part of those who live in Pittsburgh's "Strip" District. It may be called, without exaggeration, one of Pittsburgh's gravest social problems.
2700 Boys Are Growing up in This District. Probably the most vital fact in connection with the "Strip" situation is that 2700 boys, between the ages of eight and eighteen, are growing to manhood in the region between Seventeenth and Fifty-second Streets. The living conditions during their formative years are far from being conducive to building the type of honest, industrious workers that Pittsburgh needs today and always will need. Instead, conditions in the "Strip" tend to make of its growing boys the same kind of fodder for our criminal courts and penal institutions that has come from this district in the past.
What Will They Become?
"Strip" District boys are basically the same as other boys. They are
filled with the abundant energy of youth. If left to their own devices,
with the streets and alleys as their playground, these under-privileged
boys form themselves into gangs and their energy is expended in ways that
prove harmful to society as well as to themselves. It is out of the boy
gang that the criminal of later years develops.
If organized activities under proper supervision are offered to the
boys, their energy is diverted into new channels where it tends to build
honest workmen out of potential gangsters. This is not theory.
For four years the Boys' Club of Pittsburgh has been proving it to be a
thoroughly practical solution of the problem of the under-privileged boy.
One of many proofs of the Boys' Club influence over "Strip" District
boys is afforded by the juvenile delinquency records. According to a
statement by Judge A. D. Brandon the Pittsburgh Boys' Club has already
been responsible for a 50% reduction in juvenile delinquency in the
district where it operates.
Facts about the Boys' Club
The Boys' Club of Pittsburgh is one of an international association of
328 similar clubs, operating entirely separately but bonded together for
the interchange of working methods. The association is financed entirely
by other means and draws no money from the local club.
Boys are taken into the Boys' Club without reference to race or
creed. Each one pays a few cents for yearly membership, merely
enough to give him a proprietary interest.
The membership has grown to 1040, far too many to be accommodated in the
Club's present quarters when it is considered that the total attendance
last year was 78,392.
A director experienced by many years of this kind of work is employed on a
full-time basis, assisted by paid part-time supervisors. Medical and
dental clinics are maintained and every boy is under constant
supervision.
The main activity of the Club is centered around physical sports,
basketball, gymnastics, and other forms of activity through which the boys
can release their energy. Games more mental in character, such as
checkers and chess, are encouraged. Semi-vocational training in printing,
wood working, and basketry gives outlet to the boys' desire to work with
their hands.
As far as is practical self-government prevails, teaching the boys the
essential lessons of responsibility.
The Boys' Club maintains a summer camp at Valencia, Pa., and last year 506
boys were given one or two weeks in the great outdoors.
A 32-piece Symphony Orchestra and a 20-piece Drum and Bugle Corps, both
composed entirely of Boys' Club members, reflect the artistic side of the
Boys' Club work.
Briefly, the Boys' Club gives the under-privileged boy the moral stamina
and the desire to lead a worthwhile life. In many ways it can be
called an ideal social service because it treats the cause instead of
the result.
Quarters Are Hopelessly Inadequate.
The Boys' Club now occupies the third floor of a building at 2813 Penn
Avenue. These quarters are not only far too small, but are also poorly
laid out for such work.
The floor space is only 6,000 square feet, less than six square feet
per member! Practically all of the activities of the Club are
crowded into the main room, where boys play basketball in the center,
table games on one side, and other boys wait their chance, jammed into
every available space.
The dressing and locker room will not accommodate over twenty boys--and on
the average night two or three hundred boys are at the Club.
The shower room is far too small. Although it is the best that can be
provided under present conditions, it is a poor makeshift, dark and
unventilated.
The older club members, though they prefer the Boys' Club are forced out
in the streets and pool halls, since the only room available for them will
accommodate but ten or twelve of the seventy-five older boys. This means
that boys slip away from the Club's influence at the most critical period
in their lives.
The Boys' Club must have a building suited to its needs and adequate
facilities not only to take care of molding the lives of the younger boys,
but to follow them through until their mental habits are formed.
2700 Under-privileged Boys Need Your Help.
To give adequate quarters to the Boys' Club and to carry on its work of
building men out of under-privileged boys, a new club house must be
secured. Then, and only then, can all of the boys be cared for
and the full benefits of this work be realized. It is the only practical
means of relieving the conditions that lead to choked, perverted child
life. $200,000.00 is needed.
The raising of this sum puts a responsibility on every Pittsburgher who
can look to tomorrow, and who can see the value of hundreds of productive
workers instead of predatory gangsters. Your Help is Needed!
