Cars by ‘Teenie’
Show focuses on photographer’s love of automobiles
By age 12, Kenneth Hawthorne was a regular worker at his father’s Esso station in the Hill District, where he learned how to manage his time, repair cars and improvise.
That was in the mid-1940s, when Americans drove roomy, highpowered chariots of steel and chrome — Cadillacs, Chryslers, DeSotos, Duesenbergs, Hudsons, LaSalles, Lincoln Continentals, Nashes, Oldsmobiles, Packards, Pontiacs and Stutz Bearcats.
After class at Herron Hill Junior High, he rode his bicycle to the gas station, where he did his schoolwork at the counter. Washing cars and scrubbing dirt from big whitewall tires could generate 50 cents or a $1 tip. One of his regulars was Charles “Teenie” Harris, who owned a variety of automobiles.
“He was our friend and customer. He used to like to come in, and he was very jovial,” said Mr. Hawthorne, a resident of West Palm Beach, Fla., and the first African-American to rise from salesman to the rank of executive at Gulf Oil. Now 81, the retired exec looked at 150 pictures before choosing 25 images for a Carnegie Museum of Art exhibition, “Teenie Harris Photographs: Cars.” The show, which runs through Oct. 31, celebrates the late photographer’s love for the automobile.
For 40 years, as chief photographer for the Pittsburgh Courier, Mr. Harris captured Pittsburgh’s black community on film. On the job or in his portrait studio, he took more than 80,000 pictures of athletes, jazz singers, musicians, civil rights leaders and ordinary people doing ordinary things — like working on their cars.
“He’d say, ‘ Guess who was in town? I shot pictures of Joe Louis,’ ” said Mr. Hawthorne, the second oldest of three sons, all of whom worked at the station that once stood at 2804 Wylie Ave.
Back then, thrift was important.
“We’re out of chrome cleaner? OK, well, open a Coke at 5 cents or 10 cents instead of going and spending money on a 50-cent or 75-cent can of chrome cleaner,” Mr. Hawthorne said.
In that segregated era, blacks patronized black businesses. Members of the legendary Ink Spots, in town to perform their memorable musical harmonies, could not book a room at a Downtown hotel, so they stayed with relatives who lived in the 2700 block of Wylie.
“They would bring their car up. They’d say, ‘We’ll leave it and walk back,’ ” Mr. Hawthorne said, adding that he also met legendary jazz vocalists Lena Horne and Billy Eckstine.
“I did meet Joe Louis once. We were all looking at him. He came over and said, ‘Hi, boys,’ and he’d shake your hand. And then we didn’t want to wash our hands.”
His father, William, worked two jobs for 25 years. By night, he ran the gas station. By day, he worked as a porter at the Allegheny County Airport in West Mifflin, where he met private planes. The Esso station opened in 1946, and by 1950 William Hawthorne had built an eight-car garage on the lot next door.
“That’s when people began to gravitate to us for mechanic’s work. We were a state inspection station, gas station and car wash,” Mr. Hawthorne said, adding that he went to school at General Motors to learn how to be an auto mechanic.
Mr. Harris used his car as his portable office, Mr. Hawthorne said.
“He liked to keep the car clean, but it was cluttered with pictures and cameras and lights that go with cameras. He would want to choke you if you looked like you were going to hurt his cameras.”
Mr. Harris owned a Duesenberg, a LaSalle and, later, an Oldsmobile.
“A Duesenberg was just kind of a family car. A LaSalle was just under a Cadillac.
“We thought he was a nice guy. He would joke with you. You didn’t disrespect his age.”
Mr. Hawthorne’s father was shocked but pleased when Gulf Oil hired his son on Sept. 3, 1963. A year later, he took his son’s advice and put everything up for auction at the station, which closed in 1964.
Kenneth Hawthorne said his boyhood in the Hill District and apprenticeship at the gas station “was one of the better parts of my life.” Years later, one of his ninthgrade classmates from Herron Junior High reminisced with him about their Hill District days.
“Kenny, we all envied you,’’ he said.
“Hell, what do you mean? I was a grease monkey,” Mr. Hawthorne replied.
“You had a job,” his friend retorted. “We envied you because you could keep 50 cents in your pocket.”