Tony Lundy is sitting on one of three chrome stools at Hocky Brothers auto parts store on Braddock Avenue, waiting to find out how much it will cost to fix his car.
Wearing his work clothes from a plant Lundy works at nine miles down the river in Pittsburgh, the 61-year-old has called Braddock home for most of his life.
Lundy fondly remembers growing up as one of 13 kids surrounded by this once-vibrant community.
“The town was the place to be,” Lundy said. “Braddock Avenue had four or five businesses on every block on both sides of the street, every kind of business you could think of shoe stores, dress shops, men’s stores, restaurants, beauty shops, barber shops, a grocery store. Now look at it, there is nothing.”
Lundy points his finger sown a desolate street, that he claims once had so many people, you’d be shoulder to shoulder walking down the sidewalks.
“Oh, and the streetlights, they just lit the place up like there was going to be a parade,” he recalled of Braddock in the ’60s and ’70s.
Braddock once was a bustling borough of 20,000 people, where a resident never had to leave the city limits to eat or be entertained or go to church or school, Braddock today is home to fewer than 1,700.
Most of the businesses, houses of worship and educational institutions are gone. Even the heart of the community, the beloved Braddock Hospital, has been leveled to the ground.
John Fetterman, the Democratic candidate for US Senate, began his political career here when he ran for mayor in 2005 and won with 149 votes, just one more than his rival. He stayed for two more terms until leaving office in 2019 to become lieutenant governor of the state under Gov. Tom Wolf.
Now running against Republican candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz, in a race considered a toss-up, Fetterman is betting his image as an every-day guy who saved this small town and will take him all the way to Washington.
Fetterman has proudly spoken, “As mayor of Braddock and its chief law enforcement officer, I worked with the chief of police, our police officers, and the community to reduce violent crime.”
However, data will show otherwise. Data between 2005 and 2018 show that violent crime actually rose under his leadership.
Fetterman also vowed, “I will make sure our public schools have the funding they need.”
Yet he went years without paying his own school district taxes to fund one of the poorest districts in the state. What’s more, the population of Braddock suffered large drops under his mayorship, plummeting 25.9% between 2000 and 2010 and an additional 20.3% between 2010 and 2020.
It seems the elaborate story of a young mayor saving this small Rust Belt town is full of holes. And no one is more disappointed than those who live here.
Lundy said, “I have to just laugh when I hear him telling his stories. Brought it back to what? Life? Come on. Look around you, there ain’t no life here, nothing is rebuilt here, nobody brought anything back, it got worse.”
When asked whether he wishes Fetterman’s stories were real, Lundy said, “I really do, but you can’t put this back together, and it is insulting to those who live here to tell us that we are better off because of him.”
Not that long ago, hundreds of businesses lined Braddock Avenue, including Bernie’s clothing store, Isaly’s Deli, Brandywine Grill and the Ohlinger home furniture store. Today, there are just over a dozen businesses left. Many more are boarded up or even torn down, with empty lots marking their former presence like solemn graveyards.
The restaurant Superior Motors, which Fetterman brought here with star chef Kevin Sousa and placed in the first floor of his home, closed within four years. The Brew Gentlemen brewery he attracted in 2014 is open just three days a week from 4 to 9 p.m., and on Saturdays, the only fully open day, from 1 to 9 p.m.
Lundy says of the brewery, “I’ve gone a couple of times but lately every time I go down there, they are closed.”
Mary Carey has been deeply involved in the community her entire adult life as the culture & information facilitator at the Braddock Carnegie Library, a job she recently lost due to cutbacks.
Carey said, “I mean no ill will towards Fetterman, but I have issues with his narrative that he made the borough better. Job creation, what job creation? You mean the Family Dollar Store over there?”
Carey did say that Fetterman’s wife tried to make the place nicer, by placing neighborhood gardens around the area.
“We have a lot of community gardens out here. But if you ride past them right now, you wouldn’t even think it was a garden because no one is taking care of it. Now I know that is a little thing, but they brought outsiders in to create them and once they left…,” she said, her voice trailing off.
Meanwhile records show that Fetterman skipped at least 53 borough council meetings after his first three years in office, peaking at 11 no-shows in 2011 and nine in 2015.
Fetterman has also faced sharp criticism for being an advocate for Pennsylvania’s public schools while failing to pay tens of thousands of dollars in taxes on time to the Woodland Hills School District. The school district placed more than 30 tax liens against Fetterman for unpaid property taxes from 2006 to 2019 and sued him twice. He took six years to pay them off.
No one in Braddock begrudges Fetterman for coming from wealth, or that his parents paid his salary until he was 49 years old. After all, being mayor pays just $150 a month. What they mind is him pretending to be something he is not: a doer.
Please ask this author to contact Fox News, Tucker Carlson. His story needs to be told because it deals with reality on the ground.
OMG get rid of this big liar. He needs to go away…….far, far away.
He and his lying nwhore wife want the Senate for their own power, he’s never contributed anythying positive in his family life (Sponge) or as a worker(Lived off his parents) or as a politician, and his whore wife wants his senate seat for herself.
I understand the complaints against fetterman and the animosity, but as a christian I think the characterization of his wife is entirely too harsh. If you don’t like the woman just say you don’t care for her. I am in no way a fan of fetterman, but it’s just not right to portray his wife as a charlatain. I hope he looses in a landslide.
Andrew, it’s pussies like you that gave this country away, shut the fuck up.