Penn-McKee Hotel
”If it happens in Mckeesport, it happens at the Penn-McKee”. It’s a phrase so unthinkable to anyone who had lived in McKeesport over the past 50 years, yet it rang true for nearly half of a century. Designed by Benno Janssen, who also designed the William Penn Hotel in downtown Pittsburgh and the Mellon Institute in Oakland, the Penn-McKee Hotel was erected in 1926. Now abandoned for over 30 years, the derelict hotel was once a pride for the city. As one editorial in 1926 said, “the Penn-McKee means that McKeesport will leap from a backward community…and take its place with other progressive cities whose attractiveness has never failed to be enhanced by the erection of a modern hotel”. It had 98 rooms, a retail space attached to the lobby, a lounge, a formal dining room, and a coffee shop. The cocktail lounge once had the world's largest edge lighted mirror mural etched onto single plate glass. The main attraction, however, was the Louis the XIV inspired ballroom that could hold 250 dancing couples, and often it did.
Hundreds of events were held at the hotel, but none more important than the 1947 debate between Nixon and Kennedy. The two young politicians had just finished serving in the military and had recently been elected into their first terms in the House of Representatives. Though they were in opposing parties, they served on the Labor and Education Committee together. The topic for the debate was the Taft-Hartley Labor Management Relations Act which Nixon supported due to its limiting of union power, and which Kennedy opposed due to it favoring businesses over workers. Both parties specifically chose McKeesport as the location because it was a booming city post war with over 100,000 unionized industrial workers. The debate was not recorded but from all accounts, the two took very different approaches. Nixon went on the attack while Kennedy remained calm and collected. At any rate, they both came out looking very good and no clear winner. After the debate finished, the two grabbed a bite to eat and shared a train car back to Washington D.C. where they talked politics, world events, and sports.
While McKeesport had once been the center of the post war economy, history would prove to not be so kind to the city starting in the 1970’s. The decline started in the 1950’s when the first highways were being built, none of which particularly close to McKeesport. As time progressed, industry left the city, and so did workers. In 1976 a fire destroyed much of downtown and this seemed to be the last straw. The hotel changed owners and the decline continued as it transitioned from a grand hotel to a home for the elderly. By the 1990’s the building was fully abandoned and gutted. Today, the fate of the hotel is in contention. Part of the floor has collapsed and the building is asbestos ridden. The cost to repair the roof alone is estimated to be one million dollars, roughly the cost of demolition. It would cost an additional two million dollars to remove the asbestos and a total of 20 million dollars to fully renovate the building into something habitable. While there is much interest from the city and the mayor to ensure the hotel is saved, time will tell.
