Remember When: Sewickley Herald headlines from 1990
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In the news this week 33 years ago:
• A $28-million parking garage addition at Sewickley Valley Hospital was set to open. Known as the South Wing project, the construction added 465 parking spaces and replaced the former main entrance of the hospital complex. Four new operating rooms were part of the project, bringing the hospitals total to six. Mark Lynch, head of community relations for the hospital, told the Herald that “some of the machines used in operations today were not even invented in 1962, when the hospital last expanded.”
• Herald reporter B.G. Shields profiled Dr. Robert D. Nix, a longtime pediatrician in the Valley who retired after 44 years in practice. For the first 19 years, he was the only area pediatrician serving Sewickley, Aliquippa, Ambridge and Coraopolis. He received patients in his home office over the family garage on Grant Street, but he also made house calls.
“Early in his practice, Dr. Bob became a household word,” Shields wrote. “Some parents suspected the kids feigned illness to have a visit from Dr. Bob. He made house calls for years and all his patients received a balloon. If you were lucky, Dr. Bob would sit down and play a tune on the piano.”
Nix was an associate of Dr. Jonas Salk, helping the pioneering researcher to find children willing to test his newly-developed polio vaccine. Nix and his staff found more than 1,000 children for the project.
• The Ohio River Boulevard location of local diner chain Eat’N Park was undergoing a renovation, during which the company purchased 12 cityscapes painted by local artist Robert Schmalzried (1932-2018). An alumnus of Duquesne University and the Sorbonne in Prais, Schmalzried was also a Fulbright scholar and had studied with the French cubist Andre Lhote. Schmalzried credited Katherine and Alan Amsler, longtime owners of Bird in the Hand Gallery on Broad Street, with “[opening] the door to Sewickley for me.” The gallery closed in 2006.